Responsive Web Design: Why it is Important for Website Performance

Responsive design removes the need to maintain different versions of your website for mobile and desktop and saves time, resources, and effort. The market value, based on revenue, of the web design industry is $58.4 billion in 2023. Global web design, usage, and growth factors in web design services market size of web design services were $53 billion in 2016.

Mobile Web Usage Statistics

Americans check their phones about 96 times a day, or once every 10 minutes. There are approximately 6.92 billion active users worldwide. That’s 86.29% of the world’s population, in 2023.

Additional figures worth noting:

• In 2022 59.16% of website traffic came from mobile devices.
• 92.3% of Internet users access the Internet through mobile phones. There are approximately 4.32 billion active Internet users.
• Africa has the highest number of internet connections coming from mobile devices – 69.13%.
• There will be over a billion 5G connections worldwide by 2025.

What Is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive web design is a strategy that implies that design and development should respond to user behavior and environment based on screen size, platform, and layout.

This involves a combination of flexible grids and layouts, images, and clever use of CSS media queries. When a someone switches from their laptop to their smartphone or iPad, the website should automatically change to facilitate the resolution, image size, and other design elements.

Why You Need a Responsive Website

Creating a user-friendly website using a responsive design serves to provide the best possible user experience. However, there are many other important benefits.

1. SEO optimization

It is important to build your website in a way that will allow you to get the best search engine rankings. Responsive design is very important if you want to increase your SEO results. Google has included responsive website design in its algorithm since 2015. Therefore, your search ranking will probably be negatively affected without a responsive website.

2. Better website performance

Mobile phones with “performance” web pages loaded to show improved website performance through well-designed Responsive Websites reduce your page load time. Not only does this provide a better user experience, but it also improves your SEO results (page load speed is part of Google’s algorithm).

3. Reduced website maintenance costs

Responsive design decreases the costs of maintaining your website. This is because it takes longer to make multiple versions of your website than to make one version. Without a responsive website, you will be forced to adapt your SEO efforts for each type of site. You will also need to purchase separate units for each type. Finally, you will need to design each version separately to ensure that it is compatible and targeted for the device. Responsive design eliminates all these problems, saving you a lot of money in the process.

4. Improved ROI in Social Media Marketing

Most of the social media content is available on mobile devices. This means that when your social media ad links back to your website, the majority of users clicking on those links will be on mobile devices. If you want to get the most out of your social media marketing efforts, your website must offer a great mobile experience.

5. Enhance your online shopping experience

Shopping on a mobile device is easier than using a laptop or desktop computer. With the ability to sit on the couch and enter your order on your phone, it’s no wonder that around 80% of consumers regularly use a mobile device when shopping online.

6. Improved local search ranking

Many online searches are done to find local businesses that offer a specific product or service. These local searches are optimized on mobile devices. Responsive design makes your website more attractive and user-friendly, which often leads to higher local search rankings, making it easier for users to find your website.

Responsive Design Concepts and Key Practices for Responsive Web Design

With responsive design, you design for flexibility in all areas: images, typography, and layout. So, you should:

• Go mobile first: Begin the process of designing products for mobile devices rather than desktop devices.
• Create a water grid and image.
• Make use of scalable vector graphics (SVG) a priority.
• Add three or more breakpoints (settings for three or more devices). Prioritize and hide content based on the user’s location.
• Look at your model process and use a progressive statement in the key drawer to give users the first thing they want.
• Keep the non-essentials (nice to haves) for last.
• Aim for minimalism.
• Add design principles to increase usability for users in their context and improve familiarity.

Importance Of Responsive Web Design for Website Performance

Responsive websites are not only attractive, but they also offer many important advantages over sites that are not responsive. If your site doesn’t already have a responsive technology, here are four reasons why it’s time to change:

1. It provides an unparalleled user experience across different devices and resolutions.

The number of people using mobile phones is higher than ever, and as this number continues to grow, businesses must be prepared to meet these unique needs.

2. This increases the loading time of your website.

Do you scroll to a site and click on it because it takes too long to load? You are not alone. There are so many different ways to increase load times, and the simplest happens to be implementing a responsive site design. Responsive sites are faster than non-responsive sites, which means your visitors won’t abandon you.

3. It is good for search engine optimization (SEO).

Google gives responsive sites a higher search ranking. If you are concerned about the SEO potential of your site, having a responsive website is very important. In 2012, Google’s Pierre Farr said that the search engine favored responsive websites over mobile-only sites. For what? Because it is easier for Google to assign a single URL as opposed to multiple codebase methods that require different URLs for desktop and mobile versions.

4. It simplifies the development process.

Responsive design is not only great for site visitors, but it also streamlines the web development process because web developers are not required to create multiple codes for different devices and screen resolutions.

Conclusion

Responsive design allows your website content to look great on all devices. It also makes it unnecessary to maintain different versions of your website for different devices, saving time, resources, and effort.

A modern, user-friendly, and fast website is essential for growing your business and attracting new customers. It strengthens your online presence and shows you are trusted by your customers.

Of course, having a beautiful and optimized website is just the beginning. To be relevant, you still need to fill it with valuable content and offer top-quality products and services. But a website is the digital face of your business, and making it user-friendly, accessible, and flexible is something you shouldn’t be.