Responsive Web Design: Why Your Local Business Needs It Now

It’s the age of the internet, and the internet is chock-full of information. Of course, people swarm to the internet. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking for these days—information, a dopamine boost, connection with other humans, or things to buy—everything is on the internet!

Do you know what else is in the sea of gazillions and bajillions of content and information that exist on the internet? Your website.

If you’re looking for visibility as a business owner and/or a website owner, you have to put yourself in the game and find something that gives you an edge over the other website owners out there.

One such “something” is responsive web design.

What is Responsive Web Design?

You may ask.

Responsive web design, as defined by Wikipedia, is an approach to web design that aims to make web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes—from minimum to maximum display size—to ensure usability and satisfaction.

Put simply, responsive web design refers to the web design magic that allows web pages to function properly on all screen resolutions and sizes while ensuring good usability.

Now, where do you as a business owner fit into this?

Glad you asked.

User Convenience

We’ve already established that people are chronically online these days, and as someone who is looking to put their business in people’s faces and screens, you have to dot all your I’s and cross your T’s. This means that you have to design your website in a way that ensures visitors can access it regardless of whatever screen size they use. Think tablets, computers, iPhones, Androids, iPads, Kindles—every screen. This way, visitors can visit your website whenever and however they want.

Better Chances of Patronage

As a business owner, if you have a responsive web design, there will be zero need for your website visitors to zoom, pinch, or endlessly scroll to figure out the content of your website, which is essentially your products and/or services. Believe us when we say that can be very frustrating, and we can’t think of anything that can chase a user off your website faster than that.

Not to mention that responsive design removes barriers, creating a seamless transition from interest to action. So, if you want any hope of converting your website visitors into potential paying customers, or even just getting them to stay and explore your website, consider using responsive web design.

Cost Saving

Managing separate sites for desktop and mobile can be excruciating and, honestly, an unnecessarily long process. A responsive design can save you time and money because it’s a one-stop, one-and-done solution. Not only does it save you time and money, but it also helps you future-proof your site for new devices.

Boosts Mobile Traffic and SEO

Mobile phones are among the top most-used devices in this century. For this reason, Google prioritises mobile-friendly websites in search rankings. If your website is responsive, it could potentially make it easier for your business to gain even more visibility and easily give you an edge over your competitors through the beautiful magic of SEO.

And you know what that means—better visibility means better chances of patronage. Isn’t that a dream?

Now, to the Ultimate Question: How Do You Get Yourself a Responsive Web Design?

It’s impractical, almost impossible, to build different designs that cater to all the screen resolutions and devices that exist. I mean, have you seen them? There are a lot!

The concept of responsive design basically allows designs to auto-adjust to a visitor’s environment and behaviour, moulding into their screen size and resolution effortlessly. It’s all in the technology.

As a small business owner, getting a responsive web design may look like rocket science to you, especially if you don’t have “tech wizard” anywhere in your résumé.

Here’s how to go about it:

Consult Your Website Builder

Many modern (and popular) website builders, such as WordPress, Shopify, Wix, and the like, come with built-in responsive templates that you can build your website on. Just make sure, in the process, you select themes specifically designed for responsiveness and that can adjust layouts, images, and text based on the device being used.

Optimise Media

If you’re looking to cater to an audience with mobile phones or are just generally trying to get an amazing mobile experience with your website, you may need to lay off the large, unoptimised images because they will wreck your mobile experience. Responsive design involves a combination of flexible outlines, grids, images, and other media queries that can shapeshift and shrink sizes based on whatever devices they are being used on.

To do this, ensure your website’s layout uses percentages rather than fixed units for elements like columns or margins to allow for fluid adjustment to screen size.

You can also use tools like Canva and TinyPNG to resize and compress images without losing quality.

Test on Multiple Devices

This is probably the most important yet mostly overlooked part of responsive web design. A lot of website owners forget to test their websites using different phones. Hence, it’s easy to miss the fact that their website is not compatible with some devices.

As a website owner, you need to test your website on multiple devices. You can’t do a “set it and forget it” process, unfortunately. You need to test the performance of your website through multiple devices.

You can use tools like Google Mobile-Friendly Test or Responsive Design Checker.

Lastly, if any of these still look like gibberish, you can just choose to hire a professional and spend your precious time on other precious things.

Conclusion

If you are a small business owner, prioritising a responsive web design is a long-term investment in your business’s success. People from all walks of life (device-wise) should be able to access your website. It’s a win for them and a win for you.

Now that you’ve heard the gospel of responsive web design, you can use it to boost visibility and improve sales for your business; you can also share the good news with other website owners so they can know and learn.

Until next time!