Are responsive websites good for business?

1. Better user experience means more conversions

Responsive websites are designed to provide maximum user experience on all devices. A site that isn’t built for mobile needs to be pinched, zoomed, swiped and needs child-sized fingers to navigate the menu. If your website visitors become irritated, they will leave. That’s lost revenue.

2. Reduce management time and costs

Having a desktop site and a separate mobile site means two lots of updates need to be done. If you do the updates yourself, it’s time (and money) that could be spent on doing something else. If your paying someone to maintain your site, the bill we be double what it needs to be.

3. Boost SEO and search result position

Having a separate desktop and mobile site means clicks on search engines will be split between two web addresses. This affects your search engine rankings. One click to one site is better for your position in search results which leads to more business exposure.

If your business website is not optimised for multiple devices, user experience will be poor, as outlined above, and you’ll suffer from a high bounce rate (where visitors view one page then leave). Search engines like sites with lots of clicks and low bounce rates and elevates websites that are well-used and explored up the list. This leads to more revenue.

4. Flexibility for the future

Responsive design is future-proof. New devices are being released all the time and responsive websites allow you to be prepared for this. While frequent updates are necessary for a dynamic, successful and interesting site, whole scale expensive rebuilds to allow for new technology is reduced.

5. You’ll have a better website

Websites built for multiple devices are leaner, trimmer, uncluttered and faster so smartphone visitors won’t use up all their data allowance (not to mention, time) downloading huge pages of content from your site. Google boosts sites in search results that are fast and easy to crawl and index. A trimmer website means content is concise, easily consumable (better UX) and free from unnecessary waffle. You can deliver your message more clearly and direct your visitors where you want them to be more efficiently. This leads to an increase in business conversions and profits.

While websites seem, to some companies and organisation, like a lot of money and hassle to redevelop, the financial rewards and return on time and money investment are tangible. Your website is an important part of your business and for many of your customers it will their first contact with you. For them to like to look of you and do business with you means you need them to like your website. See how responsive websites look in the portfolio and go responsive.