Crucial Reasons Why Your Website Must Have Responsive Design

Crucial Reasons Why Your Website Must Have Responsive Design

September 26, 2022
(Reading time: 5 - 9 minutes)

The online buyers’ journey has gained complexity since mobile devices took the lead and mobile-friendly design began to dictate the market. In today’s digital world, if your website isn’t responsive, you alienate half of your visitors and potential clients, causing you to miss out on revenue. Here, we’ll dive deeply into responsive design and explain why it’s essential to your brand, regardless of your industry.

Key Stats About Responsive Web Design

First, let’s dive into some interesting statistics to help you understand why the responsive design of your website is crucial for your business:

  • The average American adult spends 5.4 hours a day on their mobile phone.
  • The average American adult spends 5.4 hours a day on their mobile phone.
  • Most mobile phone users check their phones up to 63 times daily.
  • Most mobile phone users check their phones up to 63 times daily.
  • Prospects and clients want immediate gratification. If your website is fast and your design is responsive, 60% of potential clients will make a quick decision and purchase your product.
  • Prospects and clients want immediate gratification. If your website is fast and your design is responsive, 60% of potential clients will make a quick decision and purchase your product.
  • Increasing the loading speed of your website by just one second can increase conversions by 27%.
  • Increasing the loading speed of your website by just one second can increase conversions by 27%.
  • Think with Google, they found that if it takes more than 5 seconds to load a site, the probability of bounce increases to 90%, 6 seconds it’s 106%, over 10 seconds and it jumps to 123%! The bottom line is there is no bouncing back after that because your prospect will likely not return.
  • In a 2018 study by Think with Google, they found that if it takes more than 5 seconds to load a site, the probability of bounce increases to 90%, 6 seconds it’s 106%, over 10 seconds and it jumps to 123%! The bottom line is there is no bouncing back after that because your prospect will likely not return.

How mobile-friendly is your current site? If you’re unsure, use Google’s mobile-friendly test. . Another helpful tool that can help you get more valuable insights is PageSpeed Insights. Once you get the info from these two compiled, you will get a better idea of your next steps. If you don’t want to go it alone, you could always reach out to a professional digital agency to help. North Carolina has become a sort of tech innovation cradle. Partnering with a reputable North Carolina Local SEO consultant is a great way to provide yourself with an innovative approach for your small business’s future.

What Is Responsive Design, And Why Is It So Important?

To put it simply, responsive website design adapts to different screen sizes and resolutions, including desktops, tablets, smartphones, and even TV screens. The term “responsive web design” dates back to 2010, when designer Ethan Marcotte coined it. Ethan wrote about making websites more “flexible and fluid,” which is still the concept’s primary goal. Today, building a static desktop website won’t do much for your online presence at all. It can do more damage than benefit your brand. Google made the game even more complex when it decided to add core web vitals to the mix. Core web vitals are the set of metrics used to measure user experience for your webpage, and they help Google realize what your website has to offer to a client. These include clean and safe browsing, easy navigation, and responsive design. If you want to establish better brand visibility, more conversions, and better client engagement, you need to start thinking outside the box. In this case, that means thinking outside of the outdated desktop solutions.

Five Benefits Of Implementing Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design isn’t just about functionality. The responsiveness of your website also reflects on your brand reputation, return on investment, and client retention. Users today want a clean, simple and attractive website, and it needs to load correctly on whatever device they’re using. Responsive design can:

Simplify Your Digital Marketing Campaigns

When you have one website with a responsive design, it can save you both the time and money you usually spend on your campaigns. Having a dual version of your website means running and monitoring two different campaigns, which means twice the effort.

Provide Flexibility for the Future

With technology changing and evolving constantly, it is hard to predict how the future screens will look. So to be prepared for the future, you need to think about flexibility now. With responsive design, you will be ready for the latest emerging devices.

Improve UX

This is possibly the most crucial reason to have a responsive design. User experience will be improved drastically because you will have all your users in mind. A website that is fast and loads quickly increases client satisfaction and makes your content more engaging. Optimizing your website will create a more welcoming and immersive environment.

