The Basics Of Responsive Web Design
People have increasingly been using phones to do their browsing for years now. The fact that these devices are much more portable and easy to use than a desktop has also made them a convenient shopping outlet. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic also significantly impact how much you should prioritize your web presence. Because shopping in person has become difficult and even dangerous for some, many consumers have turned to online shopping for their everyday needs. If you’re looking for Portland web design professionals who specialize in responsive design, then you’re in the right place.
As a result, your website, whether lead generation or eCommerce, must work perfectly to cultivate customer interest and convert effectively. This means ensuring your website is attractive, loads quickly, and is optimized for SEO. You may also be wondering, “How do I maximize my site’s responsive design and make it look good and work properly on all devices?” The answer is responsive web design and potentially the assistance of a responsive web design agency.
In this post, we’ll answer the following important questions about responsive web design and its role in your website.
- What is responsive web design?
- How does responsive web design affect SEO?
- Why should I consider responsive web design?
- How do I make my website responsive?
It’s Just Practical
Manually creating multiple versions of your website would be impossibly tedious and need hours on hours of man-hours. A responsive site that can automatically adjust to a large 17-inch laptop, or the smallest 4-inch smartphone, is by far the most practical solution rather than spending valuable development time creating separate versions of it.
Responsive Website Design Is Timeless
Adopting responsive means that you will save time changing your site in the future. The frequency at which companies are releasing new devices is ever-increasing, so ensuring your design is responsive now means that your site can evolve and adapt to new technology years into the future
Google Prefers Responsive Web Design
Search engines have realized just how necessary a good mobile experience is with mobile's overwhelming dominance for search volume. For example, Google now (as of September) uses mobile-first indexing. This means it crawls the mobile version of your content, essentially prioritizing the mobile experience over its desktop equivalent. If your mobile site loads slowly and the design does not adjust appropriately according to the device size, this negatively impacts user experience and, subsequently, your SEO ranking. Your website could be buried in the search engine results pages (SERPs) simply because your design is not responsive.
Responsive web design is paramount now, but future changes will further its importance even more. Google has a major ranking update due to land sometime in Q1 2021 called Core Web Vitals, and it has already begun to set the expectations for what this means for webmasters and responsive web design agencies. This update is entirely focused on online user experience, so if your website is not user-friendly (AKA responsive) by then, your website will not be able to compete in the highly competitive online marketplace. If your site is not already responsive, you need to be proactive and make the necessary changes now.
