Responsive Design: Now More Than Ever

Responsive web design couldn’t have made its entrance and rise in the digital marketing industry at a perfect time. With the announcement from Google that mobile usability will count as a search ranking factor beginning in April 2015 – now is the time to pay attention.

We’ve all known that mobile is rising quickly as the main platform for users across the board, but now the stakes are higher. Mobile search results will now reflect how mobile-friendly sites are, and if a website isn’t optimized for mobile browsing, it will most likely drop in ranking.

Choosing Responsive Design

There are more people using mobile devices today and companies have been struggling to set up and market mobile versions of their sites. This new design methodology removes the necessity of building a separate mobile site and makes it easier for companies to deliver the best website user experience possible.

Whether going the route of basic mobile optimization or a fully responsive site (RWD) – this development should not be taken lightly. Working with a creative team specializing in digital strategies will provide several pathways to achieve the best result.

Responsive design is simply adding design elements that allow a page to respond to the screen size and device that a browser uses to view that page. Instead of a mobile site with its own URL (often something like m.domain.com), the URL is the same, and the page rearranges itself to fit the screen. This is important for a number of reasons. While search engine optimization is often cited as an important reason for responsive design, the positive impact on user experience is the primary benefit. Speed and a visually appealing experience do wonders for experienced users.

Weighing the Benefits of RWD

Users that visit responsive websites will get the ideal user experience and user interface presented to them no matter what platform is being used. At first glance, it may not seem like this is very important. But this directly impacts profits as improving both of these elements can boost the lead/sales conversion rates, average browsing time and engagement.

RWD helps make mobile marketing and mobile SEO more effective. Companies will not have to build a separate campaign for a mobile website. They will be able to focus on the central site, which extracts maximum value from their SEO efforts while making it easy to manage a mobile marketing campaign. The money, time and resources this technology will save are immense.

Responsive Design can centralize every aspect of Internet marketing. Companies won’t have to worry about posting a link in their social media accounts for desktop/laptop users and a separate mobile website link for mobile users. They can integrate mobile into every aspect of their marketing, whether it’s pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, social media or SEO. This will make tracking of campaigns easier and allow marketing campaigns to build leverage faster.

Overall, responsive design is the perfect solution to the growing mobile usage trend. In the business world, companies that embrace this technology earlier will have an advantage over their competitors that continue to rely on separate mobile sites.