A responsive website design is an approach towards developing a website in such a manner that it is accessible and viewable on any kind of device, regardless of its screen size and resolution. In today’s era, each passing day is a step further towards technological advancement. As it continues to advance, portable devices such as smartphones and tablets, with a variety of sizes and specifications, have become popular among people.
A digital market study by google showed that 9 out of 10 people switch between devices in order to accomplish a single online task. Amid these developments in the tech world, responsive website design has become a hot topic in the business scene and businesses of all kinds are getting accustomed to having their own responsive websites.
As user expectations continue to increase, the market competition is getting greater than ever and businesses are striving towards making the best use of currently available opportunities. For this reason, a business of any kind needs to have a responsive website of its own. Discussed below are 6 reasons that describe why it is essential for businesses to have a responsive website today.
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Time and cost-effectiveness.
The responsive design approach eliminates the need to develop separate stand-alone mobile applications along with a standard desktop website. It is simpler for a web application development company to develop a responsive site with a single URL optimized to be adjusted according to the different devices. As a result, it saves the development time, cost and effort significantly and thus, businesses don’t have to pay much to have their own responsive websites.
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Better browsing experience.
One of the most important reasons to have a responsive site is the user experience. The end goal for any business is to satisfy the user’s expectations and for this reason, it is crucial for a user to have a positive experience visiting a business’s website. In an era where users are switching between multiple devices while browsing, an unresponsive site may not offer a satisfactory viewing experience across all devices. Images may be out of alignment, and users may have to shrink, pinch, and zoom a lot. A responsive website prevents all of these problems and smooth user interaction is assured.
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Better SEO.
The higher a site is ranked in the search engine rankings, the more traffic it ensures. That’s why SEO is vital for any business website and having a single URL, a responsive site significantly improves the SEO efforts. Separate mobile and desktop sites have separate links and it’s not easy to rank all of them high in the search engine rankings. With a responsive site, all the external links can be redirected to a single URL whether they are on a desktop or a smartphone, and as a result, the SEO gets easier and better.
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Lower bounce rate.
In times when the attention span of users has been significantly reduced, a lower bounce rate is one of the most important advantages of responsive web design. Bounce rate refers to how often users give up on a website without triggering another request, or simply after having a single-page session. Given the user experience it provides across devices, a responsive website is pivotal in keeping the users engaged on the site for as long as they need to, exploring all the different sections. In contrast, an unresponsive site will not help much in this case and users will probably bounce to another website if faced with difficulties accessing the site.
Also Read: What is PHP for Web Development
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Easy to maintain.
Maintaining two different versions of a single adaptive site will trouble the developing team more and will cost more time, effort and money. Whereas it would be a lot easier to maintain a responsive site with a single URL for all devices. A web update will only have to be done once and will be automatically adapted to all devices. Similarly, if a problem arises with the code of your site, all you need to do is develop, test, and release updates to one single URL.
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Better conversion rate and business growth.
With lower bounce rates and better user experience, responsive web design surely helps increase the number of customers and consequently more growth for a business. It is important if a customer trusts a brand because trust generates revenue. Having a website that looks clean and is easy to use across a broad spectrum of devices builds customer satisfaction and as a result, creates trust. This is the reason most marketers recommend having a responsive design for a business to have more customers and growth.
The bottom line.
All in all, a responsive website will save you time, money, and effort in the long run. Not only will it cost less to develop and maintain the site, but the revenue generated by customers will be higher as well. Considering these factors, businesses should immediately start thinking about having a responsive website if they do not already have one.