Did you know that nearly 60% of all google searches happen from a phone? That is an all time high, which means the demand for responsive design for mobile devices is higher than ever.
Mobile Demand Is Rising
The numbers don’t lie. The most obvious reason for responsive design is the data. Just look at the mobile share of organic search engine traffic in 2019. Not only has mobile surpassed the percentage of desktop searches, it continues to grow in an upward trend.
Mobile share of organic search engine traffic 2019, by platform
From looking at this chart, I think it’s fair to say that mobile search demand is here to stay. That means having a mobile-friendly design to meet this demand is critical to the success of any website.
Responsive Design vs. Mobile-Only
So let’s talk about how you can adjust your website to meet the growing share of mobile search traffic. There’s the easy way, and the hard way. The hard way (the old way), is to create a separate mobile-only website for mobile users.
While this might have been the only practical approach in the past, the evolution of responsive technology has been a game changer.
Ever since Mashable called 2013 the Year of Responsive Web Design, the technology has taken off and become the go-to design approach for all devices.
Flexible:
The most obvious benefit of having a responsive design is the flexibility. You only need one website, which means you can make changes quickly and easily.
There’s no need to manage multiple websites at the same time. The flexibility of responsive design is a huge advantage when you think about all of the little tweaks and updates that go into a website.
I can’t imagine the headache of updating multiple websites every time there is a change. With responsive design, you only need to do it once.
Cost Effective:
The second benefit of responsive design is cost. It’s going to be a lot cheaper to manage one website as opposed to multiple websites.
Why pay a developer to manage multiple websites when you can have a single responsive website that can perform across all devices?
Responsive design appears to be the more flexible and cost-effective approach going forward.
Improve Your User Experience
Whether a website is responsive or mobile-only, they both have the same purpose: to improve the experience for mobile users.
Responsive design for mobile is important because the user experience matters to customers.
If you want people to like your website, and you want them to come back, then it is important that you make life easy for them.
Without a mobile-friendly design, you make it hard for potential customers to give your business a chance.
There is an immediate negative reaction when mobile users visit your website, and that reflects poorly on your business.
Imagine you are visiting a website on a mobile device. The page takes forever to load and the images don’t have the proper resolution. If you want to read something you need to zoom and scroll to find the information you are looking for.
Unless you absolutely need to find something on that website, chances are you will look for the same information elsewhere.
Responsive design improves the user experience by eliminating that immediate negative reaction to your business.
With that barrier out of the way, you will have an easier time convincing people to give your company a chance.
Lower Your Bounce Rate
With a responsive design for mobile users, you will keep more customers on your website. Without it, it will be harder to convince people to stay.
This simple human response is measured by a metric called bounce rate: the percentage of people who enter a website and “bounce,” rather than staying and viewing more pages.
As you can probably guess, the more responsive and user friendly websites should have lower bounce rates.
That is because responsive websites can be tailored to mobile users, who now make up a majority of global search traffic.
If you don’t have a responsive website, I encourage you to check your website’s bounce rate. If it’s over 55%, you may want to consider adjusting your design for mobile users.
By changing this one thing, you can drastically improve the amount of customers you keep on your website. You should aim to be in the range of 26 to 40%, however 41% to 55% is just fine (source).
Conclusion
In today’s world, having a responsive design should be a priority, and failing to acknowledge the growing mobile share of search traffic will lead to less customers staying on your website.
About WebWorks LA
Are you a business owner that needs help with your website? If yes, then WebWorks LA can help you get started. We are based in Los Angeles and have helped many clients build successful responsive websites. If you’re interested in starting a new project, submit your project details here. If you have any queries, you can fill out our online contact form here, and we will get in touch.
