Home › Blog › Mobile Web Design & Development › How important is responsive website design today?
Do you know how effective your website design is across various devices and browsers? If not, you could gain a substantial sales boost from more responsive website design, especially from consumers online via emerging tech.
One of the lasting business impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be an even greater reliance on the internet for communication, collaboration, and consumer relations.
This not only makes your website more important than ever before, but it also massively increases the value of responsive website design.
Just a quick refresher; what is responsive website design? This is when your site is optimised to automatically look and work brilliantly, on any device or browser.
It particularly dispenses with the need for different sites for desktops and smartphones. Just think for a minute how many different ways people use the internet now – including watches and voice-activated technology.
Wherever your target customer engages with your pages, they will increasingly be demanding a positive user experience (UX). That is the key to guiding them effortlessly to a completed transaction or some other action.
Yet, many companies are still missing out. Through poor website design, neglectful up-dating or blissful ignorance, they have websites that simply don’t work well enough across different devices.
What is the cost of not having a responsive website? Also, can you ‘make do and mend’ without investing in a website that works brilliantly on mobile and wearable technology?
If you need to attract website traffic, convert leads, and generate buoyant online sales, why on earth would you overlook 63% of your potential customers!
That figure represents the number of people who used smartphones to go online for eCommerce – before the pandemic! It’s a statistic likely to have increased already.
Have you factored for emerging tech?
Keeping up to date with emerging software is one thing, but ensuring your site is optimised to handle the future is key to success.
To be frank, if your website is performing poorly on mobile technology, you are committing commercial suicide. Nor does it stop there.
Wearable technology, highly portable tablets and voice-activated devices are also growing in popularity and use. You need to be certain that your website can be found and accessed by voice commands and by a quick tap on any size screen.
Then, through responsive website design, you need to be confident that users can seamlessly buy, enquire, register or complete some other action.
Did you know that around 93% of online purchases begin with a question in a search engine – primary Google of course?
As mentioned in a previous blog (link), Search Engine Optimisation has never been more crucial. Creating a responsive website design plays a role in this.
One of the things that Google algorithms measure is your website’s performance – such as the speed of loading, ease of viewing and the use of intelligent navigation.  Your page ranking and chances of being found in searches take a dive.
It should be obvious by now, website designs that are not automatically and indistinctly responsive to different devices are unattractive to visitors – whether they are Google spider bots or your potential leads!
Research shows that 88% of internet users express reluctance to give companies a second chance, following a bad experience with their website. Which could certainly include pages that perform badly on smartphones or iPads!
Statistics to back up the demand for responsive website designs are compiling. For example, 57% of internet users would not recommend a business to friends or family, if they were dissatisfied with its website performance on mobile technology.
However, something harder to quantify but vital to you is your company’s reputation and brand positioning.
What does a poorly performing website design say about your company? You can invest a great deal of money in a design that looks and performs brilliantly on desktops. Only to lose all credibility as a forward-looking and savvy company when your performance falls short on mobile, wearable or speech activated devices.
Mobile optimisation should come hand in hand with desktop design.
Such is the global reliance on smartphones, and their increasing integration into everyday behaviours, your mobile website is potentially more important than your desktop design. One study found that 85% of adults believe that your website should be as good – if not better – when viewed on mobile technology.
So, it would be safe to argue that demand for automatically responsive websites is gaining momentum and your commercial future rests on pages that engage users on all devices.
Chat with us to discuss how we can help ensure your site is fully optimised and performing brilliantly on all technology.