So, your site now has all the bells and whistles. It’s SEO compliant. It’s mobile-friendly. You’ve even got the latest and greatest social media share buttons on the market. But the question is…
is your site responsive?
What is a responsive site, you say? Glad you asked.
Simply put, a responsive site is a site that displays in the proper dimensions based on the device that is being used to view it. For instance, standard site dimensions are 1024, minimally. Viewed on a mobile device, that site would be either humungous or imperceptibly small, depending on whether you viewed it real size or tried to fit it all on a mobile phone. So you make a site that is properly viewable on a mobile phone. Ok. That’s better; but have you considered that people who view your site on a mobile phone are not necessarily just “surfing sites”? Chances are, they are seeking specific information that your company, and thus your site, has. So give priority to the information your mobile viewer is most likely looking for. Yes, that may only be 3-5 items, but if it gets them to the exact information they’re looking for, you’ve succeeded. Give them the information they want; not the information you want them to have.
The same is true for tablet devices, although you do have more room to work with and may not have to be as concerned with displaying only a few items at a time. But now you have to also deal with the directionality of the device; it is landscape or portrait? This is true for phones as well, but it is much more critical for tablet devices.
Then, let’s throw in a variety of viewing resolutions for good measure.
So, what that means is, you need a site that can determine what device it is being viewed on, at what dimension, what resolution, so that you can deliver the appropriately designed site. Cool! That means I have to make 4 versions of my website.
Ok, now you’re just being ridiculous.
Let’s bring in a responsive website. A website built responsively (responsibly?) knows all the answers to those questions and offers up the right site design automatically. This is important from a user-friendly standpoint. The whole reason you’re on the web to begin with is to meet your customers’ needs and get more customers, and that means making it as easy as possible for your customers to get what they need from you. And one way to do that is through a responsive site: a site that responds to your customer in the way that best meets their needs.
If you’re not sure what your website looks like on a mobile phone, check it out. If you don’t have a smart phone, ask someone who does; and if you’re not happy with what you see, give us call.