What Is Responsive Web Design? 8 Benefits for Businesses!
Responsive web design (RWD) is the process of designing websites that adapt to various devices, such as smartphones and tablets. RWD allows a website to load faster and display content in the most appropriate manner for each device.
With RWD, a website’s layout changes depending on the device being used. For example, on a smartphone, the website might show more information on the home screen or include additional navigation buttons. In addition, RWD allows for content to be easily updated and shared across multiple platforms.
The use of mobile devices to access websites is consistently increasing. However, most of the websites are not optimized for mobile devices. Mobile devices are constrained by display size. It is necessary to use a different approach to how content such as text, images, and videos are laid out on the screen.
A little more technically, it means that the HTML and CSS of a website automatically resize depending on the device and browser used to view the page. Javascript may also come as handy in some situations in responsive web design. Responsive front-end/UI frameworks (HTML, CSS, JS documents, etc.) are widely used by web designers. They make it easier to design responsive websites and apps.
We will not go any deeper into the technical part of responsive web design in this article. We will explain the benefits of having a responsive website for a business.
We’re now firmly in the digital age where it’s extremely common for the average user to have multiple devices such as smartphones, tablets, “phablets”, smartwatches, other wearables, game consoles, TVs, and laptops.
The basic philosophy behind responsive web design is that the users should receive a consistent and seamless experience of your website. No matter how they choose to access it. Any browser, device, and operating system. Some benefits of RWD are that it allows for faster loading times, better accessibility, and increased cross-device compatibility.
Let’s dig a bit deeper to see what are the benefits of having a responsive web design?
Benefits of Responsive Web Design
1) Credibility
One of the benefits of responsive web design for businesses is boosting credibility. According to Stanford research into web credibility, 75% of users express that they judge a business’ credibility on their website design.
Adding to this, 94% of the website users’ first impressions are design-related.
If your website looks poor on some devices or doesn’t have a mobile version at all, this will affect the user experience. This will inevitably influence the users’ opinion about your business.
2) Smartphone Traffic
It was back in 2016 that mobile web browsing overtook desktop browsing for the first time. Consumers are using their mobile to access your website more than any other device, so your website must render properly.
It’s essential that your website looks, feels, and responds correctly to the user, whether they’re browsing your website on an Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and any other device.
This shift to smartphones over laptops and desktops isn’t expected to change any time soon either. In fact, it’s estimated that by 2025, 72.6% of the world’s internet users will access the web solely through their smartphones.
By not adapting to this trend, you’re potentially turning away many thousands of consumers who are looking for a good smartphone experience.
Long story short, a responsive website = more mobile traffic.
3) Lower Cost and Maintenance
The alternative to responsive web design is designing two entirely separate websites (one for mobile and one for desktop) or creating a desktop website and a mobile app.
These two options represent the same thing: double the design, double the cost, and double the maintenance. Implementing a responsively designed website costs less. Furthermore, it becomes even more cost-effective in the long term.
Fluid and flexible responsive design equal fewer headaches for business owners.
4) Higher Speed
Users have no shortage of websites to visit so keeping them on your site is more challenging than ever before.
Having a lot of options goes hand in hand with a limited amount of patience for websites that take a long time to load. Research by Google found that 53% of mobile users abandoned a site if it took more than 3 seconds to load.
This alarming statistic has huge implications for loss of revenue – if a user doesn’t stick around to see your website load, they won’t buy!
Responsively designed websites are better optimised for a range of devices and therefore load fast and efficiently compared to websites not designed with that device in mind.
5) Lower Bounce Rates
The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing a single page is called the bounce rate. A relatively low bounce rate is desirable. As we mentioned above website speed is one of the key factors for keeping visitors on your website. High page-loading times and a good user experience will lower your bounce rates.
6) Increase Sales and Conversions
Responsive websites provide a better performance, more functionality, and a consistent look and feel. Higher page loading speed, building trust, and offering a good user experience across all devices is important for better conversion rates Either it is subscribing to a newsletter or making a purchase on an e-commerce website. Better user experience = higher conversion rates.
7) Improved SEO with Responsive Web Design
It’s no secret that higher visibility on search engines will bring more sales. You’ll get more consumers onto your website if you rank higher on the Google search results.
Google started to enable the mobile-first index for websites in December 2017. Then in July 2019, mobile-first indexing has been enabled by default for all new websites by Google.
The mobile-first indexing means that Google will use the mobile version of the websites first when indexing and deciding how to rank content.
Google does consider multi-screen functionality when ranking websites on their search engine so having a responsively designed website is a great way to give your SEO a boost. Furthermore, a mobile-friendly website will positively affect user metrics such as bounce rates, dwell time, page views and interactions. These user signals can also increase the authoritativeness of your website.
8) Easier and More Informative Reporting
It is essential to track where the traffic is coming to your website. Analyzing how visitors interact with a website is crucial to making data-driven enhancements on a website.
Responsive websites make the monitoring process easy and effective. If a website has more than one version it is double the work. It would be necessary to track conversion paths, sales funnels, and redirects for each version of the website.
Monitoring tools such as Google Analytics provides analytics of a responsive website in a single report. Which makes it easy to check how a website is performing across the devices.
