The Importance Of A Responsive Website
Author: Jake | Created: 10-01-2021
An Increase In Mobile Usage
The term responsive design refers not to how quickly a website responds as you might expect but how the website displays(responds) on the many different screen sizes we have today. A responsive website will be usable and show the same information on any size screen and work with various input devices such as touch or keyboard.
In 2014 an official report from Ofcom revealed that only 22% turned to their phone before other devices to browse the internet. When 4G was introduced it impacted how people use their mobile devices and over the course of 2014, 4G subscriptions skyrocketed from 2.7 million to 23.6 million.
Towards the end of 2016 it was reported that mobile web usage had overtaken desktops for the first time, showing an increasing number of people browsing the internet from their smartphones and tablets instead of a laptop or computer.
Ofcom also recently reported that 7 in 10 adults use a smartphone, with over-65s now more likely to use one too, as the public becomes even more tech-savvy with the UK using their mobiles and tablets to find what they need online.
For these reasons alone, it is important that you have invested in a responsive website and that your business has a website that works well on a smartphone or other mobile device screens, due to the sheer amount of people who could be using your website through a smartphone or tablet.
Google's Recommendations
In 2015 Google introduced recommendations, this related to responsive web design, and began rewarding sites that were fully optimised for mobile platforms. Google now uses mobile friendliness as a ranking signal in SEO rankings.
More recently, Google has gone a step further and has been implementing mobile-first indexing strategies. Mobile-first indexing bases ranking and indexing from the mobile version of a site, as opposed to the desktop version. If you already have a responsive web design, then you won’t need to modify your websites. This is the most recent effort by Google to further improve mobile web experience.
All of this benefits your SEO score!
Benefits & Importance Of Responsive Website Design
The main reason for a responsive website is to allow all content and pages to be flexible to all screen sizes and resolutions. Whether a user is viewing your website on a smartphone or laptop, it will be unified and easy to navigate. Providing an optimal experience for the user across the board, responsive websites means your user can read and navigate the site with minimum resizing and scrolling, allowing for a better user experience which will translate into a positive perception of your brand and business.
If your customer can access your website easily on all platforms, they’re more likely to return to you for more business in the future and it more than likely means a higher conversion rate for your website. In a world where so much traffic comes from mobile devices, it’s important that you’re accommodating this factor through your website.
With mobile-friendly websites now being an industry standard, make sure yours is!
