Recent times have seen an increase in the usage of mobile phones for accessing the internet. Majority of websites, business blogs, online stores, etc. are accessed through mobile devices, tablets, smartphones and creating your websites in ways that are suitable only for the desktops is going to do you no good! A responsive website design can help your websites look amazing on all kinds of devices
SAG IPL in one of its reports revealed that companies admitted to have registered a boost in their sales when they designed websites that were mobile-responsive. Furthermore, there was a 64% increase in sales of companies that developed designs that would adapt to tablets.
Responsive designs can prove to be fruitful in such cases! . Besides, a responsive design with a good user interface and experience leads to your business’s growth as your conversion rates increase.
SAG IPL revealed that about 48% of consumers are of the opinion that not having a mobile-friendly business website is an indication of the business not being concerned about its customers.
The article talks about responsive website design, how it works, and why it is important. Oh and lookout for some interesting statistics throughout the article that can convince you towards building a responsive design for your website if you still haven’t!
What Is Responsive Website Design?
Responsive Design in simple terms is an approach to design websites and web content in such a way that it easily adapts to a variety of screens and windows in different types of devices. Because of clear differences in space and physical dimensions of screens in portable devices as compared to desktops, the same designs and layout of content may create trouble and lead to bad user experience. eMarketer revealed that only 22% of marketers have claimed to be ahead of the marking curve in case of a responsive website design.
This problem can be resolved through a responsive website design because it provides multiple layouts for your content to be displayed on different devices depending on the size without you having to compromise on any information that you want your users to gather from your platform. One important thing to understand is the difference between a responsive design and an adaptive design. Often the two concepts are used interchangeably but they are not the same.
An adaptive design is one where there are separate templates that are optimized and generated uniquely depending on the class of different devices. Mobiforge revealed that 82% of the top 100 Alexa websites are run on an adaptive web design. On the other hand, a responsive design is one where a single universal design is implemented and is displayed across all devices.
How Does Responsive Web Design Work?
According to Adobe, 38% of users tend to stop visiting a website if the content or the layout of the website is unattractive and unresponsive. Responsive Web Designs can automatically adjust to your screens to help you browse through the website and explore its functions smoothly. Here’s how responsive web design works:-
- Any given website comprises a set of files. These files are home pages, web pages, about pages, and more. Each page acts as an individual separate file.
- All the files individually comprise of a unique HTML code and content in the form of text and images. SAG IPL has confirmed that 49% of websites that are based on HTML5 tend to get more traffic as compared to simpler websites.
- The pages of the website are designed using the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) files.
- A set of CSS files is applied to the already existing files to create a responsive website and the set of files are applied according to the type of device on which the website would run.
- Once the CSS files start functioning, the website ‘responds’ on the basis of different devices.
Here’s an example to understand the final response of such a website. If a person decides to view the navigation menu of the website, here’s how the website would respond on two different devices. In the case of a desktop, the navigation menu may appear vertically. On the other hand, the same menu may appear horizontally on a mobile device with enlarged texts for better visibility on a small screen. According to Invisionapp, users tend to judge the credibility of a website 75% based on the aesthetics of the overall website.
Why Are Responsive Web Designs Important?
There is no doubt about the increased use of mobile phones, smartphones, tablets and other such portable devices to access websites. This is the major reason why you must resort to a responsive website design. Other than increased use of mobile devices, here are some reasons why your business must have a responsive website design:-
- When it comes to traffic, owing to the increased viewership on mobile phones, a responsive design can help you drive in more digital traffic through mobile users. Such a design can help you return your customers better by providing them access to your enterprise as per their convenience. According to KoMarketing, 40% of tablet and smartphone users use the said devices for searching about B2B products.
- Setting up a responsive website design is time-effective and cost-effective. Although it is expensive when you first start creating a responsive design, it costs much less than the costs you would have to bear in maintaining two or more websites for different devices. Furthermore, it takes comparatively less time to completely set up a responsive web design and requires less effort in maintaining and upgrading it. InMobi revealed that 60% of the internet is accessed through mobile devices globally.
- Unresponsive designs tend to distort the content of your website when accessed through devices like phones and tablets. This leads to bad user experience and can result in a negative brand image. One of the biggest advantages of a responsive website design is its adaptability to different devices and it makes the user experience effortless and really smooth. Responsive designs provide a seamless user experience on your platform. According to reports by Web FX, 89% of consumers stop engaging with a platform after poor user experience.
- A responsive website design can improve your SEO rating and effort immensely because of the quality content and seamless user experience. Besides, Google recommends websites with responsive designs and ranks them better. By increasing the chances of higher SERP ranks, it can really boost your SEO efforts. Google revealed that it started giving preference to responsive websites for search engine results April 2005 onwards.
We hope the article was helpful in understanding what responsive website design is and how it works. Responsive designs can truly boost your online presence and provide easy management and maintenance. They are easy to set up and if you still haven’t implemented it on your platform, make sure you do after this read!
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