Responsive Web Design is Crucial for Your Business in 2024
Improve your online presence and attract more customers with a responsive website design. If your website looks outdated, uses outdated techniques, has a bare minimum presence, and isn’t optimised for mobile devices, it may be time for a redesign.
Using old templates, annoying popup newsletters, and a lack of responsiveness can all turn potential customers away, hindering your business’s success. Make sure to regularly update and test your website’s design for optimal performance and user experience.
In this article, we discuss the reasons why you should consider redesigning your website to be responsive.
When Should You Consider Redesigning Your Website?
If you designed your website from scratch, while learning how to build websites, you likely need a good overhaul due to using outdated techniques. Just like everything else in the world, web design evolves as time goes on, so if it took you a couple of years to finish your design then you likely need to start over.
Your Web Design Looks Like a Splash Page
A lot of people like putting up these one-page websites to catch sales and emails, but those are becoming outdated and scammy-looking. If you have one page with all of your products or services, a TOS page, a privacy page, and a Contact Us page then you’re likely going to lose some sales. This is because you have the bare minimum to be considered a website. Sure, you have a design and a domain, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to make money.
Add a blog, some subpages, and anything else you can think of in order to convince people you’re legitimate. The more content you have on your website, the better it is for your sales, and you will even see some traffic coming in from the search engines because you now rank for some long-tailed keywords.
Your Website Looks Like it Was Created in 1998
One of the biggest turn-offs when going to a website is seeing an outdated template that was made in the early years of the internet. People always use these templates because that’s just how websites were made back then, but that doesn’t mean you need to use them now.
Sure, you’ll get a few sales here and there by using these templates and having some catchy sales copy, but you could be making a boatload more money if you just had a modern design that people could trust.
Another reason you shouldn’t use old templates is that they make your website look like it’s been abandoned. You’re not staying up to date with design trends, and that means your website is essentially collecting cobwebs, and now people won’t purchase from you because they aren’t sure if the website has anyone running it.
You’re Using a Basic Low-Quality Template
Just like the above point, you could be using a template that was designed in a few hours and it doesn’t look high quality. It could have been made yesterday by a person who wanted to get into web design, and it’s likely enticing because it’s free to use, but that doesn’t mean you should be using it.
Spend a few bucks and get a WordPress theme from ThemeForest if you want to look amazing online. You can always customize these themes to do anything you want since you have all the code at your disposal. You can even add dozens of different plugins to your website and make it more unique than anyone else who has purchased it.
A lot of people ask me “Doesn’t Google want to see a unique website design in order to boost my rankings?” and the answer to that is “Yes and No”. They want you to have a good website design that loads fast, but they don’t really care if you’re using a theme that 1,000 other people are as well. As long as you’re adding your own content and images you’ll be just fine in the eyes of Google.
One of the most annoying things you can come across online is a pop-up newsletter that doesn’t know when to stop. You could close it and it will pop back up in 20 seconds as you’re reading an article. By having a newsletter pop-up like this, you’re just annoying your visitors and they will leave after a certain point, and this point tends to be much earlier than they decide to make a purchase!
Having a newsletter popup is great, but only use it once in order to pull attention to it, don’t use it dozens of times when the user is on your website. People will see it and sign up if they want, but if they don’t sign up then they shouldn’t be seeing it 20 more times during their visit. You’re essentially pushing them off of your website because you really need them to sign up.
With the staggering growth of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, and mobile device usage, via games, apps, social media, and websites, it is now essential that your business website is mobile friendly, so that your clients and prospects can easily browse and find information, regardless of what type of device (phone, tablet, desktop, etc.) they are using.
The menu is folded below a button, usually, at the top left corner, the text size is essential to read without sweat and the content of the site has been restructured in height without overflowing horizontally. There is no need to zoom in/out or scroll the site horizontally, the website visitor needs just to scroll vertically through the page.
Static vs. Responsive Websites
Static websites don’t change. They do not change on mobile, tablet or desktop. Website visitors get the same view on every device and if the device is too thin for the website they would need to scroll horizontally.
On a small smartphone screen, texts become too small to be legible. The visitor must make constant zoom-ins & zoom-outs and scroll horizontally & vertically to reach the parts of the site he/she needs to access. These tactile operations are unfriendly for a website visitor and it is likely that he/she will leave the site very quickly.
On the other hand, responsive web design is the future for websites. The content of the website adjusts automatically on the user’s device. This method’s results are definitely worth it.
Why Do You Need a Responsive Website?
The rise of smartphones means that more and more people are going online from a mobile device, but here are some numbers:
- Mobile Usage Is On The Rise
- Shopping On Mobile Devices Is Steadily Growing
- Social Media Increases Mobile Visitors
- Responsive Designs Adapt To Multiple Devices Sizes
- Responsive Sites Improve SEO Rankings
- One Site Is Easier To Manage And Increase R.O.I.
- Responsive Sites Provide A Better User Experience
- A Better Bathroom Experience
Some years ago, companies used to have two websites, one desktop site and the other a mobile (.mobi) site but that didn’t solve the problem, instead it…
- Generates twice as much work because changes made on the mobile site need to be made to the computer site, and vice versa.
- Updates cause many errors as the content is duplicated on both sites. With a responsive website, companies save time and money by ensuring that content is always up to date for all devices on only one site.
- Is duplicated on several sites with different URLs which are bad Search Engine Optimisation practices.
How to test if your website is responsive?
- Open your website on a smartphone or computer browser, if the site is displayed in the same way on your PC but smaller because the browser has zoomed it out to fit the screen width, it is likely that the site is not responsive.
- Open your website in your favourite browser but reduce the width of the window, if a horizontal scroll bar appears, the website is not responsive.
- Use this website to test if your website is responsive: https://responsivedesignchecker.com/
Everyone wants to be rich but not many people think their own website’s design is actually the thing holding them back from making money. It’s true, your website design can actually be turning people away and it doesn’t matter how good the services or products are. If your design is outdated, slow, not optimised, and basically just looks bad then you will not see the number of sales coming in that you had hoped for.
In Conclusion
It is clear that redesigning a website should be considered when it lacks modern techniques, looks outdated, appears scammy, has minimum content, uses low-quality templates, annoys visitors with popup newsletters and is not mobile-friendly. It is essential for businesses in 2024 to have a responsive website that adapts to different devices in order to provide a better user experience, improve SEO rankings, and increase ROI.
With the tools available to test for responsiveness, it is important for website owners to regularly check and update their designs in order to attract and retain potential customers. