Friday, 23 May 2014

Why Responsive Web design is crucial for small businesses

Responsive Web Design has been catching up, a bit slower than it should but it’s getting there. 83% of new business sites are now responsive and that’s what yours should be too. In case you aren’t familiar with the term responsive web design, here’s a brief definition to cover the basic concept in a nut shell:
“Responsive Web Design is a technique using which websites retract and deform to spontaneously fit the size of a user’s screen allowing them to view and work with your site no matter what device is used to access the web.”
Web Designers across the globe christened 2013 as the year of Responsive Web Design as most businesses both small and large switched over to this amazing technology. It began with news sites a few years ago as they wanted people to catch up while in transit. However, with the increase in smartphone traffic to E-commerce sites, many businesses now have responsive shopping carts and payment gateways! How cool is that?
If you’re still contemplating whether or not you should switch over or create your new business site based on a responsive theme, here are a few benefits to show you what you’d be missing out on:

Reach a Wider Audience

Tablet sales over the span of 2014 are expected to cross 150 million in worldwide sales and hence there are going to be many new people browsing via smaller screens. Traditionally users would be redirected to a mobile site, but what are the dimensions going to be? Every Tablet and Smartphone has screens of varied dimensions – the solution to this problem is Responsive Web Design.

Increase in Sales and Overall Conversion Rates

Another major benefit of responsive design is the fact that the user isn’t redirected from the desktop site to the mobile site. This was one of the main reasons which led to bounces as mobile internet connections are relatively slow and not many people have the patience to wait.
Customers don’t always buy the moment they land on your site. They’d probably check your site out while traveling back home or when they’re having a cup of coffee at work and they’d probably return home and visit your desktop site in order to purchase, but if the look and feel is different they may not feel welcomed and hence visit another site instead.
Responsive websites have the same style sheets and hence the overall appearance is the same across all devices. Responsive sites have an approximated 5% increase in conversion rate, which is huge monetarily.

Better Analytics and Reporting

You’re also going to be helping out your online marketers as they would be able to keep track of all your stats in one go. Consolidation of reports is a very powerful feature that responsive web design has made possible. Using these details your marketing agency would be able to make better informed decisions and hence improve your sales month after month.

Improved visibility on Search Engines

When you have a single responsive website you can consolidate your link building strategies. You wouldn’t have to separately build links for both sites to rank them well. Moreover, today search engines especially Google and Bing stress on responsive web design and sites that lack this feature find it harder to rank well, because the main goal of search engines is to offer a better user experience.

Save up on Mobile Development

Responsive websites are easier to create compared to setting up an entire standalone mobile website. Also, once you get the basic framework of the responsive site setup you don’t really need to bother with it again. Just update your desktop site with new features and content and you would see it reflect on all devices.

You’re not staying ahead of the trend


A few years ago you could say that you were ahead of your times when you had a responsive website, but today that’s not the case, it’s more of a necessity. So, don’t fall back, address this issue as quickly as you can, you don’t want to regret it when you see your competitors doing better than you.

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