How Do You Make a Website Mobile Friendly?
You already know that your website has to look good on a smartphone or tablet, not just on a desktop computer. But you may have questions about why that’s necessary and how it happens. Let’s take a look at what responsive design is and why it’s important for your business website.
The Scoop on Responsive Design
“Responsive” design simply means that the elements of the website automatically adjust to display attractively on whatever size of screen you’re using.
First, a small snippet of code in the backend of your website requests information about the size of the browser window that the visitor to your site is using. Then, the site elements are automatically re-arranged to be most readable on that size of screen. For a large desktop computer monitor, that can mean it will stretch out a bit; for a small smartphone screen, that means that the design becomes more linear and users will be able to easily scroll down through the information.
Designers make this happen by creating a proportionate grid that can be adjusted immediately and flexible images that can be resized and still look good on any screen.
Why Responsive Design is Important
There’s more to responsive design than making it look good. Your website has to be usable, and a non-responsive website can be nearly impossible for mobile users to read or click on.
Don’t think you have a lot of mobile users? In November 2016, the number of website visitors on mobile exceeded those on traditional computers. So the odds are good that you do have a large number of visitors who are using tablets and smartphones to access your site. If they can’t use your site, they’ll look to one of your competitors.
What’s more, Google wants you to use mobile-friendly responsive design. As the largest search engine and a significant source of traffic to your site, you’ll want to do everything you can to rank high for your keywords in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. Google has started penalizing sites that don’t display responsive content or don’t have another method of providing a good mobile user experience.
At Data Design Systems, each site we create for a client is responsive, so it will work everywhere your customers are — on their computers, their tablets, or their phones. Give us a call to talk about your web design project. Call us at 513.766.9111 or email us at [email protected]