The sad reality is that most businesses build a website once and never look at it again.
Fast forward 2 years and they’re scratching their heads trying to figure out why traffic is down, their bounce rate is high and sales have plummeted. The thing is, when built correctly, your website should grow WITH your business — not hinder it.
And do you know what the foundation of a business growth friendly website is?
Responsive web design.
Without it, pretty much everything else is pointless. Luckily building a responsive website that can scale with any business isn’t nearly as hard as most people believe. You just need to start off on the right foot.
What you’re going to learn:
- What Is Responsive Web Design?
- Why Responsive Web Design Matters For Business Growth
- How To Build A Website That Scales
What Is Responsive Web Design?
Responsive web design is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s the process of building a website that looks great and functions properly on ANY screen size.
Visitors will see your website on phones, tablets, laptops and desktop monitors. You want the layout to look good on ALL of them.
It’s important because most web traffic these days comes from mobile devices. Over 60%. That means more than half of all potential customers are visiting your site via phone.
Here’s the problem with non-responsive websites:
Visitors arrive on your site using their phone, the website doesn’t display correctly so they leave. And they don’t ever come back.
A quality responsive web design service will ensure that navigation, images, copy, call-to-actions etc. all resize depending on the screen they’re being viewed on.
It’s the reason businesses work with professional web designers & developers such as WordPress Design London agencies in order to build websites that are optimised for every device out of the gate. Rather than paying money down the road to fix mistakes made by rushing at the beginning.
Think about it…
If your website is responsive it means it’s flexible. Therefore, it can easily adapt to whatever you throw at it in the future; be that new products, increased traffic or a full brand makeover.
Why Responsive Web Design Matters For Business Growth
Most businesses fail to see their website for what it really is; their single most valuable sales asset. If your website isn’t growing alongside your business then you have a problem.
Here are 3 reasons why responsive web design is crucial for growth:
Increases Traffic = More Leads
Google has had mobile-first indexing in place for years. What that means is Google will first look at the mobile version of your site when deciding how high to rank you.
Non-responsive sites don’t play nice with mobile devices… So Google won’t rank them well. Simple as that.
Ranking well means more organic traffic. More traffic means more customers. More customers means more revenue.
Responsive web design should be step number one of your online growth strategy.
Provides Better User Experience
This one should go without saying, but it’s worth saying anyway.
Users don’t want to pinch and zoom all over your website on their phone.
Studies have shown that almost 3 quarters of visitors will abandon websites that aren’t mobile optimised. That’s an insane amount of potential customers leaving over poor user experience.
A bad experience on your website costs your business real dollars
Responsive web design ensures everyone who visits your site has a smooth, quick and professional experience no matter what device they’re using.
Less frustration = more conversions.
Higher Conversion Rates
Responsive websites enjoy around a 11% higher conversion rate than non-responsive sites. Of course they do. It’s pretty intuitive when you think about it.
Remove any barriers between your target audience and the actions you want them to take. Simple things like making it easy to navigate your website on any device can lead to more sales.
Anyone can build a website these days. But websites that are set up with scaling in mind from the beginning are much harder to come by.
How To Build A Website That Scales
The foundation for building a responsive website that scales isn’t all that complicated. Once you know what you’re doing.
Here’s what goes into building for growth:
Mobile First
A huge majority of websites are designed for desktop… Then attempted to be squeezed into mobile screens.
Don’t do this.
Start mobile and work your way up. Design for mobile first. Then tablet. Then desktop last.
This practice encourages a simple, clean design that loads fast. Something that Google and your users both love.
Write Clean Code
If your website is built on a messy foundation of jumbled code you’ll wish you didn’t… when it comes time to make changes or add new features.
When building your site, make sure the code is clean and easy to read. Being able to quickly add new pages/features, speed up your site, maintain SEO rankings and update your design down the road are all much easier with clean code.
Ensure your developers are building with scaling in mind by using flexible grids, relative units, fluid images and CSS media queries.
Optimise Speed
Speaking of speed…
Website loading speed is both a ranking factor and user experience factor. Pages that take more than 3 seconds to load lose the majority of their visitors.
Speed is vital for keeping users and Google happy. Here are some quick tips for keeping your site speedy:
- Optimise your images
- Keep code clean (and minimal)
- Leverage browser caching
- Invest in good hosting
Plan For Content
You should also build your website with room for plenty of content. Whether that’s blog articles, product pages, landing pages or anything else.
Content is added to your site constantly. Make sure your website’s structure allows for you to add content without throwing off your layout or slowing page load times down.
Start with a clear and concise menu. Plan your content out so new pages can easily fit into your design by utilising a design system.
Think of content as liquid. Will your website’s foundation be able to contain it?
Test. Then Test Some More.
Responsive websites are not a set it and forget it kinda deal. There’s always going to be new devices and screen sizes being released that you need to account for.
Test your website on a regular basis to catch small issues before they become bigger problems down the road. Utilise tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and make sure to test on actual devices too!
Wrap Up
Responsive websites are by far the best foundation you can have when building a digital space that grows WITH your business. Neglecting responsive design means you’ll be fighting an uphill battle in every department.
To quickly recap:
- Build mobile-first.
- Keep your code clean & easy to scale
- Optimise for speed and performance
- Plan your website structure with content growth in mind
- Test your responsive design across all devices regularly
If you keep these 5 fundamentals in mind when building your website then you’ll never have to worry about your website holding you back as your business grows. Stop setting yourself up for failure by building websites that can’t scale. Build one that grows alongside your business.
