A beautifully crafted website with a sleek design and enjoyable user experience on desktop. For a long time, this would have been the end of it – the last step. But for our web engineers, the past 10 years have brought an additional step: responsive design. So what exactly is this?
Responsive design, simply put, is to ensure a seamless and enjoyable user experience across a variety of devices, from desktop to mobile. It’s basically adapting the design to all types of devices – and that’s done through thorough coding. Let’s go over 4 main reasons that make responsive design and absolute must in 2018.
1. Mobile is everything
We hope not to be telling you anything new here. Mobile is everything and the future is mobile. Pretty much everyone in developed countries owns a mobile phone, and what are the chances of this phone to be smart? Very high. In 2018, 95% of Americans owned a mobile phone, and 77% of those phones were smartphones. And since 2014, the number of mobile users now exceeds the number of desktop users, which tells a solid story: if your website is not mobile responsive, you’re lagging behind.
2. Better user experience
As a creative agency, or pretty much as any other business, we need to be client-centric and think of the experience our audience goes through as they deal with our brand – and that means desktop but also mobile. Since you know that about 8 out of 10 prospects may look you up on their smartphone, you must think of the mobile journey. What are they going to see? Are they going to enjoy a seamless experience? You know they are on-the-go and likely to only have a few minutes to spend with your brand, so you need to have a friendly and attractive mobile display that will satisfy their needs within minutes. Anything else will be a repellent.
3. Increased conversion
Depending on how you dealt with the mobile UX will determine your conversion rate. We designed and built Junior-Athletes’ website, and part of the process involves player registration through the website. We analyzed data and were stunned by the results. The previous website that had a very limited structure and user experience received all registrations via desktop. This process was not efficient at all but mobile usage was non-existent as the website was 0% mobile responsive. After the re-design and re-built, the data spoke for itself: over 90% of registrations were made through a smartphone in 2017. By offering a pleasant mobile experience, clients responded positively.
It’s no secret. 67% of users are likely to make a purchase with a smartphone on a mobile-friendly website than on a non-mobile optimized website. Research also shows that 85% of adults think that a company’s mobile website should be as good or better than the desktop website.
4. SEO-friendly
Last but not least, search engines like Google and Bing prefer responsive websites and actually recommend/promote responsive design. Studies show that responsive websites perform better and load fast. They also share the same URL with desktop versions which make it easier for search engines to index and organize the content. Think of it this way: mobile responsiveness helps Google understand you, and then rank you.
Bottom line
If you have a website, you need mobile responsiveness. The future is mobile, and responsiveness ensures a great user experience and triggers conversions. Not being mobile responsive will damage your brand as it can act as a repellent. Users don’t trust websites that don’t offer a seamless mobile experience. Talk to you agency about mobile responsiveness. It’s a relatively cheap investment with great long-term benefits.
Don’t stop exploring! 🙂
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