If Your Website Is Not Responsive, It May As Well Not Exist

The days of desktop-only websites are long gone, as the world is becoming more mobile with each passing day. Over 90% of the global population, including 85% of Americans, are now using smartphones to access websites.

Gone are the days when you could just put your website up and expect people to find it.

People are no longer browsing websites solely on their computers. In fact, the explosion of handheld devices has flipped this trend on its head, where now many websites are seeing more traffic originating from mobile devices over desktop devices.

At this point, if your site is not responsive and you are not providing an optimized browsing experience to mobile site visitors, you are essentially asking your customer to adapt to you. When it should be you that is adapting to this change in customer behavior.

With most prospects researching a brand before engaging with it, having a responsive website is no longer a “nice to have” but a necessity for any brand.

What Is a Responsive Site?

A responsive website adapts to the device it's being viewed on. This means viewing your site on a desktop computer; you'll see one layout. If you switch over to a mobile or tablet (or any other device), the site automatically changes and provides a browsing experience optimized to those different screen sizes.

Why Should Your Website Be Responsive?

It's no secret that people use their smartphones and tablets more than desktop computers. Considering the essential purpose of your website, you should invest in its responsiveness for these reasons.

Better Experiences for Your Customers

The modern customer has high expectations of their interactions with brands. The website experience is no exception. Providing a positive customer experience online should be a priority.

This positive experience ensures your existing customers and prospects can access your website—or any other service you provide—on different devices. The last thing you want to do is provide bad experiences - in the form of slow load speeds, cumbersome navigation, boring designs, or oddly shaped images. Such challenges are the leading cause of users bouncing from a website, never to return.

A responsive website optimizes the browsing experience for the device on which the visitor views the site. The goal is to provide the same positive experience across ALL devices. Such a site will improve customer satisfaction, increase customer loyalty and give you more opportunities for feedback that can help you improve your services in the future. Not to mention a 10 - 15% boost in revenue for your brand. When you provide positive experiences, your customers will spread the word.

Flexibility,  Freedom, and Scalability

Users want the flexibility to access your site via any device—and it will look good on any device– rather than exclusively via mobile devices. When implementing a responsive site, you make it easier for your users to interact with your brand on the device of their choosing.

In the past, to create an experience optimized for mobile devices, publishers created a completely separate site optimized for mobile devices (i.e., the m.yoursitename.com approach). This did improve the experience for site visitors, but it was expensive for creators - as they were then maintaining two sites.

The responsive approach to website design aims to solve this problem for creators. Rather than building multiple sites, you build a single site that functions across both desktop and mobile devices, therefore, only requiring one site to be maintained. This results in easier maintenance and cost savings.

Further, scaling up or down different devices screens is relatively effortless with a responsive design. With the rate of mobile device development, you won't worry whether the next device will be ideal for viewing your site. Additionally, making changes and updating content to a responsive site is effortless and seamless since you only need to do it once, and the effect reflects across all devices.

Boosted Visibility

Even if you create compelling content or sell amazing products, it won't matter much if your website is not responsive. You'll lose business opportunities to your competitors who have invested in responsive sites. Maximize your content's visibility using a responsive website.

While it's not easy to figure out Google's secret to maintaining a top spot on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) listing, responsiveness is an excellent place to start.

Mobilegeddon was a huge wake-up call when it came down on us like a ton of bricks back in 2015. Google's search algorithm penalized websites that did not meet their mobile-friendly guidelines by ranking them lower. Fast forward to July 2022, Google completed the switch to mobile-first indexing for all sites. An unresponsive site means you'll miss out on organic traffic and risk Google's wrath.

Increased Conversions

Google established that 90% of users who own multiple devices switch between screens to accomplish various tasks, such as reading, learning, research, and shopping. Almost half of these users will bounce off your site if it delays loading by three seconds, translating to tons of lost business.

Further, you already know how important your site is to branding. Having a responsive site means more traffic, increased customer satisfaction, and loyalty, resulting in increased brand awareness and reputation. When users identify your brand as a reputable source for content and merchandise, they'll be willing to spend more time and money, increasing sales.

Additionally, sharing content on a responsive site on other platforms is easy, bringing in more traffic from those platforms. With the average American spending nearly 42 hours weekly on their phone, there's a chance of your content being shared. The more traffic your site receives, the more conversions you'll experience.

Building Customer Trust and Goodwill

The benefits of being responsive go beyond attracting new customers. It also helps you build trust and goodwill with your existing customers. When people come to your site, they're looking for information and answers to their problems.

When you've built goodwill with your current clients, they'll be willing to come back for more information or incremental sales. These clients are also affordable and convenient marketing avenues and will help attract more traffic.

Is It Time for a Responsive Redesign?

When your website is not responsive, your brand might suffer, especially in the current ultra-competitive business landscape. The use of smartphones and other devices to access the internet is growing, with experts predicting over seven billion users by 2025; that's seven billion reasons for a responsive site.  If your current website is not responsive, it may be time to consider a redesign and upgrading the interactions that your customers and prospects have with your brand.

Is your current website NOT responsive?

Book some time on Chuck's calendar now to discuss the process for redesigning your site to better serve your customers and prospects.