Responsive web design is talk of the town because of its impact on improving user experience and overall business performance. Understanding the nature of responsive design and its impact on your business is an edge you should not miss out on.
Photo by Andy Holmes
As a business owner, you want to make sure that the website you put up can generate the income you are hoping to get. You want people to come to your site and stay until they accomplish their search intent. It could either be that they want to purchase something, sign up for your newsletter, fill out a form, or schedule a demo. You hire the best website design company in Montreal for this reason.
However, not all websites are created equal and there is a high chance that some sites end up being abandoned by visitors for various reasons. If you are experiencing a high bounce rate, these are the problems that your site probably has:
- The site doesn’t grab the user’s attention.
- You are not telling visitors significant information about your business.
- The site is too slow.
- The site looks outdated.
- The site is difficult to navigate.
- The site is not mobile-friendly.
- Website visitors do not feel secure.
- The website content is difficult to read.
- There are way too many annoying ads popping up.
- The key information is hard to find.
- You do not deliver what is promised.
- You do not give a call to action.
- The products do not live up to what has been promised.
- You are not using exit intent technology.
- The site is not responsive.
Dissecting a Responsive Website
There are numerous factors that push people to abandon websites. If there is one important issue to address, it would be making your website responsive.
Responsive design is an approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the behavior and environment of the user based on the platform, screen size, and orientation.
This practice consists of mixing flexible grids and layouts, images, and CSS media queries. When users switch from their laptops to mobile devices, they will automatically switch to accommodate this resolution, image sizing, and scripting abilities. The website then eliminates the need for a different design and development of a website to fit a specific gadget.
10 Reasons You Need a Responsive Website
Websites that are not optimized for the smaller screens may be in the lower ranks in search engines results pages. It makes it more difficult to get found online. To ensure that your website offers the best experience whatever the device your user is using, then start revamping it to become responsive. Here are other reasons why it is time to make the switch:
1. It is recommended by Google.
A couple of years ago, Google announced that it will start counting a website’s responsiveness as part of its search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. The main reason for this is that they use a single URL for crawling. It becomes easier for them to crawl and index content in a single domain. The search engine also considers user experience as a ranking factor that is deemed high in responsive sites.
2. Mobile usage is expected to rise.
The use of mobile devices is seen to increase in the coming years because it is fast becoming the primary browsing device of people. Sadly, not all businesses have picked up on this trend and why pushing for a responsive design matters a lot. When websites are not adaptable to the changing screen sizes and gadgets, users will end up abandoning your site for competitors.
3. Improved local search rankings.
Google also indicated that responsive sites are featured in localized results. If you have a physical location or offering services and products for people locally, you need to step up on getting a responsive site. Whether you are offering tax advice in Malta or baking goodies for neighbours, make your local presence felt by setting up a responsive site.
4. Increased mobile SEO performance.
Photo by Agefis
One of the biggest challenges of SEO is having a separate mobile site. It will require you to build authority for this from scratch. Your SEO group will then have to exert effort for both desktop and a mobile site which is exhausting.
You should also avoid having a separate site for mobile because it will not do well on Google. Instead, redesign as responsive and allow your team to focus on SEO for that single site.
5. Save time and money.
A huge benefit of adopting a responsive design is the time and money you will eventually save. You can save up on time because you are not going to design anymore whether to get an additional site or not. Because of that you also save on money because it will not cost you any more for developing and maintaining two websites. You can use the money for other important business endeavours.
6. Improved local speed on mobile.
Google Page Speed Developers Standards recommends for the content above the fold on mobile devices to load in under 1 second and the rest of the page in under 2 seconds. When users wait a long time for the page to load, they most likely leave it and go elsewhere.
7. It is easier to manage.
Imagine if you are an event planner in Toronto and you have separate websites for desktop and mobile. It would be pure chaos tracking bookings and answering queries. But if you have a responsive site you will not have any problem maintaining it, tracking transactions, and marketing it.
8. Social shares create more impact.
Responsive websites can build social shares from just one URL and the site would get shared regardless of the device. If you want your content to get better social media shares, make sure that you have a responsive site to accommodate different screens and gadgets.
9. The user experience is better.
Responsive design gives a better user experience. It means that users do not have to zoom or move the screen to read or view properly. It makes it easier for them to navigate the site and proceed with the call to action you have set up.
10. It consolidates analytics.
Because a single responsive site means you no longer have to track user journeys, funnels, conversion paths, and re-directions between multiple website versions. You can use Google Analytics to optimize for multiple devices and track your site’s performance, too.
Responsive website design is expected to grow and get bigger in the coming years with more people using mobile devices. Make sure your site is not left behind and redesign it now.
