Responsive Web Design: Is your Website Ready ?
What is responsive web design?
In the world today the internet is a form of media that is widely used to access platforms and websites from different devices. Taking lead is mobile browsing that is widely used since mobile phones are very portal and one can be able to access any website from their comfort zones.
This means that for businesses and organizations have to create platforms and websites that look good on all devices, this is what is referred to as responsive web design. Web pages should adapt to any screen size without requiring the user to pinch or scroll horizontally.
How does responsive web design affect the user experience and Google Rankings?
More people are using smartphones and tablets to access the internet thus more pressure to create a website that works across multiple platforms, thus responsive web design is now the best way to create websites that mobile visitors love.
In other terms it means a website is able to restructure on its own to fit on the screen of the device that is being displayed on. This ensures that the website remains user friendly regardless of the gadget the user uses.
Responsive web design is more popular of late since one does not have to create two different platform for a desktop and mobile only one responsive webpage can be accessed by both.
The more friendly a website is the more visitors it attracts thus it goes hand in hand with Google Rankings and to ensure better search engine result pages ranking which is done by goggle one has to pay attention to what google recommends which is responsive web design that is the best way to attract mobile users.
It is also used to for mobile optimized sites when representing results for searches made through the mobile device when searching for services within their locality.
Though there is debatable issues that revolve around whether a separate mobile or a single responsive site is the best option, the single responsive is the best. Separate mobile will require their own URL and HTML from the desktop websites whereas responsive websites will use the same URL and one set pages making it easier for Google to index content.
One Website, One URL
Although one website one URL has its own benefit example when creating standalone mobile version works well if has a lot of content, responsive website will require the user to us index finger to scroll too much to navigate the content.
A mobile site with refined for mobile browsing could come in handy. But from a search engine optimization perspective having a separate mobile site will mean creating one from scratch and most mobile sites do not rank well in search engines since they are standard version of the desktop. Also redesigning your website to responsive is advantageous since you will able to maintain your backlinks and also be to focus on your SEO of a single site. It also improves your SERPS since all your links are redirected to one domain.
Responsive website enable you to only share one URL and with this sharing whether the link is viewed on tablets, mobile, desktop or not all of the content will be easy to navigate and clear.
Responsive Helps Combat a High Bounce Rate
Although the website can have high search results, if it does not work effectively for mobile tablet and desktop users, the bounce rate will cause a big problem mostly mobile websites can suffer from high rate of bouncing if the content offered is too stripped down or different from what is displayed on the desktop thus not relevant. This is usually interpreted as high bounce rate by Google which drops rankings.
A well designed responsive site eliminates this problem by ensuring all content that is represented on the desktop match and is functional. This ensures visitors of the site receive all information they are looking for thus keep them glued to the page.
User Experience is enhanced
The essential use of a website is to share information which simply means that a user friendly site enables visitors to find pass and absorb content. Responsive designs helps modern day websites appeal to its modern users who frequently use mobile phones to browse the internet or tablet while still accessing easily as they do on their laptop or desktop computers.
If a visitor is browsing a site via desktop/laptop computer or tablet and wants to share either data or information with a phone and especially if the user wants to view it from their phone, the efficiency is noticeable when the website is responsive. If the website is responsive it makes the communication between the different platforms very reliable, quick and efficient and it will work well on their screen.
Responsive websites is the most efficient way to make out the most from mobile and tablet traffic and best experience for users. With user experience as the big ranking factor it makes sense why Google is encouraging developers to use responsive web designs of their webs so as to improve browser experience for all devices.
Why is it needed since the huge amount of smartphones are with advanced browsers?
Google the most popular search engine recommends it thus to be able to get more visitors on your site it is advisable to take hints from them. The reason it is preferred is to enable it to bot crawl the site and organize all online content. Also for business purposes to be able to beat your competitors since more and more users use their mobile phone to search make purchases online you have to look out for that niche by having a mobile friendly site.
Also responsive sites should be compatible with all mobile phones and not necessarily the ones with sophisticated browsers that are not affordable to all users thus reduces the chances of variety of users missing out. This only means that with a responsive website, you have an advantage of not missing out on customers which in essence means the benefits of having traffic in the website.
