Ever had a time when you tried to access a website on your phone but it appeared super zoomed or of low quality? That’s because you are a victim of an unresponsive website. Sure, a website is a great start to a business but an even greater boost is a responsive website.
Having a strong online presence is essential for any business. It’ll help even more to know the proper ways to run your website. Let’s break down the advantages of a responsive website and how it’ll help you in the long run.
Benefits of Having a Website for Your Business
We have stated that a website in a business is a necessity but not why. A website acts as a tool for establishing an online presence for any type of business. Think of it as a storefront for your shop/business but online.
Your website is a place where customers can make queries and hold transactions. It helps establish credibility with potential customers and engages them.
For any business, a website is an online representation of a company’s brand. Having a well-designed website will create a good image among customers. There’s a lot of SEO that goes on behind your website, but that’s for another time.
Having a website will significantly boost your brand awareness, sales, and customer engagement in the digital landscape. So don’t hold back on the thought of a website for your startup.
What is a Responsive Website?
As discussed before, a nonresponsive website is a big no for any customer trying to access your website.
It happens when your website is not optimized for smaller or larger screens. Your website should be capable to adapt to the different screen sizes that’ll enable more people to access it.
Responsive web design is a method of programming your website in such a way that the website can adapt to different screen sizes so that all images, content, and structure look the same. They’re well optimized, ensuring minimum confusion to customers while visiting your website.
Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Responsive Website
- Increased Mobile Traffic
A responsive website caters to not only bigger devices but mobile phones too. If you look at the current world trends, more than 50% of online searches are done through phones. Having a responsive website ensures your website can be easily navigated by phone users. Many businesses are yet to pick up on responsive websites. Be sure to not be one of them!
- Local SEO
It all comes down to statistics. More than 50% of internet searches are done through mobile phones. Out of those searches, more than 70% lead to a local business or a service. A responsive design helps local SEO by making search engine bots crawl your website more easily. Trying to ensure maximum user retention of local people for your website is the goal for any business.
Another technical aspect of your SEO lies in your URL. A responsive website dismisses the need for another website for both computer and mobile users. This brings maximum users to your website without diverging them. If your website is responsive, it will ultimately lead to higher traffic. - Better User Experience
If your website appears zoomed or pixelated on smaller screens, it will automatically make mobile users leave. Thus, a responsive website provides a better user experience by making your content easy to navigate and read on any device. By ensuring that your site is accessible to all types of devices, users will stay.
- Lower Bounce Rates
If users leave your website in a span of a few seconds, it means your website has a high bounce rate. A high bounce rate is a big no-no for any website. It’ll send a bad idea to the search engine, giving it the impression that your site has bad content.
Lowering your bounce rate has something to do with better user experience too. At least mobile users will stay on your site a tad bit longer. - Saves on Money
Having a responsive website helps you cut costs on multiple factors. Building a separate website for different types of devices can take a lot from a budget and is time-consuming. If you have just a single website, you can focus all your resources on a single task.
Not only will a responsive website save you money, but it’ll also help earn some too. Canonicalizing a single URL will drive more traffic to your site and provide a consistent user experience. - Improved Link building
Consistency is the key. With a responsive website, you will have more users that can access your site. A better user experience will likely end up in visitors sharing your website links on social media or other platforms.
Your website will only have a single URL. If there were multiple URLs, other websites that want to link to your content might be confused. A responsive website will help you by maintaining a single URL, making it easier for bots to crawl and websites to link to you. - Recommended by Google
Google themselves recommends a responsive website as the way to go. It mainly has to do with your URL. Since a responsive website can accommodate users with different types of devices, this approach helps search engine bots crawl and index your site faster.
A responsive page is also more likely to be discoverable by users. So if you were still wondering whether to have a responsive site or not, this is a greenlight that you should.
Is your website mobile-friendly? Head over to Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test here. - Faster Response Time
If an unresponsive website is opened on a mobile, it takes a longer time to load all the desktop resources. According to Googe PageSpeed Developers, content on a phone should load in under 1 second.
This isn’t possible with an unresponsive website. A responsive website can adapt its layout and functionality to the screen of the user. The faster loading, the less the user has to wait and the lower the bounce rate. - Better Maintenance
A responsive website eradicates the need for other websites for different types of devices. If that’s the case, then maintaining one website is more efficient and easier. Developers can focus on one website saving them a lot of time.
- Easier Auditing and Overview
It’s easier to oversee just a single website than multiple ones. That way you can focus on other important things rather than looking after websites. Since you only have to host a single website, your analytics team can deliver improved results by analyzing.
A responsive website helps developers optimize user experience by eliminating unnecessary clicks and improving viewability. More views and better user experience lead to increased conversion.