The Importance of Responsive Web Design

Remember when browsing the internet meant being confined to your home or workplace PC? Then, with the increasing popularity of wi-fi, laptops, and tablets, people were able to shop and conduct research while hanging out at a coffee shop. Finally, smartphones opened up a multitude of opportunities for browsing the internet, for work or pleasure, from virtually anywhere. Rather than searching through recipes for a dinner party at home, an individual with a mobile device can browse recipes while walking the aisles of a grocery store or wait “in line” to buy concert tickets while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.

While some of us may not take advantage of this instant gratification and accessibility as much as others, we feel inconvenienced (and even irked) if we can’t browse, search, and buy online when we want or “need” simply because a website isn’t working on our mobile devices. However, thanks to responsive web design, more and more websites are designed to operate for users on the go.

What is Responsive Web Design?

Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t, but if you’ve ever browsed the internet, there’s a great chance that you’ve experienced the responsive (or the lack of) web design. Think about the last time you tried to browse a website on your smartphone, but it didn’t work the same or as well as it does when you’re sitting at your desktop. Frustrating, right? Responsive web design can be easily described as a website that has been constructed so that all of the content, from images to text and structure, is consistent on any device. Ever get the option to visit a “mobile site” on your smartphone? That’s responsive web design.

Reasons to Consider Responsive Web Design

Whether you have an online business or a personal website, you will want to make sure that your site is responsive and it’s easy enough to do when you use when you use one of the best 10 website builders; there’s no need to invest a lot to make your site responsive. If not, you may be missing out on some big opportunities and may even get lost in the shuffle of the ever growing internet. Here are some important reasons to make your site responsive as soon as possible:

• Avoid Profit Loss: You’ve got a great business website that you worked hard to design and spend a lot of money to get it up and running. From your laptop, it has an incredible layout and represents your business as you intended, however, when you browse your site on a smartphone, images are missing and it looks like a jumbled mess. If you drag your feet on making your site responsive, you’re likely to lose a profit. Why? Your potential (and even existing) customers and clients won’t have patience with a faulty mobile site.

• Increase in Traffic & Profitability: On the flipside, thanks to responsive design, you are more likely to see an increase in traffic as well as profitability since nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults shop online; a responsive site makes that easy and possible.

• Happy Following: Ever come across an unresponsive site and think that the business must be “behind the times” or have no interest in getting business? Having a responsive site will show your customers that you care and that you are “in the know” and a happy visitor to your site is always likely to return.