4 Reasons Why Your Business Depends on Responsive Design

Take a random poll, and you’d find that most people agree that the businesses that fail to adapt to shifting technology tend to fail, period. When it comes to website technology and keeping your company’s site up to date, it’s no longer 2005. Having a website doesn’t put you ahead; having a good looking website doesn’t even necessarily put you ahead of the competition. It’s 2015, and you’re going to need responsive design if you want to stay truly competitive on the online market, which by the end of 2015 will be worth an estimated $1.5 trillion. So what is responsive web design? Basically, it’s a website’s ability to naturally orient itself to the viewer regardless of their viewing device. One of the most obvious examples is websites adjusting correctly to a phone, so that users don’t need to squint, tap at miniscule squares, and rotate their phone around just so they can read the product descriptions that would be a different size and shape when opened on a computer screen.

What your website can experience as a result of responsive web design:

• Content can expand, rearrange, or automatically shorten based on the device
• Images can automatically resize, and be viewable
• Sidebars will often appear or disappear depending on the device
• Wait times for loading pages will remain brief regardless of point of access

Are you interested in making your website more responsive to viewers, helping to lower your bounce rate and improve the user experience? Here are four reasons responsive web design is going to work in your favor.

1. Mobile Usage is Always Increasing

As of 2014, for the first time ever, people spent more time on the internet via mobile devices, rather than PCs. Consumers are becoming increasingly reliant on a variety of phones and tablets to make purchases, view company information, and interact with brands. Investing in a web design company to make your website mobile-friendly will help you get a lead on your competitors in the years to come.

2. Less Irritating to Users

There is a clear correlation between users getting annoyed, and users leaving websites. If you have bad shelving in a brick-and-mortar store, consumers might move to another aisle. On the web, though, they’re a lot more likely to just click over to your competitor. A study by Smith Geiger and Sterling Research found that 50% of users would be less likely to use a website that isn’t mobile friendly, and according to an Econsultancy study, 62% of companies report increased sales as a result of opting for responsive web design. Having a website that’s easy to use works in your financial favor.

3. It Can Ultimately Save You Time and Hassle

Previously, many site owners had actual, separate sites for mobile versus PC usage. Having two or more separate websites to upkeep eats up time and resources, and increases the likelihood that your information will not be uniform for each viewer, which can lead to confusion -- “Mobile only” websites frequently have less information, which is less and less ideal in today’s mobile-adapting world. It’s also worth noting that many of the devices your website will have to deal with in the future do not exist yet -- responsive design helps to ensure that your website can more easily adapt to these screens, rather than having to make a website update every time the latest iPhone comes out.

4. It’s the Future of SEO

Search engine optimization is now one of the guiding forces of the internet. If you don’t build your site with Google in mind, ultimately, you’re not building your site with the purpose of attracting visitors, period. Google now fields billions of inquiries each month, and in April 2015, Google announced that it would start taking into consideration for rankings whether a site is mobile-friendly. Today, websites ranked in Google are rewarded if they are built responsively, with the user experience in mind. This is only going to get more and more important going forward. It’s 2015 -- when will you be investing in responsive web design?