Does Your Web Designer Company Deliver Responsive Web Design?
Caity Lavelle | April 2, 2022
The internet has increased access to mobile devices. So, it is no longer advantageous to have a website that only looks good on a desktop screen. Every business now requires a mobile version of its website. Research shows that over 50% of website traffic comes from smartphones. However, it is challenging to keep up with the countless new mobile devices that are being introduced daily. You cannot have a website for the iPhone, iPad, and the increasing number of android devices. Fortunately, thanks to responsive web design and the greatest web design companies, we can have a well-structured website that looks the same on all mobile devices with different resolutions.
What is Responsive Web Design?
Smartphones have advanced since their inception, and they are now part of our daily lives. A smartphone is something you cannot do without, regardless of what industry or work sector you belong to. Besides keeping you connected, a smartphone ensures a smooth flow of operations and keeps you updated.
About two billion people worldwide access the internet through their smartphones. If you are a digital marketer, you will want to tap into this opportunity and meet endless customers. However, you must have a website to compete in the online world. If you create a desktop-only website, it will be frustrating to swipe it on a smartphone screen.
People judge a website within the first few seconds of opening it, meaning that you cannot risk causing inconveniences in accessing the site on mobile devices. Fortunately, responsive web design is here to save you from this hassle. Responsive web design is responsible for keeping your customers on your site. So, we can define responsive web design as an approach used by web designers to develop a web page that automatically resizes itself according to the screen size. This ensures that your website responds to user behaviour and the environment, providing a smooth user experience.
Why is Responsive Web Design Essential?
A responsive web design can help you reach a broader audience wherever and however they choose to browse. Customers will alienate your site without a responsive website and go for your competitor’s engaging and mobile-friendly site. Here are the benefits of a responsive web design.
Helps Customers Discover Your Website
Most people access the internet through Google. The search engine penalises websites that are not responsive by ranking them lower in the SERPs. Google’s mobile-first indexing can impact the ranking of your website since it will favour sites with a mobile-friendly design. So, your customers will not find your website, especially since people rarely go to page two of the results page.
Keeps Consumers on Your Website
Every smartphone user expects a website to load within three seconds and offer a quality user experience. Google also expects the same. Fortunately, these are requirements you can meet with a responsive web design.
Brand Recognition
Most customers will not recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile website. Online shoppers who get a disappointing website experience will negatively perceive your company. A responsive web design will delight your customers, encouraging them to return for more and refer your business to others.
How Can You Make Your Website Responsive?
A leading web designer Adelaide uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to make a responsive website. These are design languages that control the content and layout of a page in a web browser. However, you can also use a content management system (CMS) or website builder. A CMS does not require prior coding knowledge since the system will guide you on what to do. Some of the popular CMS systems include WordPress, CMS Hub, and Squarespace.
Professional web designers use CSS to enable your website to serve different style properties depending on the screen size, orientation, resolution, and other characteristics of the user’s device. HTML controls the structure, elements, and content of your web page.
You can use your web browser to check whether your website is responsive.
Open your Google Chrome browser
Click on your website
Go to DevTools
Toggle the device toolbar by pressing Ctrl + Shift + M
Check your page from a mobile, tablet, or desktop perspective
You can also use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check whether your website is responsive.
What are the Responsive Web Design Best Practices?
Even if you use a CMS or site builder to create your website, it cannot compensate for mobile-friendly content and media since this is up to you. Here are some responsive web design practices to help you create a responsive website.
Use Buttons
After attracting visitors to your site, you want them to take action. The best way for them to take action is by clicking a call-to-action (CTA). So, you must understand how your customers interact with these buttons. Will your CTAs pop up, scroll, or remain at the bottom of your web page? Ensure you evaluate how your mobile visitors can access these buttons. Also, consider the size of your clickable area on your mobile site. Your desktop users use a mouse to click buttons. However, your mobile visitors use fingers to navigate your site. So, your mobile site must have clickable elements. Experts recommend using a height of at least 48 pixels.
Use Scalable Vector Graphics
If your site has illustrations, ensure they are formatted as scalable vector graphics (SVGs). You can scale SVGs infinitely, unlike other media formats like JPGs and PNGs. SVGs provide a high-quality browsing experience for users on any device.
Use Scalable Images
Your images should also scale since they will change size on different devices. Ensure you upload different image resolutions and designate which image you want to display on each device.
Why Do You Need to Switch to Responsive Web Design
If you check your traffic, you will realise that most visitors get to your website through mobile devices. A responsive web design is not the ultimate saviour, but it will protect you from the ever-changing mobile world. If implemented correctly, a responsive web design can improve the user experience. You can tailor your website for someone with an old device and the vast majority with modern gadgets. In this way, you will create an excellent customer experience for everyone. As a business owner, this is something you should always strive to achieve since a widely accessible website means more traffic.
A responsive website will also allow you to analyse your website in one place. Since you will use one responsive interface, all your web traffic is gathered in one place regardless of the device it comes from. This also means that you will not need many dashboards for your analytics, keeping your data structured and in one place.
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Call our experts at Marketing Sweet today if you are ready to switch to responsive web design.
Other Resources You Might Like
WebFX. Need a Website Designer? 5 Painless Steps to Find Pro Designers
https://www.webfx.com/web-design/learn/need-website-designer/
Wes McDowell. How to Find a Web Designer — 5 Valuable Questions
Wuhoo Digital. Everything about Web Design in 3 minutes.
Seattle Web Search. What Is Responsive Web Design and Why Is It Important?
Business.com. How to Hire a Great Web Developer by Matt D’Angelo.
https://www.business.com/articles/tips-hiring-great-web-developer/