What is Responsive Website Design?
Responsive web design refers to a website designed to work properly in regular computer and also on tablets and smartphones. It's created to use the same resources from the desktop site, but display it's information in a way that is appropriate to any device visitors might be using to see the site.
Why is a responsive website important?
Nowadays most of us have a smartphone at hand pretty much all day long, and almost all of these smartphones allows access to Internet. So, it becomes very easy for anyone to check the Internet for anything related to a conversation, idea or desire that they may have at that instant. This checking something on their phone means that your products or services should be there for anyone to find them, at any time they search for it.
The problem comes when your site is not coded to be displayed correctly for these devices people are using while trying look for your product. If your site is not easy to navigate the visitor's first reaction will be to click back into their search engines results and look for another company where they feel more comfortable to make their purchase. Depending on your industry that one lost sale could cover all or part of your entire investment of having your site responsive. Had that been purchase made, without taking into consideration the loss of presence and customers awareness that you may also might have lost because of how hard it seemed to navigate your site.
How can I have a responsive website designed?
There is many ways but you should always look at what your market is about and based on that take a decision. Since last year Google and other Search Engines have been putting a lot of attention on this matter and giving preference to responsive websites over non-responsive ones in their search results. You should have a responsive website design that besides looking good it also flows nicely when browsing your site. If you are providing a service, a phone number and contact form should be always visible for your visitors to click and convert them into a client. However if your goal is selling then your popular products should be presented to the visitor as soon as possible. Every little advantage matters.
Why not to have an App build then?
This question have several answers but the main one is that everyone have a limited amount of space in their phones. Also, just creating an app (without taking in consideration the cost of it) does not guaranty that people will download and install it just to make purchases or contact you. These are all simple actions they can do by just visiting your website.
One more thing to consider is the fact that there are several different types of smart phones, the must popular ones being iPhones, Android, Windows and Blackberry, while many more are sure to come by in the future. You would need to have a different app for each of then and this can definitely drain your budget.
And all that without taking in consideration all the hurdles the app stores normally give you; your app have to follow certain requirements in order to be accepted by them and not following them 100% may bring a red flag on your project. Something else to think about is the time you will have to spend waiting and working with your selected developers while they area creating each of these apps and the frustrations to pass by while in this process. We've been designing and developing phone apps and tablet application for a long time, so we have first hand experience on what we are talking about.
Ok then... so a responsive website should look like a phone App?
Most of the responsive websites we create always try this approach but this is not always the best approach. Sometimes it is easier to give the visitor the feeling that they are browsing an app but this is not always the best idea. It all depend on your industry and how you expect your responsive site to behave on each situation, (phone sizes, phone orientations, phone versions and so on).
One more thing to take in consideration is page speed. You want your responsive website to load fast as possible since most of your visitor will be connected to their Internet using their data connection (not WiFi) and sometimes these connections can be very very slow. The company in charge of the creation of your responsive site be aware of this and have the technology and all the needed codes and optimizations to make this happen. This is where many web design companies fail. If the code is not optimized for this purpose, its like having a non-responsive website; your visitors will behave in the exactly same way by just not waiting on it to load and clicking back to look for one of your competitors with a better website.
How can I start?
We have been doing responsive web design and responsive web development for several years now and have the experience to tackle pretty much any project, so give us a call!! You have nothing to loose and a lot to gain!
