Businesses thriving online know the importance of a responsive website. Today’s customers are accessing and engaging with online businesses through a variety of devices – laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones and wearable devices. Since you don’t know what medium your audience is using to access your website, it’s a sensible thing to build a responsive website.
What is a Responsive Website?
A responsive website is one that realigns itself according to the device it is accessed, irrespective of which platform was used to build it. Such a website reflows and rescales automatically, depending on the device screen size.
Why it is important to build a responsive website?
Let’s put this into perspective through some data:
- Mobile Internet usage will equal desktop usage in 2014, says a Morgan Stanley report.
- 40% people will opt for other search results if a website is not mobile-friendly, says iAquire.com report.
- 61% people form better brand opinion if its website offers a great user experience, according to Smart Insights report.
- 55% of social media consumption happens on mobile devices, according to ComScore report.
With increased mobile and tablet penetration in the market, it is but a lost opportunity if any business doesn’t build a responsive website.
10 Reasons to Build a Responsive Website
Let’s see some benefits of developing a responsive website.
1) Maintain Consistent Branding
A responsive website is built from the scratch to fulfill the needs of all device users. The website will load in the same manner for a desktop visitor and a smartphone user. The users are treated to consistent user experience, leading to consistent branding.
2) Google Prefers Responsive Websites
Why only Google? It IS the search engine giant and you wouldn’t want to be on its bad side, right! A responsive website is a recommended feature of Google’s mobile configuration terms and conditions. Scanning and indexing a website which flexibly renders on all platforms and using the same URL is a preferred choice than creating a new website/URL for different devices.
3) Build Social Visibility
If your brand is active on social media or there is a strategy to enter the social media market, remember that 55% of social media consumption happens on mobile devices. Therefore, a responsive website will ensure a unified social sharing and interaction options on all accessible devices.
4) Reduced Maintenance and Marketing Costs
Creating different company websites for multiple devices is not only expensive but requires a separate continued budget for website maintenance. Secondly, the marketing team needs to device different strategies for promotion, necessitating higher marketing budget. Both the costs can be controlled if you build a responsive website.
5) No Pinching, Zooming or Fiddling
Usually, if a non-responsive website is viewed on a smartphone, the user has to zoom and pinch the screen to focus on the content, which is big hurdle towards user experience. Frustrated with the user experience, the user is likely to leave the website. In contrast, no pinching, fiddling or zooming happens if you build a responsive website. It is simpler to load content, consume information and share it. It works seamlessly.
6) Better Page Load and Lower Bounce Rates
Visitors want consistent user experience. They are likely to stick around if your website content is easily found, quick to load and truly engaging. People aren’t going to stick around for more than few seconds waiting for the page to load. In other words, this means loss of direct revenue and potential leads. A responsive website removes this hurdle by blazing fast loading speed and lower bounce rates.
7) Increase in Revenue
The shopping industry is worth billions and according to The Internet Retailer, 22 million USD is the projected sales through smartphones in 2015! You’re missing out on a big opportunity if you don’t build a responsive website now. Are you ready to leave a huge money making opportunity on the table?
8) Blog Popularity
If blogging is a part of business marketing strategy, you can’t ignore audiences from smartphones and tablets. Blogs enjoy higher influence than it did before and if your blog content is awesomely rocking, people are going to find it. Why waste the opportunity to convert them into customers? In short, if you’ve a business blog, a responsive website is mandatory for quality user experience.
9) Unified SEO Strategy
Without a responsive website, you need to employ different SEO strategies to ensure the website’s visibility across all platforms. This not only raises business costs but becomes time-consuming and difficult to track and manage. A responsive website offers all facets of a search engine optimized website. In short, it is optimized for higher search rankings on all platforms.
10) Customer Satisfaction
This is the ultimate goal of any online business and a responsive website delivers just that and more!
If you want to build a responsive website, check out the services offered by Nexus.
Endnote
A responsive website is a must requirement for any online endeavor.
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