The Advantages of ‘Responsive Web Design’
Responsive Web Design is a new trend in web design. The reason for the introduction of responsive web design is the increase in the use of mobile devices to access the internet.
Consider the following statistics:
- In May of 2012, 7.6% of all web traffic in the U.S. was from mobile devices.
- Mobile web traffic increased 69% from the same period in 2010.
- Of the nearly 4 billion cell phones in the world, 1.08 billion are smart phones.
What is Responsive Web Design?
Responsive web design is the technique of creating a single web page that automatically adjusts to the screen size of the device that was used to access it. This is done through the use of cascading style sheets. Think of a cascading style sheet as the AP writing style guide you used in freshman lit when you were in school. A cascading style sheet creates a set of rules for displaying the information on a web page.
In a responsive website layout these style rules automatically detect the size of the screen being used to access the page and then adjust the code of the web page to fit it, whether it is a phone, tablet, laptop or monitor.
A few large business are already using responsive web design layouts to enhance their brand. A few of the most notable are Barack Obama’s campaign page (barackobama.com), Grey Goose (www.greygoose.com), and The Boston Globe (www.bostonglobe.com). If you have a smart phone or tablet you can open one of these pages and see how well this concept works.
Should you use a Responsive Web Design?
From the standpoint of your potential customer, having a site with a responsive web design leads to a better experience. No matter how they access your website the layout and navigation are very familiar. The pages look very similar because they are just getting a slimmed down version each time they jump down in size. That familiarity is comforting because they know where to find specific information and can expect it to be in the same place when they switch devices.
From a business standpoint a responsive web design is very advantageous because now you aren’t dealing with individual pages anymore for each type of mobile device. Your site can have a single web design that drives all devices instead of having to make an individual site for smart phones, tablets, and laptop / desktops. Having a responsive web design can result in savings due to lower update and maintenance costs.
Is it better for SEO / On-Line SEM Marketing?
The answer is YES! Having multiple sites splits your SEO efforts requiring separate campaigns for each website. A single site will focus all your SEO efforts and achieve higher rankings versus multiple sites.
You can also expect higher conversion rates because each of your customers will be able to interact with your website however they choose. Because the device used no longer matters as much, you may see an increase in returning visitors because it won’t matter what they use when they visit.
Also, since you are using only one site, your website analytics should be more accurate. This increase in accuracy will lead to better reports and more informed business decisions and effective on-line marketing campaigns.
What are the Costs Involved with Responsive Web Design
There is plenty of money to be saved with a responsive website design. While responsive development tends to be a bit more complex than traditional website design and, thusly a bit more expensive for the initial web development, website owners can easily save thousands of dollars with responsive web design services by eliminating the need for multiple versions of their website as well as the ongoing maintenance costs associated with multiple sites.
When considering moving to a Responsive Web Design for your website we recommend creating a new website. It is a much better idea than converting an existing site a little bit at a time which can cause broken links, confusion among vistiors and other headaches.
While there is an upfront cost to designing a responsive web page, from the long term standpoint you are investing in your business and should expect reduced maintenance costs, high search rankings and improved conversion rates to offset this investment.
Wi-Phye can Help You with your Web Design
With our Responsive Web Design service we consider Responsive Web Design Layouts when creating any new website for our clients. The cost of implementation is dramatically lower if this technique is include from the start.
For exiting websites the cost can still be kept under control if you are using one of the popular Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS). Both WordPress and Joomla offer thousands of pre-built responsive layouts and frameworks. With our WordPress Web Design service we can customize any of those responsive layout for your website.
If your potential customers are using multiple devices to access your site then Responsive Web Designs are an idea that needs serious investigation. Keeping in contact with customers is very important and providing the best customer service possible should be the goal for any business. A responsive layout can be used as a tool to meet this goal.
To learn more about Wi-Phye’s Responsive Web Design service, please feel free to contact us at any time.