DW Tips

Responsive Design: No Longer an Optional Feature

Aug 4, 2017 by kidd

A few years ago, getting a responsive website was a nice way to improve your marketing efforts and maybe see a boost in your SEO. Fast forward to 2017, and responsive design is now mandatory, no matter what your goals are.

Not an option anymore

It went from being an added feature to a key aspect of online marketing. According to this recent Entrepreneur article, the difference it makes in your user experience could determine whether a prospective customer chooses your business or a competitor:

"With newer, faster and more powerful smartphones hitting the market, websites are increasingly becoming more mobile. Responsive design is no longer an optional feature for websites -- it’s the difference between keeping your customers and repelling them to your competitors. And now websites need to take their capabilities one step further and begin incorporating augmented reality into their web designs."

You can be sure that your competitors either have a responsive design already or are considering it for the near future. It's become the industry standard as opposed to a luxury of website design.

Optimize your site

Depending on your perspective, Google might play a bigger role here than your site's usability. Google essentially decided that responsive design is mandatory a couple of years ago when it started using it as an indicator in its search algorithm.

Switching to responsive design can make a bigger difference in your SEO campaign than writing blogs, playing with meta descriptions, and changing your titles.

Mobile-first

Finally, there's currently a major paradigm shift in the industry where "mobile-friendly" is getting replaced by "mobile-first." To keep things precise, it means that you should design your site for mobile devices first as opposed to desktops.

Responsive design lets you do that. You have control over all the elements of your site and it will work on both mobile devices and desktops. You get to choose which is more important.

To talk more about responsive design, or anything else, contact us today.