It also easier to manage referring to SEO separate desktop and mobile sites will need two different search engine optimization campaigns. But on the contrary it would be easier to manage one SEO campaign and site .Thus making it easier for developers of content and also customers happy since there request will be met urgently. Since it is only one site and also cost effective during maintenance
Advantages of Responsive Web Design
More mobile Traffic
Since responsive websites do not distort images because of their responsive nature to adjust to the size of gadget screens thus more people are able to access through mobile phones.
1. Faster Mobile Development at Lower Costs
It takes lase time creating one responsive application than creating a desktop website and since time is equivalent to money thus responsive platform is cheaper. Although its expensive to create responsive site in its initial stages its cost saving in the long run due to maintain ace cost because it’s cheaper to maintain one site than two separate sites due to special configuration that uses two separate sites
2. Lower Maintenance Needs
For optimal layout of screen display for two different sites mobile and desktop will require additional testing, support methodologies, two administrative interfaces and two design teams. Unlike responsive designs it cuts across the board with means spending less time maintaining and also creates more time for marketing and creating content
3. Faster Webpages
Mobile users tend to abandon websites that take longer to load, this is caused their low attention span. If optimization is not done for a site to fit tablets and phones it will take longer to navigate which leads to loss of interest from a customer and they will not be encouraged to visit again. Responsive websites help to load images faster thus pages load faster.
4. Lower Bounce Rates
If a mobile site is responsive and optimized it encourages the user to stick around a little longer to explore the site unlike if the site is not responsive they will lose interest faster and they will leave.
5. Improved Online Browsing Experience
For most customers first impression is usually the most important when visiting a site from either the mobile phone or desktop, but if they have to constantly zoom shrink and pinch there screen it’s likely that they will not come back and opt out.
6. It has the blessings and recommendation of Google.
Google has the biggest market share representing 67% of the search engines and Google is of the idea that responsive web design is the industry’s best practice in terms of device browser configuration. According to goggle responsive web design makes it easier for users to share, get access to content.
7. Very easy to manage.
With a responsive web design a website does not necessarily need separate search engine optimization management. This is important because the market is diverse and the devices used are not limited to either mobile of computer browser optimization. A user might use both devices and they need not to experience any difficulty of using either.
Responsive Web Design Examples
Gridpak,
CSSGrid,
Skeleton
SimpleGrid
Sasquatch! Music Festival
Internet Images
Staffanstorp
Responsive Web Design Testers / Checker Tools
Respondr
It allows checking the responsiveness by entering the URL of the website one wants to test.
Screenfly
It enables previewing of different pages as they will appear on different devices and also it supports different resolutions and screen sizes. One can be able to switch between different resolutions by clicking on the icon of the type of device closest to your screen resolution
Retina Images
Once introduced on your site Retina Images frames a high-determination adaptation of each picture you might want to enhance for retina screens. You don’t have to change any picture tag.
Responsive PX
The procedure includes entering the URL of your site and uses the controls to alter the width and tallness of your viewport to locate the correct breakpoint width in pixels. To a great degree easy to utilize and upgraded usefulness, this website composition apparatus enables originators to make usable and responsive destinations.
Froont
Froont is a website composition device and it makes responsive website architecture testing open to a wide range of creators without requiring any coding abilities. Plans can be made in the program with this instinctive intuitive instrument. By testing every URL particularly, it tests the outlines on genuine gadgets immediately.
The goal of every website is to create the best experience possible for its visitors so that they can find exactly what they are looking for. To reduce the stress of losing consumers, you should adopt an approach to mobile web design that ensures your site will scale perfectly to your visitors’ screen. With the help of
Responsive Web Design Browser Support
Visiting or browsing a site responsively means that on its end the website should be responsive. To achieve a responsive design the website needs to work across all platforms and by that it means on any browser or device be it a mobile phone, table to computer.
This can be achieved by use of web design browser support interface such as CSS3 which generally puts into account aspects such as:
- Height of display area.
- Width of the device /gadget.
- Height or dimension of display of the device.
- Ration of width to height of device or gadget.
- Number of bits per color component of the device.
- Number of entries in the output of the device’s color in the lookup table.
- Number of bits in relation to the pixels in the monochrome frame buffer.
- Output density of pixels of the device.
With the latest inventions of HTML and CSS there are more feature for the responsive web design browser support.
For instance HTML5 has new elements that enable web pages to be more semantic which means that a user can store data offline, be able to create points of edit on content.it also comes with enabling feature such as drag and drop which are very functional.
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