How can you enable your website visitors to find key information faster and easier? With so many different mobile devices and the increased use of Smartphones to access the web, it all comes down to responsive web design. Responsive design allows for site content to adapt and fit on almost any screen and device while providing visitors with an optimized user experience.
Does My Business Really Need Responsive Web Design?
Responsive design offers much more than just resizing a website to fit a smaller screen. It also encompasses easier readability and faster accessibility for on-the-go audiences to reduce your bounce rate. And hard data doesn’t lie. A recent study showed that 61% of people have a better opinion of brands when they offer a good mobile experience (NPEngage).
When designing for mobile experiences, as devices get smaller website content should be trimmed. First, think about what goals you want to achieve with your website. Whether it’s a phone call, form submission or shopping cart checkout, responsive design streamlines this process by making those goals easy to achieve. It can make your CTA’s (Calls-to-Action) pop while diminishing other information on the website.
This could involve offering fewer options on a menu, eliminating a sidebar, introducing large tap-friendly icons for phone and email and/or increasing the size of important buttons, such as “Submit,” “Add to Cart” or “Buy.” Since mobile screens are smaller and mobile networks are slower, it’s important to regularly analyze site traffic patterns to find out what your users are looking for on the go. Work with your designer to determine what should stay and what could be eliminated. Then deliver what’s needed in a fast, intuitive way.
Cases in point: despite the difference in products offered, big companies like Starbucks or Under Armour provide responsive websites that are straightforward and easy to navigate. Visit Under Armour’s site and notice how the images get smaller on a tablet and categories turn into text links on a phone. The information isn’t gone; instead it’s compressed for a smoother and quicker browsing experience.
Discover what a responsive site can do for your business.
What If I Don’t Have A Responsive Website?
If you don’t, your visitors might not stick around for very long. Think of the last time you had problems scrolling through a website on your phone yourself. Did the text look so small that it was hard to read? Did the images take forever to load? Perhaps they didn’t load at all. A pool of potential customers might be facing the same issues if your website isn’t responsive.
In fact, 73% of mobile users say that they’ve encountered a website that was too slow to load (KISSmetrics). A mobile phone is very different from a desktop and should be designed to function as such. A Smartphone might take a long time to load, which is caused by having large images and/or unnecessary code. Flash sites won’t load at all on Apple devices. Converting to responsive design can enhance a consumer’s overall mobile experience and positively impact leads and sales.
How Can I Make Improvements Today?
Mobile users want information fast and it has to be easy to find. Statistics show that 1 out of 3 Smartphone users search specifically for contact info such as phone numbers, maps and driving directions (Search Engine Watch). This means that these are key features that should be displayed on a responsive website. Under Armour’s site is a great example. On a mobile phone, it has icons for directions, a search bar, and the shopping cart is easily accessible.
Responsive web design is one of the best investments you can make for your website. It doesn’t just adapt info and data to fit to any sized screen, it gives customers the quickest and best possible user experience.
Of course, it makes perfect sense to have your website developers implement responsive design when creating or updating your business’s website. Active Web Group can implement responsive design with smooth scalability along with improved search engine optimization (SEO) for top Google rankings. Our responsive designers are skilled in using smaller images and utilize other key tactics when a smaller screen is detected either on a Smartphone or tablet for the best possible user experience and greater sales conversions.
