A responsive Web design or simply an RWD is the approach to the web design where a website changes its appearance according to the device.
A responsive web design can be compared to water. Water always takes the shape of the container in which it is placed. Similarly RWD also takes the shape of the device the website is opened in.
Responsive Web design uses the following concepts
- Fluid grid concept
- Flexible images
- Media queries
Fluid grid concept
The concept allows the page sizing elements to use a variable unit like percentage rather than a fixed point like pixels.
Flexible images
Images are also sized utilizing the variable unit concept so that they do not appear out of the element which contains the images.
Media queries
A single css style can be appropriate only for a certain rule. So using media queries allows different css styles to run which in turn allows the content to change based upon the device used.
Importance of Mobile optimized web design in marketing
In this digital era many things have gained an online Outlook. In the same way marketing has also evolved and gained an online structure. There are many methods to market online and one such important tools is the electronic mail or simply the Email. Email is also a communication tool, used to exchange messages between people across the globe without out the distance barriers.
In the present day scenario every Digital-marketer should keep in mind that smartphones, mobiles and tablets have a major share in the market. The number of users of mobiles have increased exponentially.
PDAs were used but not extensively before, but with the advent of the new generation mobile operating systems mobiles have started to occupy an important role. Emails, calls, messages no matter what the application is they are being developed for the mobiles.
There is a little bit of difference between a desktop and a mobile or tablet. An email or web content which is designed specifically for a desktop can have issues when viewed on a mobile or tablet.
How responsive web design can boost your business
- In this modern day almost all business is conducted online. Also marketing is done through websites.
- Again desktops and laptops are used, but more than those mobile devices are being used.
- Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are used not only for communication but also for browsing and other internet based applications.
- There are a lot of operating systems for the mobile devices like Android by Google, IOS by Apple , Windows by Microsoft etc.
- Mobile devices are different than desktops and laptops.
- For starters mobile devices are smaller in size and their processors are not as fast as the desktops.
- Hence a mobile friendly site has an edge over a non mobile friendly site.
- There are websites which have both mobile friendly versions and desktop versions.
- Having two sites can exert load on the server.
- Instead of having a separate mobile site and desktop site, a Responsive web page can be hosted.
- A responsive web design is a web design which can adopt to the device on which the web page is opened.
- When an user visits the page from a mobile device , the responsive page automatically adjusts the page to fit the viewer’s mobile device’s screen size.
Some of the advantages to a business by using a responsive web design are
- Increases outreach to mobile devices
- Increases sales rate
- Increases conversion rates
- Easy analytics and reports
- Increases search engine visibility
- Reduces development costs
- Reduces site management costs
- Increased user experience
Increases outreach to mobile devices
Increased usage of tablet and mobile devices led to internet being used by many people on the go. So with a responsive web design you can profit a lot. A user who might have searched you on their desktop or laptop can access the same site in their mobile device which will increase the chance of getting profits in business.
Increases sales rate
Improved user experience leads to getting more sales. With the use of style sheets (CSS) the clients can experience a perfect site even on their mobile devices. Higher user experience can lead to an increased sales rate.
Increases conversion rates
An unified design which is the same across all devices means the users will not be redirected to the web version or face similar problems which in turn increases the user experience. A stable site which is responsive on all devices leads to an increase in user experience index. This can result in the users visiting the website to buy services or products from the site. Thus a responsive web design can increase the sales conversion rates.
Easy analytics and reports
With a single responsive website you do not have to worry about analytics and reports of different websites. This reduces a lot of time and costs to analyse and study the reports of various variables across the different sites. A single report will be present which in turn makes analysis and reporting and also further development easy.
Increases search engine visibility
Maintaining the website is easy.A consolidated search engine optimisation strategy can be followed. A single webpage to develop can have better quality content than a multi page content. Hence it becomes easy to get a better seo score.
Reduces development costs
Cost for development of multiple web pages is more than developing a single responsive page. Hence it is useful in reducing development costs.
Reduces site management costs
Similar to reduction in development costs, managing a single page is way more cheaper than managing multiple sites. Hence it also reduces the costs incurred for management of web pages.
Increased user experience
All the content is easily available on the go and also with the html5 technology offline browsing is also very easy. More and more devices with html5 enabled are being launched which allows users to access the page more on the mobile devices. With a responsive page which provides maximum user experience gives more conversion rates. Also the hybrid html5 technology allows users to access offline data easily increasing user index largely.
These are some of the advantages of using a responsive webpage.
