Responsive web design is not a nice to have, it’s a necessity. If your agency is worth its weight, their web development services will incorporate this feature in their basic testing functionality. With so many devices being used, it’s vital that your website is designed to display perfectly, whether it’s viewed on a desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet. Users expect rapid downloads and all functionality to be available, regardless of what they are using to view your site. Whether the site is minimised or maximised, each element needs to render from one format to the next seamlessly. This delivers a satisfying experience for your existing customers, as well as potential customers.
A frustrating or slow experience is very likely to see users leave a site in search of something more usable. It’s also likely that they will share the experience in an online review or with colleagues and friends. This can all add up to bad PR for your business and a loss in sales. Reflect on your own experience, you know how irritating it is to zoom in and out of text on a mobile site. If you don’t give up and move on to a competitor, you have to fire up your laptop in order to place an order or view content properly. It’s time consuming, annoying and makes you search for another site that doesn’t present with these issues. Your customers will have exactly the same experience.
Users will leave your site if it doesn’t display properly
Poor design equals poor results. It’s that simple. We spend just as much time on smart phones as we do laptops and desktops, more in fact for most people that don’t work in office environments. So if your website is not displaying properly, how likely are people to leave the site early? A staggering 44%, that’s how many. That’s a lot of potential missed sales.
A single URL should deliver the same content, regardless of the device it is viewed on, this also makes your site much more smart engine friendly. For the development team, a single URL makes the site much easier to manage and maintain, having separate addresses for desktop and another for smartphone or mobile is a massive overhead. A single version of the source code also requires less developers less time to maintain, which saves your business valuable funds it can divert in to other areas of the company.
Your content becomes responsive if it still displays when the orientation of a tablet or smartphone is changed from landscape to portrait, or vice versa. Crucially, Google also loves Responsive web design, which is another reason why this should be top of your web development services list. It delivers a great user experience as it provides device optimised content and Google rewards you for this and ranks your site higher as a result. It’s a win-win situation! Happy customers, happy Google and happy Senior Management team of your company, where the bottom line reflects an effective online presence.
Be ready for future devices
Having a future-ready site is also keeping one step ahead of your competitors, watches, TVs and even glasses will all become more regular ways to view content, browse sites and make purchases. Your response website code will be able to adapt to each of these new formats and still look great. Removing the need for users to have to scroll or zoom around to find out what they want will ensure they return to your site next time and give you a healthy recommendations to others. Easily readable content will boost your audience figures, which is a chance to boost your sales too. Don’t miss out on people wanting to buy from you by not making your website responsive.
Of course, ensuring that your website displays effectively on a smart phone may mean an overhaul of your existing design. Trends these days are for less text and more graphics on the home page and secondary pages. Reading paragraphs of text on smaller devices simply isn’t viable, so consider if it’s time that your website had an update. But with all these new images, don’t fall in to the trap of creating a slow loading site. This is just as likely to turn your users off as squinting to read your content. Images need to be optimised to ensure pages load rapidly.
Google rewards you
The mobile-friendliness of your website is a Google ranking factor, don’t forget that. Can you afford not to check if you site renders correctly? If changes need to be made, work with a reputable design agency for their expertise in responsive web design. To develop your brand and grow your profits through website sales, speak with an agency that offers a comprehensive range of web development services and ensure that your site is up to scratch for online trade.
