What is Responsive Design and Why Does My Site Need it?

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at developing sites to provide an optimal viewing and interactive experience, it is easy reading and has navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

Responsive website design has become a very important part of all websites over the last couple of years and we highly recommend that your website is fully responsive.

Below is an example of what a responsive website design can look like, as you can see the website design has adjusted to accommodate the screen size and device it is being viewed from.

Responsive design is:

Cost effective.While you may think that building a responsive website would cost more, it may not. It’s true that developing a responsive site is more time consuming than a simple desktop version, however there is no need for a separate mobile site. If you were planning on providing a separate mobile experience, responsive is far cheaper in the long run.
Good for SEO.Search engine optimization is important. With a single, responsive website, search engines only have to crawl through one URL. Search engines also look for sites with unique content. Your single responsive site means that no content is duplicated, telling the search engines that your content is higher quality than something that can be found in more than one place online. Not convinced?
Social media friendly.If you’re active on social media, or people are sharing your blog posts, you’re hoping these activities will send traffic to your site. Most people use their mobile devices to check their Facebook and Twitter feeds, so when they click on your link, they need to be able to see your website the way it’s meant to be viewed. If they have to pinch and zoom to read anything, they will leave and you could be losing a future customer.
Future proof.Responsive design doesn’t just adjust to the size of today’s mobile devices. It is completely adaptive to the screen it is viewed on. This means that it will work on devices that haven’t even been released yet, so you don’t have to worry about your site’s functions becoming outdated as mobile phones and tablets continue to evolve.

Why does my website need it?

Most users will be viewing your website from a tablet or mobile device and if it’s fully responsive they will be able to view your website with no issues at all. However, if your website isn’t responsive most people viewing your website from a tablet or mobile device will probably leave after viewing the first page this is because it becomes to time consuming to have to scroll in and out of the pages to try and click on links, pages and read content.

You may also find that your enquiries or website views increase due to having a fully responsive website.

How can I tell if my website is Responsive?

The fastest way to test if your website is using responsive design is to open your site using a browser like Chrome, Firefox or Safari and taking your mouse to the bottom right corner of the browser window and dragging it from the bottom right to left.

As you do this you should see your website adjust to the new screen size you are changing to as you make the browser window smaller.

You will see an arrow on the image which shows where you place your cursor to move your browser screen in and out to test the responsive level of your website.

If you need any help with making your website responsive please feel free to contact us and we will advise you what will be best for you and your website.

What does Google think?

If you needed any further convincing, Google might just tip the scales for you. If your website isn’t responsive, Google will bump your site down in its rankings and put you below sites. It won’t matter that your content is excellent and useful and should be popular, if it’s not readable on a mobile, Google will demote you.