With over 644 million websites active right now, having a website is no longer a trend. At this point, it has become a necessity. Hence, it would be no surprise that most brands and businesses would already have their own website.
In fact, the current trends of online consumption point towards mobile and smartphones, with almost half of the web page views coming from mobile. Despite this jarring trend, there are still about 60% of websites that are still not responsive for mobile.
In the multi-screen age that we live in now, it should be a norm (not just a trend) for all websites to be responsive at this point and here are X reasons why:
Reach Your Audience
As mentioned above, mobile online consumption is a rising trend that will not be falling anytime soon. Hence, you have to be where your customers and clients are, which is the mobile platform. By having a responsive design, you are able to reach your customers and clients across different devices, providing a ‘tailored’ experience for them.
It’s Cost Effective
You have to reach your audience where they are, and at some point, you will need a mobile-friendly website. With a responsive design, you are able to cater to all your visitors without having an additional website for your mobile users. Instead, you will only need to invest in a single responsive website design that will reach all visitors and all devices.
Subsequently, any changes to be made only needs to be done on one website instead of two. This also applies to any subsequent marketing efforts that lead to websites, where one link will be able to be your landing page for your target audience. There are countless benefits for a responsive design, such as cutting down excessive man-hours for tweaking two websites.
Good User Experience (UX)
User experience is critical for your target audience. If they experience bad UX on any of your websites, it will be difficult to achieve any marketing goals you might desire. On the other hand, good UX makes your brand/business likeable and convinces them to stay and interact with you.
Responsive website designs achieve good UX with faster loading across various devices and eliminate unnecessary zooming and scrolling, providing a more positive impression.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Google announced their prioritising of mobile-responsive websites in 2015, whereby their algorithms have been updated to favour responsive website designs in their SEO rankings.
SEO is a tool that improves your search rankings and makes your brand more discoverable. With so much Google searches occuring daily, SEO has become essential in today’s day and age. Hence, it is important to fall in line with Google’s requirements so as to not get penalised on their rankings.
Now, you have to consider how to go about making your website responsive. Here are some Google recommendations that would help.
Or else, you can also consider consulting a professional website design team that provides responsive website design.