Simplify Your SEO Efforts

You can have a fantastic website, but what is the point if no one can actually see it? With a fast and mobile-friendly website that has easy navigation and compelling content, you will most likely rank more easily.

Increase Users and Sales

COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation tremendously, and people generally enjoy doing their shopping online in just a few clicks. You have a unique opportunity to reach new clients and markets with everything I mentioned above.

A Mobile-First Approach for Creating Responsive Solutions

If you decide to go with the flow and improve your website design and functionality by opting for responsive design, you need to start thinking in more minimalistic terms. Once you find the best website design company that can listen to your specific needs, you will need to do a bit of brainstorming. Some points to keep in mind:

  • Less is usually more. Consider functionalities, features, graphics, and other media and decide whether you really need them or not.
  • Are all your visual elements worth the loading time? Too much clutter on your page can also cause a drop in your conversions.
  • Consider starting with something more minimalistic and then continue building it up more for the desktop. Remember, it is always easier to scale up the mobile design than scale down the desktop design.

It is always great to build a website from scratch with a mobile-friendly approach. It can also be done on the existing websites by adding more code but starting from scratch will probably benefit you more since you will set the right foundations for your further growth.

What Screen Resolutions Are Relevant for Responsive Web Design?

Responsive web design isn’t just about mobile phones – there are plenty of other devices to consider. From desktops and laptops to iPads and more, a responsive design will ensure that your website loads properly on every screen size. Although a significant portion of the global traffic comes from mobile, we will break down some of the most common screen resolutions you need to consider regarding responsive web design and the traffic that results.

  • 360x640 screen resolution for small mobile devices: 22.64%
  • 1366x768 screen resolution of an average laptop: 11.98%
  • 1920x1080 screen resolution for a large desktop computer: 7.35%
  • 375x667 screen resolution for average mobile devices: 5%
  • 1440x900 screen resolution of an average desktop: 3.17%
  • 720x1280 screen resolution of a large mobile device: 2.74%

 

A responsive website design also needs to have at least three different layouts for different screen resolutions and browser widths.

  • Layout under 600px: How your content will look on most smartphone devices.
  • Medium layout from 600px to 900px: How your content will look on larger phones, tablets, and smaller computers.
  • Large layout over 900px: How your content will look on most desktop computers.

A Few Tips for Responsive Web Design

Remember, your clients will interact differently with your desktop and mobile versions. The desktop design will work via clicks, while the mobile layout will work via swipes and taps. When browsing on your phone, you are holding a device in the palm of your hand. Therefore, you need to find ways to make your clients more comfortable while doing so. This means rethinking design regarding menus, graphics, videos, CTAs, etc. If the elements are too small and not clickable enough, the user will have a poor experience. Here are some other best practices you can implement in your responsive design:

Utilize lazy loading for images and videos

Not all the images and videos on your main website may be crucial for your mobile website. Graphics take up a lot of room on your site. Since mobile screens are smaller, you want to ensure you’re utilizing the space as best as possible. Using “lazy loading” is always a great idea for the images and videos you want to include on your mobile site. How does this work? Large elements that are not so important are loaded with a delay in order to get a better page speed.

Don’t miss the bigger picture

And when we say bigger picture, we mean optimizing the page for landscape orientation as well. When your design is fluid, your content is adaptive, but when you are navigating on landscape orientation, things can get tricky. Scrolling with two thumbs on the landscape orientation often becomes harder, so it is important to think about how you can sort the elements in order to avoid unnecessary scrolling.

Final Thoughts

Responsive design can give you a competitive edge in today’s market that demands excellence and mobile-friendly designs. You want a fast and reliable solution that will look great on every device a user might visit your website on.

If you are wondering if your site is responsive or want help converting your website to a responsive design, then reach out to us for a no-obligation consultation!

Adam Bennett

Written by:  |  September 26, 2022

Adam is the president and founder of Cube Creative Design and specializes in private school marketing. Since starting the business in 2005, he has created individual relationships with clients in Western North Carolina and across the United States. He places great value on the needs, expectations, and goals of the client.

See Adam Bennett's' bio: cubecreative.design/about/adam-bennett