What is Responsive Design & Why does my Website need it?

What is responsive design?

Simply put; responsive design is a website design that enables web pages to adapt and display properly on various devices.

It involves designing a website layout that responds to the screen size, orientation, and resolution of the device that the user is accessing the site from - whether that be a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile!

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Why do you need it?

Essentially, the main reason you need responsive design is because of the way people access websites these days. So many of us use our mobile phones to look things up when we're not at home on our desktops.

Whether that be a find a local restaurant when you're in a new city or researching builders for your home renovations while you're on the train to work. It is a large part of why we have smartphones in the first place!

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1. Better User Experience

The goal with a website is always to create a positive, easy experience for website visitors. Responsive design allows people to easily use and access your website from any size or type of device, making it much more convenient for them!

By improving user experience, you increase how much someone is using your website and how long they are on it resulting in reduced bounce rates, and overall increase conversions. Woohoo!

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2. Increased SEO

Along with providing a better user experience, responsive design also benefits you from an SEO perspective. Google favours mobile-friendly websites in their search results, so having a responsive web-design can boost your website's search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site! How awesome is that?

Unsure what SEO is or why you need it? Learn more about it here!

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3. Lower Bounce Rate

Another key goal! You've done all this work in driving traffic to your website through social media, email marketing, and networking to finally get people to your website - now encourage them to stay! If they can access it from anywhere, anytime AND have a positive, mobile/tablet-friendly experience on your website, you decrease the chances of them leaving it.

Insider tip! "Bounce rate" is the percentage of people who leave your website after only viewing one page and not interacting with it at all (i.e. clicking any links). A high bounce rate can be an indication of your website not being engaging enough, loading too slowly, or simply not being "user friendly".

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4. Cost Effective

The old school way of doing things was to create a 'mobile site'. You've definitely seen these before as they always have a little "switch to main site" button at the bottom of the screen. As you can imagine, creating a whole new site that is mobile/tablet compatible - costs more money.

Therefore, by integrating responsive design into your main website - it can be your only website so that is all you pay for! Significantly more cost and time effective to build just one!

An added bonus - you also only need to be updating and running one website! Saving you time, money and probably some stress too!

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So to summarise, responsive design is a critical element for any website looking to grow and thrive. By designing a website that adapts to different screen sizes and device types, businesses can deliver an optimal user experience, increase mobile traffic, improve SEO, reduce bounce rates, and save money in the long run.

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Additionally, responsive design can help improve your website's search engine rankings, making it more visible and accessible to potential customers.

All good things we want from our website!

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If you think your website could benefit from responsive design or you have any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out! We LOVE talking websites!

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