Naturally and automatically adjusting on the fly is a critical part of success in nature, sports, business — and even web design. Perfecting responsive web design is a marketing concept that allows your website to effectively adjust instantly on all your customer’s devices.

It keeps users where you want them; on your site.

Mobile devices have changed the landscape of online browsing and shopping. Since smartphones were introduced in 2007 and the iPad came out in 2010, more and more internet users are using them to browse and make purchases.

Why is this important to you?

Because if your site isn’t mobile responsive, you’re losing users (and possible customers) by the minute.

Responsive web design isn’t really a marketing concept anymore. It’s a marketing requirement.

Here we’ll discuss how having a mobile-friendly website can’t be avoided anymore.

The best part is, it’s not as hard as you might think.

Now let’s begin.

Responsive Design is a Key Marketing Concept

The number of mobile users has surpassed desktop users. That’s a huge thing to get your head wrapped around.

Think about it this way: if the layout and presentation of your website doesn’t adjust across all mobile devices, more than half of the money and energy you spend getting users to your site is wasted.

When’s the last time you were browsing on your smartphone and landed on a site that was clearly designed only for desktop? What did it look like and what did you do?

Most users aren’t going to navigate an unresponsive site on their mobile device. It’s too clumsy, hard to read and looks unprofessional. It also gives a poor first impression of your business.

Most users will leave and head to a competitor as soon as they see your site is not mobile optimized.

That’s more than half of your users that never access all the great content your site provides.

When you think about responsiveness as a marketing concept, remember that it basically doubles the results you get from your marketing dollars, while showing users that you are professional and up-to-date with technology.

This is one important marketing objective to roll out as soon as possible.

Give Users the Best Experience Possible

If you expect your users to adapt to the technology of your website, you’re going to be disappointed.

Many designers, developers, and publishers assume that if a user doesn’t have a good experience on mobile, they’ll take out their laptop and access the site that way.

In reality, it just doesn’t happen most of the time.

Unless your blog, product or service is in such exclusive demand that you could still get orders through a PO box, there’s a much more likely scenario you’ll face:

After landing on your site from a Google search and seeing that it’s not mobile optimized, what will the user do next?

The vast majority of the time they are going to hit “back” and find a site that gives them a better mobile user experience.

So how do you adapt the content so users get the best possible experience on desktop, smartphones, and tablets?

Let’s say you own a restaurant. When someone lands on your site on desktop, they are likely doing research for a night out sometime in the future. All the foodie pictures you’ve taken work great on desktop because you want to entice them into calling for reservations.

Detailed customer reviews should be prominent and easy to scroll through. Desktop users take their time on your site and want to get a good idea of what your atmosphere is like.

These should be some of the first things they see on your desktop site.

Now let’s take the mobile user.

Most mobile users looking up restaurants are ready to eat right now. They want to immediately know your hours, location and menu. They shouldn’t need to search very hard for this information.

Someone browsing on mobile typically wants to know how many stars your ratings reflect. But they probably won’t take much time to read detailed reviews like desktop users do.

Think about how to adapt this concept to your desktop and mobile sites, regardless of what kind of business you’re in.

6 Reasons Why Responsive Web Design is a Successful Marketing Concept

  1. Improve your SEO rankings. Most website owners know the importance of effective SEO. However, did you know that if your site is not mobile responsive, it all but kills your SEO efforts? Search engines do not like non-responsive sites.
  2. The use of mobile phones continues to rise every year. Did you know that there are now more mobile phones in the world than there are people? Although that’s a scary thought, it means that being un-responsive is no longer an option.
  3. More and more people do their online shopping via mobile devices. Of note, 62% of smart phone users have made a purchase with their mobile device in the last 6 months, while 80% use them while shopping in-store to compare prices at competitors.
  4. It’s easier than ever to have a responsive site. Several years ago, developers had to individually manage two separate websites: a desktop version and a mobile version. Today there are thousands of website templates and themes that adapt your site with minimal effort — allowing you to manage one site and remain responsive.
  5. The social media factor. With over 80% of social media activity happening from mobile devices, you want to maximize the traffic you’re getting from your social media marketing. If someone lands on your site from a mobile social media app and sees it’s unresponsive, they’re gone.
  6. The bathroom… yes, the bathroom. About 69% of smartphone users admit to using their phone while in the bathroom (it’s probably much higher!). The average person spends over a year in the bathroom within their lifetime. Giving them a better “bathroom mobile experience” could very well lead to more online success — as crazy as that sounds!

Conclusion

If you’re still running a site that isn’t responsive, you should now understand the importance of why that needs to change — and fast.

Don’t fall behind your competitors by giving a mobile user experience straight out of 2007. Get responsive today and see the difference it will make.

Need help on implementing this marketing concept? A digital consultant will help you make this happen. Get in touch right now and we’ll get to work together.

Here’s to your mobile success with responsive design!