Why you need a responsive website
Mobile devices accessed the internet more than desktop computers for the first time in October of 2016. This means that even small business owners should be paying attention to how their site works on a variety of devices. This trend isn’t likely to reverse anytime soon, so if your website isn’t mobile friendly, you might be losing over half your audience!
The mobile site design revolution
In times gone by, a website might redirect smartphone and tablet users to a different web address, usually starting with “mobile” or “m”. This took longer and sometimes took up more of the end user’s data, making it slow and frustrating.
Current web design thought is that everyone should be served from the same website, but with rules that make it a smoother user experience no matter what device is accessing it. Modern websites use conditional coding to change the display format to fit the size of screen that the user has. So, images will shrink to fit the width of the display area and buttons increase in size so they are easy to be clicked with a fingertip rather than a mouse pointer, for example.
Business operations
It is especially important a website works well on a mobile device for a signup form or an e-commerce shopping site – those are crucial business operational areas. The experience should be as seamless on a smartphone or tablet as it is on a laptop or desktop computer. The latest feature on many devices is a touchscreen capability, and this too should be taken into account.
A final reason that really seals the importance for a small business website is that Google has indicated that it will show preference to a site that caters to mobile devices. That means if your site is not mobile friendly, it could sink down the rankings of search engines!
Always adapting – the future of web design
One day, perhaps in the not too distant future, we’ll be asking small business owners to make their websites VR (Virtual Reality) or even hologram-friendly, but until the next big leap in communications technology, they need to understand that a responsive website is a must!
Need some web design that doesn’t leave your mobile customers in the dark? Why not get in touch with HungryWolf® today?