The Importance of Responsive Website Design

What device does your audience use to access your website?

Chances are you can’t be certain, and now days there are so many different devices your audience can pick from. Whether they use a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone it is best to prepare and optimise your website for every potential, otherwise your website may end up looking clunky, jumbled, poorly designed and in some cases, it will even become unresponsive and not load. This is why responsive web design is so important.

Not only does it craft a positive user experience for your audience when engaging with your website, but responsive web design can help boost your SEO, improve your load speeds, future proof your website as technology improves and it allows users to interact with your brand on the go and all from the one website.

So how do we optimise our websites to allow for responsive web design?

Luckily many modern website platforms include the ability to format your website in a way that caters for different sized screens and devices. If yours doesn’t, there are a few coding tricks that can be used to adapt your content to different screen sizes. Discuss with your website designer the best way to do this to make your content eye-catching and fluid between devices.

Having your website accessible from one universal URL also helps to improve SEO. Gone are the days where you need to run multiple sites to adapt to your audience’s devices.

Optimising your site’s design to cater for different devices will also help improve SEO ranking, as search engines (especially Google) prioritise mobile-friendly sites.

Next, your audience shouldn’t have to zoom in or out, or even endlessly scroll, to understand or find the information they need. When optimised correctly for different devices your website should be easy to navigate, have enhanced usability, to reduce frustration and improve overall engagement.

This can be done through;

• Adjusting text, image and button sizes accordingly.

• Simplify form details, so that can be quickly filled out from a smart phone.

• Keep things interesting, by breaking up long sections of text, as it can come across as quite daunting on a small screen.

• Improving your loading speed.

• Brand consistency.

Improve your loading speed. Slow loading websites accumulate a higher bounce rate as many people don’t have the patience to wait to find out if your website is going to help them or not, this can be a matter of seconds. Ideally you want your page to load in 1-3 seconds. The faster it loads, the better the user experience and response. To help reduce loading times, you should optimise your images and other elements according to the device they are loading on. Compressing image files without jeopardising quality is a good way to do this.

Having a responsive web design is also a great way to ensure your brand looks good, and flows smoothly across different devices. It’s more than just appearance though, it’s creating a seamless transition between devices, to adapt to the user’s style and needs. Creates an enjoyable user experience, improves usability, enhances SEO and influences the overall success of your website.

Including optimised location content also helps users when interacting with your site. Including getting directions to your physical store easily on their phones, ensuring your business shows up when they search for “business” near me, etc.

If appropriate, you may even consider offering your website in app form. This increases usability for your audience if they need to interact with your brand regularly, this is ideal for shopping, courses and websites where someone may need to access information quickly and regularly.

All in all, responsive website design ensures that you and your audience can have peace of mind, that they can quickly and easily access your website, from anywhere, anytime and from any device.

Until next time, Happy Writing!

Does your website need a revamp to ensure that it is not only helps to showcase and sell your product and service, but it looks great, targets your target market and is responsive to different screens? Then join The Digital Branding Journey, where you will not only learn the key branding & copywriting secrets for success, but I will deep dive into your business and tailor my services to your brand specifically to help you find your unique voice, establish your brand identity, generate leads, increase your traffic and build your presence online through engaging creative content.

Hi there! I’m Kaeleigh, a Digital Branding Consultant with a focus on Digital Marketing, Creative Copywriting & Content Creation, who helps business owners and entrepreneurs generate leads, increase traffic and build their brands through engaging creative content.