(Updated: 11 May 2023)

Have you ever heard of the term “responsive website design”? But don’t know what it means or why it’s important when you’re marketing your business online? Let’s take a look at what Responsive website design is and why you as a business owner should care!

What is responsive website design?

A responsive website design is a type of design aimed at optimizing your clients’ viewing experience of one website across multiple devices. A responsive website automatically scales its content and design elements to match the size of the screen on which it is being viewed. It also allows users to read and navigate through the website without having them to zoom in, pan across, or scroll excessively.

What are the benefits of having a responsive website design?

It is expected by companies around the world to have a responsive website design in place to provide a great browsing experience to all website visitors. Anything less can cause potential clients to become frustrated and despondent, making them navigate away from your website onto a competitor’s.

Having said that, there are several benefits of using a responsive website, so let’s take a look at what these benefits are:

1. Offer your clients’ a better user experience
   Have you ever gone to a website on your phone and the text bleeds off the screen, the menu is difficult to click on and the whole experience is just “blah”? After struggling with a site like this, your chances of going back to it or referring someone to the website are minimal right?In order to avoid situations like this, companies should evaluate the quality of their website through the eyes of their target market. This way, you can create a website that is not only attractive, but also easier to use, making your company appear more professional.

2. Responsive design decreases the time needed to manage it
   Without responsive design for your website, you will need to have multiple websites or pieces of code to provide solutions for all different viewing sizes and platforms. Responsive designs use a column and row layout which allows a web page to rearrange itself to fit within a narrower screen resolution, for example, smart phone, laptops, and tablets.Meaning that you only need to maintain one website rather than several websites, which takes much of the stress out of managing a company website.

3. Responsive design helps boost your SEO
   A responsive website has a greater possibility of ranking higher in SERPs according to Google, due to its user-focused experience and adaptability over multiple devices. This means your website has a better chance of being discovered by potential clients versus a non-responsive website.

4. Responsive design saves you money
   Without a responsive website design, you will need to maintain and host multiple versions of your website to comply with the different screen sizes. Therefore, having one site to manage can help reduce overhead and hosting costs which you can invest in future growth opportunities.

5. Flexibility for the future
   Responsive website design will allow you to always update your site as new viewing devices are invented. This will make the effort minimal in optimizing your site to the new requirements of applications, widgets and viewing sizes.Optimizing websites for mobile viewing has become as important as having the website itself. Maintaining one website will automatically update the responsive version since they are both using the same content. This speeds up maintenance and ensures content consistency.

6. Improve your conversion rates
   When you’re looking for a product or service, you want to be able to easily find what you want and make a purchase without jumping through multiple hoops or being redirected away from the screen you were on.Therefore, having a responsive website design that utilizes the best possible methods to deliver your marketing messages can help improve your conversion rates. People tend to feel more attracted to a company using the latest methods available since it delivers an image of professionalism, success, and youthful energy.

7. Reduce your website bounce rates
   If someone goes to your website and shortly after the page loads, navigates away, this is called a bounce rate. When your website isn’t fully optimized or responsive, your user experience degrades, which in turn increases your bounce rate and decreases your organic ranking in Google.Therefore, in order to reduce your bounce rate, you will need to improve your websites’ user experience and find a way to entice potential clients to stay on your website longer.

Embrace responsive website design

At the end of the day having a responsive website design can truly benefit your business in more ways than one. So if you’re interested in a responsive website, check out some of our work, or contact our team today for more information!