Five Reasons Why a Responsive Website Design is a Must

If you have ever tried to open a website on a tablet or smart phone that was not optimized for mobile viewing with the frustrating pinch and zooming action with your thumb and index finger, then you have a solid understanding of how important responsive website design is for user access on mobile devices. Responsive web design is an approach of laying out a website so that the page will provide an optimal viewing experience for ease of reading and navigation across a wide variety of devices, ranging from the standard desktop to mobile phones. But, why is it so important for websites in 2014? Read on to find the top five reasons why a responsive web design is crucial for business and personal websites to get noticed.

1. Positive User Experience

While content and discoverability are foremost at building a successful website that draws potential customers, their user experience after clicking on your website often determines how your business or brand will be judged. According to Google’s Think Insights, more than 60 percent of mobile users who are frustrated with the design of a website will leave immediately and most likely end up tapping on a competitor’s website instead. On the flip side, the survey indicates that 67 percent of users who have a pleasant experience on a mobile website will buy the business’ product or sign up for a service. As a result, responsive web design is structured to provide the best experience for all Internet users to increase the likelihood for profitability.

2. Mobile Phone Usage is Skyrocketing

In this day and age, people are on the go nearly 24 hours of the day and require accessing websites or content searches at the touch of a finger on a mobile device. As no surprise, Internet traffic on mobile devices is rising exponentially every single day among vast populations of individuals who are constantly browsing. After all, nearly one-fourth of all Google searches are being performed from a mobile device and more than half of all local searches are accessed on smart phones. Therefore, responsive web design accommodates the busy professionals during the day and the wide-awake college students in the early morning hours needing access to the Internet from all of their favorite devices.

3. Savings on Both Time and Money

Despite the fact that making a responsive website can be considerably more expensive than making a conventional website, many businesses fail to realize that there are actually a number of savings that can be highly profitable. For instance, total development costs are usually cut significantly due to the fact that there will not need to be a duplicate website template created for mobile devices. There is also less total ownership costs because there is no longer the effort to maintain two separate desktop and mobile versions. Consequently, investing in a responsive web design is the wisest choice in the long term for dramatically cutting maintenance costs.

4. Preferred Approach for Search Engine Optimization

When businesses hire a WordPress developer to create a responsive design website, there is usually a direct correlation with their success in search engine optimization (SEO) as well. This is a direct consequence of the fact that Google and other popular search engines strongly prefer responsive designed websites over mobile templates. Since there is just one single URL needed for bot to crawl through the website instead of multiple, Google’s algorithm responds more efficiently and reduces the chance of SEO errors.

5. Adaptability to Future Mobile Devices

As technology continues to evolve with advancements nearly every week, it is extremely beneficial to build a responsive website that will still look beautiful on all new devices that will be used for web browsing in the future. Since responsive web design involves a template that is designed based on screen size rather than device, the website will still be displayed properly for that screen size regardless of the particular device being used. When your website has the ability to adapt to all technology changes, there will be no limit to the growth of your business.

With some individuals exclusively accessing the Internet on their smart phone or tablet, trends for 2014 seem to indicate that business’ websites need to make sure their website is responsive to keep up with competition. In fact, a recent study conducted by eMarketer demonstrates that nearly 40 percent of Internet users will access websites through their mobile devices on a daily basis and that responsive design websites have a higher retention rate for longer periods of time. Therefore, it is highly recommended that small business owners hire a WordPress developer to build a responsive website design that keeps potential customers interested!