The Importance Of Having A Responsive Website For Your Business

The way we use websites has changed dramatically over the last decade, and website and internet use continue to evolve year on year. Most significantly, there has been a shift from accessing websites solely from a desktop, to mobile browsing and mobile website use being the most popular way to get online. 74% of people worldwide own a Smart Phone according to Google, and we have become so dependent on our phones that 30% of us suffer anxiety if we don’t have access to our phones throughout the day!

We are all guilty of waking up and checking our phone within 15 minutes of opening our eyes, at least once. But for many Smart Phone owners, this is a daily habit and the phone is the first and last thing they look at each day. In order to take advantage of this, your business needs to ensure that your mobile website user-experience is as good as it can be. Some businesses choose to develop a separate mobile website, but this isn’t always a very cost-effective or scalable solution and for most businesses, it’s better to focus on a responsive website.

The Advantages Of A Responsive Website

1) Cut down maintenance resources

Keeping everything under one website template is much easier than having a separate mobile and desktop website to maintain. You only need one server space to host the one site too, and only need to update one set of content.

2) Search engines prefer responsive websites

Google especially, now penalises websites that aren’t mobile friendly. Make sure that you stay as close to the top of the search results as possible and that your hard-earned SEO isn’t affected, by making sure your website functions just as well on mobile as it does on desktop. And again, by having just one responsive site instead of a separate mobile site, you’ll only need to carry out one ongoing SEO campaign.

3) Responsive websites meet social media traffic needs

If you’re active at promoting your brand and website on social media and carry out blogging on your website, then it’s likely you’ll be generating a lot of traffic from social activity. Most social media browsing takes place via apps on Smart Phones instead of desktop, so it’s highly likely that any users visiting you from social media will be using a mobile to view your website.

4) Save visitors from frustrating user-experiences

If you’ve ever visited a desktop site on your Smart Phone you will understand the feeling of “fat fingers” – having to press tiny buttons or try to scroll or zoom in on elements that are designed for a click of a mouse cursor instead. It’s not an enjoyable experience and will put many users off from browsing the site for long and from eventually buying. A responsive website will fit the buttons, cart, form fields and links to the size of the mobile device, making it easy for the visitor to carry out all the actions they need to.

If you’re a business in Malta you may be one of the many that have not yet updated your website to a responsive design. You could be missing out on customers and sales, and certainly, your competition will be thinking about updating soon if they haven’t already. Malta is becoming increasingly popular with foreigners visiting the island for pleasure or for business, and these types of visitors will be looking for things to do and buy and places to eat on their Smart Phones.

Make sure you’re tuned in to the foreigners in Malta and don’t miss out on the extra trade, by enhancing your website design to something responsive and mobile friendly. Talk to Just Some Coding about affordable packages to make the transition to a modern website. Consultations are free!