Have you heard the term ‘responsive web design’ or been told that your business needs a responsive website but you’re not really sure what it is or why you’d need one? This blog post will explain responsive web design in simple terms and reveal three important reasons your company should have one.
(Already familiar with the concept of responsive web design?
Jump to the three reasons your business needs a responsive website)
What is a responsive website?
A responsive website can detect the type of device a visitor is using (for example, an iPhone or iPad) and alter the design elements to fit the user’s screen size, resolution and type of visual display (e.g. touch screen). Because of this, responsively designed websites look great and function perfectly on mobile devices and desktop computers alike.
The Fresh Olive website uses responsive design. It was designed and developed by our Online Services team
3 Reasons Your Company Needs a Responsive Website
Choose a reason or keep scrolling to read them all:
- More of your customers are using smartphones and tablets than ever before
- Responsive web design has SEO benefits
- You’ll improve customer satisfaction and increase conversions
1) More of your customers are using smartphones and tablets than ever before
Did you know the UK is the number one country for mobile shopping in the whole of Europe?¹ [click to tweet this fact]
Gone are the days when mobile phones were solely for making telephone calls; the majority of people own a phone that’s as much designed for browsing the internet as it is for dialling a number.
In fact, smartphone usage is predicted to surpass 75% this year.² That’s 3 in 4 people who could be viewing your website on their iPhone, Samsung Galaxy or other smartphone.
As for tablets such as the iPad, these are also extremely popular. In 2013 alone, more than 195 million were sold.
The way people access the internet is changing and your website needs to adapt to that change. Responsive web design enables you to reach all your customers, no matter which device they’re using.
2) Responsive web design has SEO benefits
Google strongly recommends responsive web design, as opposed to creating a mobile version at a separate URL. With responsive web design, all content is hosted on one URL, so Google bots can crawl (navigate) the content more quickly.
The impact of this is that Google is more likely to see new content on your website, meaning your content is more likely to appear in search results – bringing you more visitors.
As Google states, “This improvement in crawling efficiency can indirectly help Google index more of the site's contents and keep it appropriately fresh.”³
3) You’ll improve customer satisfaction and increase conversions
Customer satisfaction is crucial to increasing the profitability of your business and responsive web design helps you achieve exactly that.
67%
of users are more likely to order from a mobile-friendly site.
67%
of users are more likely to order from a mobile-friendly site.
Responsive websites are extremely user-friendly and provide a more enjoyable browsing experience. Faster load times, a simplified navigation structure and a touch screen friendly design all contribute towards this.
This improved user experience has been proven to translate into sales In a recent study, 67% of participants said they would be more likely to order from a mobile-friendly site and 61% said if they visited a website that’s not optimised for mobile they would go elsewhere.4 [click to tweet this fact]
Many case studies proving what a dramatic difference responsive web design can make to the profitability of a business are available over at Google Think Insights.
Our favourite comes from broadband and phone provider Plusnet, which revealed that having a responsive website has enabled their online sales via smartphone and tablet devices to grow tenfold year on year.
If that won’t convince you of the power of responsive web design, we don’t know what will!
To find out more about responsive web design to request a demo of a responsive website, get in touch with our Online Services team today.
Sources:
¹ Global enumeration study, TNS/Google, Global, Q1 2014
² IAB, UK 2013
3 https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details
4 What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, Google/Sterling Research/SmithGeiger, US, July 2012
About the team behind this blog post
De Facto Software's Online Services team specialises in digital marketing and web/app design and development. Click the link to find out more about our responsive web design solutions.