8 Things to Know about Responsive Design for Mobile Devices
Every day more and more people are equipping themselves with mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. This becomes an evolution of the support that pushed webmasters to rethink their way of webpage design, for example, responsive design.
What is Responsive Design?
Let’s start with a small definition: a responsive site means that all content is able to recognize the size of the screen on which it appears and can adapt accordingly.
Its structure remains the same, but the content is reorganized.
For example, when a visitor goes to your site with a PC-sized screen, he sees the full version of your site. And when it goes to your pages using a smaller screen, (smartphone or tablets) it sees the site shrink to fit the new screen size.
In other words, this adaptable design allows you to no longer worry about the size of the screen of the device on which your website will appear.
1. The use of mobile technologies is constantly increasing
You have not been able to miss the phenomenon: on the bus, the subway, the restaurant, the beach, in the city, there are many people holding different types of mobile devices which are able to connect to the Internet.
If some see it as a regrettable change in our modern societies, the facts are there: our society is more connected than ever. According to outerboxdesign:
- 125 Million U.S. consumers own smartphones
- 50 million U.S. Consumers own tablets
- 62% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last 6 months
- One third of all ecommerce purchases during the 2015 holiday season were made on a smartphone.
- eCommerce dollars now comprise 10% of ALL retail revenue
- 80% of shoppers used a mobile phone inside of a physical store to either look up product reviews, compare prices or find alternative store locations
- An estimated 10 Billion Mobile Connected Devices are currently in use.
2. Mobile Compatibility is recommended by Google
Google’s hegemony of the search engine is no longer questioned. It is indeed the multinational leader of research on the Internet that sets the tone in terms of referencing and visibility.
Google has therefore decided to privilege responsive design websites for SEO. Always seeking to perfect user requests and needs, the world’s most popular search engine highlights new ways of using it. One more reason to create a dynamic site or ecommerce that respects the rules of mobile friendly and responsive!
3. Adaptability to media
If Google is intransigent with the responsive, it is for several reasons:
- It’s easier for Google to “crawler”
- That is to read the pages that use this technology and sort their content.
- There is only one URL and the same html code for any device.
When a company had a classic site and a mobile version, Google had to read the codes from two different addresses, which made it a difficult task. Today this time is over with the responsive.
It’s easier to manage content shares and interact with visitors.
Sometimes a user shares the content of a page on a mobile version and another user opens that content on a desktop PC monitor. If the content is not suitable, the visitor will flee and Google will be fail to interpret this as of poor quality. In other words, it’s bad for your positioning on Google.
4. Responsive design increases the conversion rate of your visitors
In addition to the benefits in terms of SEO and ergonomics, the responsive also has the advantage of easily converting your users into interested prospects. How is it possible? This is simply related to the growing number of online purchases, provider searches and services. If your site is not visible on mobile or tablet, you deprive a large number of connected customers.
5. Social networks are 100% connected mobile
One of the trends of Google is to give increasing importance to social networks and blogs. The majority of users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or Snapchat go through mobile technology.
Sharing content that is not compatible with smartphones and tablets will therefore have far less impact and will ruin your communication and marketing efforts. In addition, Google penalizes this because it judges that your site did not meet the expectations of the user.
6. Better user experience
What is user experience? This corresponds to popularizing the rate of user satisfaction when navigating on a site. Google measures it on several criteria (a low bounce rate, visiting several pages on your site, time spent on your pages …).
A responsive site is therefore a factor of satisfaction since it improves the user experience of your visitors. According to Google, when someone comes to your site and realizes that it is not what they are looking for, there is a 61% chance that they will leave your site immediately and go to another site. On the contrary, if he finds it satisfied, this individual will be more prone to 67% to buy your products or call on your services. 48% of users report that when a site does not work on their mobile device, it gives them the feeling that the company does not care about its customers.
Not to mention the practical side: finding where to contact you, where to find you, your opening hours is a significant plus that will have an impact on whether or not you will hear from these visitors.
7. Easier to manage
Thanks to this new design that can be adapted to all media, you have only one site to manage. Your entered content automatically adapts to the media used to view it. A saving of time and money not negligible!
8. Enabling you to stay ahead of your competitors
Some of your competitors may not yet have grasped the challenge of mobile technology. A bargain to go ahead and keep you at the top of Google results because you will benefit in the eyes of the search engine a prior art.
