If you haven’t thought abut enhancing your website with responsive design features by now, you’re at risk for losing some business in the future. How? The reason for the huge shift is due to the way people are browsing the Internet now days. A sub-optimal design/layout experience may occur for those who browse the Internet on a smaller-screen device.
By 2016, browsing by mobile device is expected to exceed desktop use; making it ever important that your website will be easily viewable on the variety of screen-sizes.
The acronym “RWD” stands for Responsive Web Design
RWD’s beginnings go back to mid-2010, yet it is still fairly new to the majority of business website owners. Most simply defined, it is a website design using HTML5 features that automatically adjusts your website to fit on a desktop, and tablet, or smartphone. If you ever have browsed a website on a mobile device, and it loaded the desktop version then you understand it can often be difficult to navigate, zoom in and pan around. Users probably won’t be that impressed or may choose to keep surfing. Google has the incentive to give higher rankings to responsive websites, and they are implementing such factors in their ranking algorithms.
A summary of how it works:
ImageAs shown above, the webpage content has been adjusted and re-sized when necessary to fit into the confines the particular screen’s resolution. The methods of RWD utilize what is termed ‘media queries’ to sense the resolution of the device the webpage is being displayed on, to subsequently scale content and images on the screen.
Years ago, web designers would develop a conventional desktop site, and secondly an entirely different mobile version to try to accommodate many of the many different mobile devices.
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Big Reasons To Utilize RWD
Beyond readability on all devices, there are several other benefits, the first being:
A. Google gives RWD websites some weighted preference
Google has deemed RWD as a best practice for websites. A responsive website having one URL (as contrasted with m.yoursite.com or mobile.yoursite.com) and the same coded structure allows Google to fully crawl and index your website, while Google also takes note that the site is a RWD design; of which they have admitted is now a significant factor in their newer ranking algorithms.
B. More focused SEO
For promoting your website in search engines, you probably have invested some time in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Before, if you had built two separate websites (one for mobile, and one designed for a desktop display), then you had to be concerned about updates to and ranking of both sites, using two separate URLs. With RWD, you can just focus on your core website, that’s it. All of your content will now be served from the same web server and it will be seen no matter what device your visitors are using.
C. Sustainable Websites
Utilizing HTML5 with media queries and fluid grids gives your web design sustainability into the future. People will always be using new devices, but your website will always be adaptable to them. You can feel confident that you have invested in a long-term website design.
Upgrading
The price of hiring a designer to rebuild your website using HTML5 & RWD varies. Alternatively you can learn the skill yourself. Here is a sample chapter of a book that gives a good introduction into HTML/RWD 5 coding: ( PDF Link To Chapter 4 of Book ) “Implementing Responsive Web Design”.
You can also hire one of 4GoodHosting’s freelance web designers to code a new RWD site for you. You probably have all the content already written from your old site, so the work on your end won’t be as much as the first time around. Once done, you won’t regret your decision to upgrade.
In summary, the main point of this article isn’t about technology, it is about satisfying your visitors. You might not decide to get started today, but keep in mind - if a potential customer arrives onto your page while browsing on their smartphone, and leaves your website just seconds later, that could represent a loss of a sale. By 2016 more than 50% of your website visitors will be on a mobile device, they are coming - so be prepared!
