5 Profitable Reasons You Should Have a Responsive Website

What is better than a website you can flawlessly view on any screen size? A responsive website is smart, courteous, compelling, and, as it turns out, is great for business.

You’re able to view it on your laptop, your mobile phone, and your tablet with no problem. It’s thoughtfully laid out and makes excellent use of the space it occupies regardless of the size of the device.

If you are still on the fence or caught up between whether you should develop a separate mobile site, keep reading. We’ve worked in creating responsive sites for years, and below are fives business cases for why responsive design is your best bet.

Responsive Websites are Versatile 

According to research, upwards of 77% of Americans own a smartphone these days. Nearly everyone is becoming more deeply connected to the virtual world through social media, shopping, watching their favorite shows, and so on.

Businesses are expected to have a website, and since the traffic to web pages is coming more and more often from smartphones, it only makes sense to make sure that every business website is responsive to the many types of screens that are used for viewing that content. Regardless of the demographics you target, the use of mobile devices is up across generations, age groups, and geographic regions. Chances are your website will be accessed through a phone or a tablet.

By all means, create a fantastic user experience through your desktop website. Bear in mind that because so many people would be accessing it via their mobile device, if the website does not load well on a different screen or isn’t optimized for it, you will be delivering a less-than-stellar experience for a significant number of that audience.

A non-responsive website is stopping halfway to the finish line. Go that extra mile and cater to a fast growing population of smartphone and other device users.

You Have the Competitive Edge 

If you’re a small business owner and you make the decision to create a responsive website, you’re already ahead of the game. Only around 30% of small businesses have a responsive website.

Due to the nature of responsive websites, people love the ones that load fast, are well-suited for small screens, are easy to navigate and scroll through, and also intuitively laid out for them to find the relevant information and make quick purchase decisions.

Google Food 

Google’s popularity stems from their ability to bring their users quickly to the best and most relevant search results.

Even with desktop searches, the quality of a website and the relevance of content on it makes a tremendous difference to its search rank.

What would be preferable to users – 1) a website perfectly optimized for their phones and tablets, loads fast, keeps up with trends and makes it super easy to find the information they need on the go or 2) a website that looks exactly the same as it does on the desktop, takes forever to load, and has so many menus and content that users don’t know where to look, or they keep clicking on the wrong buttons because there are so many of them situated close to each other.

Most consumers would prefer the first scenario, which is why Google rewards responsive websites with a better showing in mobile search results. You think about that for a minute and let the importance of a responsive web design sink in.

Sharing Made Easy 

In addition to scoring a better ranking and receiving greater traffic, the content on a responsive site would also get shared more because it would be easy to do so. All those social buttons conveniently located right below an informative blog post? Why wouldn’t people share it?

It would also become easier for users to share the website url itself if the content is top-quality and highly relevant to their needs.

While a desktop website with similar attributes would perform well, too, it might create a minor inconvenience for its users to share content if it is not fully optimized for mobile, which has different needs. Besides, if a website is responsive, it will work equally well on the devices of the folks you share the content with. Think of all the potential readers!

Users Benefit From a Responsive Website 

Here’s a scenario: It’s your boss’s birthday and you are buying her a gift, but you forget to confirm the order and it’s left sitting in your cart, her birthday drawing nearer. Then, the seller sends you a notification that there’s something left in your cart. You’re at lunch and away from your laptop, so you quickly open the website and complete the purchase, saving yourself from showing up empty-handed to the party.

Only a responsive web design can offer that kind of experience to users when they move from one device to another. Think of all the potential business you would lose if you had to wait for the user to return to their computer.

The mobile world moves quickly. It’s important for businesses to understand the changing consumer behavior, patterns, and preferences and adapt accordingly. It’s not about adhering to some trend, but understanding why a trend is popular and how it can affect your business. When you look at it that way, you will find no reason not to switch to a responsive design with urgency.

If you’re looking for a software partner to create a responsive website for your mobile customers, let us know. For over 25 years we’ve worked with people like you to create compelling, user-friendly solutions for growing their businesses.