Responsive Websites ~ the way of the NOW
Responsive website design is a way to design your website in a way that it will “respond” to any screen size and will work on every smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop computer. Responsive codes are written as percentages instead of defining your website in pixels the way is has been done in the past.
There are many benefits of a responsive website, feel free to tell all your friends you are up-to-date on this trending web culture by sending a quick tweet.
Why should you care about responsive website design?
We all need to stop thinking about mobile optimization as the “wave of the future.” In reality, we are already living in a smartphone influenced world. 686 million new smart phones will be sold this year.
If you wait until 2013 to make your website mobile friendly, your site will be outdated. To be fair, responsive web design is not the only way to make your website mobile friendly.
You can also create a completely new site (m.example.com) or you can use javascript to show different content on different devices. Each one of these options have their limitations, and you need to research the best solution for your business.
If you combine a responsive website, with CSS3′s ability to reorganize your content I think a responsive site is the the best solution for most websites.
In the case of Responsive websites, Google recently published a mobile site guideline which states:
“Sites that use responsive website design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device. This is Google’s recommended configuration.”
A responsive website keeps all information on one URL. This makes it easier for people to share, link to, and revisit your website. If you have multiple versions of your website, the links pointing to m.example.com may not benefit your main website, example.com.
Did you know that people visit search engines more than they visit any other website? Here is the scary part. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile queries, Google might not show it to mobile searchers. In fact, if everything else is equal, they prefer to show one of your mobile friendly competitor’s sites instead. This is serious.
Steph Zahalka is the founder and CEO of Jungle Branding Co., a premier award-winning brand agency based on the Gold Coast Australia, serving clients across the globe.
Recent winner of the prestigious Female Entrepreneur of the Year Stevie Award 2020, Steph is a brand strategist and designer who has been featured on the cover of a nationally recognised ‘women in business’ magazine (GCGIB) and regularly appears on podcasts and events around the Gold Coast as a speaker, panel expert and interviewee where she reveals her unique process for building a wildly in-demand brand for ambitious entrepreneurs, modern CEOs, influencers, thought leaders, and service-based business owners.
Steph believes that, when done right, branding is the door to connecting with your people, your audience on a deeper level. Human to human connection that makes your audience ridiculously obsessed with not just your brand, but YOU and your vision that ultimately makes a positive impact on the world.
