How Responsive Web Design Helps Your Business

Before we start discussing on responsive web design, let’s first try to understand what responsive web design is.

Responsive web design is nothing but designing a website in such a manner that when a user views it from a desktop, they are able to view the full website and all its elements, yet when they do the same from a mobile device, the website resizes itself accurately for the small screen without misalignment or zooming out, still giving the user a pleasant user experience.

Why is it important?

1.      Mobile popularity

The online traffic from mobile devices officially surpassed that from desktop in 2015, signifying that more people access the internet from their mobile devices than desktops or laptops. This makes it more important than ever to make your website mobile friendly.  There are over 2.1 billion smartphone users in the world right now and that number is growing, and so mobile marketing i.e. marketing to users via mobile phones and responsive websites are two of the most important factors that define a business’s online performance. It is also important to note that the load time of a website is minimized during responsive web designing as users don’t usually wait more than 2 seconds to load a website.

2.      Multi Device Support

We live in a world where multiple users visit a website from a plethora of devices which maybe mobile or desktop. Providing them with the same user experience regardless of what device they are using is of paramount importance. If the customer visits your website for some information on one device but can’t find the same when they visit from another device, chances are that they’ll just leave for somewhere else. Ensuring consistency of information ensures that they don’t abandon you halfway.

3.      Single vs. Multiple Websites

Earlier, when the website detected that the user is using a mobile website, it redirected them to a mobile only website which was custom built for mobile devices. The problem with this approach was that it resulted in double workload as more than one version of a website needed to be updated whenever any changes were made. Also, the mobile website didn’t have all the content as well as functionalities available on a desktop website resulting in a frustrating user experience to the viewer. Having one responsive website which is versatile and adapts to the user device is therefore a much better and viable solution.

4.      Simpler to Manage

If you have multiple websites for mobile as well and desktop devices, it would be very difficult to run SEO programs for each as opposed to running a single program for a versatile scalable website.

5.      Scalability

One of the most useful things about responsive websites is that it is scalable and will support devices no matter what size they are. In the future, if some device is released that has a unique screen seen never before, responsive websites would scale themselves to fit accurately on the screen in the best possible manner.