Previously the websites designed relied on having fixed widths and specified layout proportions, as most of the screen sizes had a fixed size. A need for changing layout never came into the picture until the rise of smart hand-held devices.

The use of mobile devices like tablet and smartphones is growing at lightening speed, it is essential that users are able to land on a mobile friendly website, regardless of what kind of device they use.

Did you know that over 60% of searches now come from a mobile device? Just image users landing on your website and they need to either scroll left and right to read the entire content or need to zoom in, to figure out what’s written on your web pages.

In 2015, a major change was rolled out into the search engine algorithm by Google which considers website’s mobile presence as a ranking signal. This alone should be a reason to have a mobile friendly responsive website design.

If you really want to stand out and provide an outstanding user experience to your customers, using responsive web designs or maintaining websites that can be easily accessed through phone, tab or any other devices make a huge difference in business. 

What is Responsive Web Design?

mobile friendly websites

 

Responsive web design is a web design and development that creates a site or system that reacts and adjusts to the size of the user’s screen. This design uses flexible layouts, images and cascading style sheets to construct a website that detects the device screen size and changes the layout accordingly. It is all about creating websites which automatically squeeze themselves to look fine on all kinds of devices whether it is large desktop or pocket phones. You don’t need to make a different website for mobile.

Responsive design is all about creating websites which automatically squeeze themselves to look fine on all kinds of devices whether it is large desktop or pocket phones. You don’t need to make any website for mobile.

According to Wikipedia,

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at allowing desktop webpages to be viewed in response to the size of the screen or web browser one is viewing with.

We can say it is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior. When the user switches from laptop to tablet or to a smartphone, the website should automatically respond to user’s preferences. That is also known as adaptive design. 

How does Responsive Web Design work?

Having a responsive design means that the width of the website and the content adjusts to the size of the screen the viewer is viewing the website from.

Making website responsive is not a simple process. To make responsive websites work requires special skills on HTML and CSS. The very first step to making a website responsive is to switch from fixed widths to fluid widths. The second thing is images, that should be given proper care because it can affect both your website’s speed and search engine friendliness.

A fluid guide is the most important element of a responsive design layout. Its this guide that ensures the flexibility and scalability of your design, that will adjust to the screen width based on propositions.

If you check out itsguru.com in different devices with various screen sizes you will see that it adjusts according to the varying widths.

For more examples on responsive websites in different industries check these plumbing websites, news and online magazine websites, lifestyle blog website designs or real estate websites.

14 Reasons To Have A Responsive Web Design:

Apart from increasing number of people using smartphones and tablets on regular basis to browse the Internet, there are a lot of other reasons that will make you design a new responsive website. Here are few more reasons that will change the way you look at website design:

1. Increasing Your Reach to All Devices

Since early 2014, the number of mobile users accessing the Internet surpassed the number of desktop users and the numbers will keep on rising, proving the importance of having a mobile-friendly website and mobile marketing.

Smartphones and tablets are quickly overtaking internet screens (computer, laptop). Mobile devices have replaced everything. Responsive design means one site can be implemented across all the devices.

2. Growth in Sales & Conversion Rates

sales and conversion with mobile friendly sites
Another advantage of responsive design is that the user has an improved experience on the site. Consistent experience will have a positive impact on conversion rates. The enhanced user experience also helps increase sales and conversion figures.

3. Handling Becomes Easy

Managing 2 or more sites one for mobile devices and other for desktop screens is bit difficult and confusing. In the case of responsive web design, everything is under one single site, all you have to take care is of 1 single site. Isn’t that better to handle one single responsive site than handling 2 sites?

4. It Strengthens Analysis of Websites

It is a very tough job to analyze website one for desktop and other for mobile. If you have a responsive web design all you have to manage is one single site and therefore you have to analyze one single site.

5. It Improves SEOSEO with Responsive Sites
Google added mobile websites as an important factor in their ranking algorithm. It was confirmed by Google’s Pierre Farr in June 2012, that they consider responsiveness as a recommended mobile configuration, you better start looking in getting your website redesigned if it’s not a responsive one.

Another factor to take into consideration when looking at the SEO reason is, having multiple websites for the desktop and mobile user makes it difficult for your users to engage and interact with your content.

It also splits your traffic into segments and reduces the number that should have been added as one for your entire website. Users will have a negative experience on your website which affects your rankings.

6. Duplicate Content Hampers Ranking

Duplicate content will drop every chance of getting hit in google rankings. Separate sites will put you at risk for running duplicate content on the web, which is again a big no-no for search engines.

7. Will Save Money and Time

This is one of the noticeable advantages instead of paying for two or more websites and wasting time for handling 2 websites there will be only one website to focus on.

8. To Be in Standard of Competition

Every business has their own kind of competitors. Even if you acquire responsive web design or not, it is confirmed that your competitors will adopt responsive web design to stay in the standard of competition you have to keep the website up to date. This is actually a strong advantage of having a responsive web design.

9. Looks Flexible

Websites have its own flexibility when it is responsive. The content moves seamlessly from one screen to the other. There are chances the sites are distorted or content is broken when opened on any other device. When the site is responsive the ease of content movement can be visible.

10. Building Stronger Link

You may not consider a link to be an important factor but link helps in getting you quickly to the right direction, if you cannot convince your user getting to your website easily you will choose the chance of getting viewed. When your website isn’t responsive, the website will load slower discouraging user to look into the website.

11. Bounce Rate Decreased

lower down bounce rate
Maximum people jump into other sites if they don’t get the site opened while clicking on the link. Responsive web designs strengthen the website giving it faster-loading speed and elegant appearance contributing to a lower bounce rate.

12. User-Friendly Approach

Responsive websites have a user-friendly navigation system that can help in controlling bounce rate and will encourage users to give a proper response.

13. Result in High Revenue

Conversion rates of responsive websites are higher than other websites. In this mobile-centric era, a flexible website appeals to today’s generation, driving high conversion rates and, subsequently, increased revenue.

14. Because Google Loves ItGoogle Loves Responsive Layouts

Since Google is your primary target for impressing with your website, it’s crucial to pay attention to what Google favors. Google has recommended responsive web design for improved search engine results. Google identifies the requirements of users and suggests mobile friendly websites. The performance will be outstanding if it has been designed with responsive layout.

Conclusion

Responsive web design helps you stay ahead of the race, increases user experience and positively affects your search rankings.

Managing multiple websites without responsive design can be exhausting, requiring separate SEO campaigns for each device and hindering better rankings. It can turn into a complete messy condition. With Responsive Web Design, you can eliminate all these conditions.

If competitors aren’t upgrading to mobile-friendly sites, seize the opportunity to gain a competitive edge and attract more customers.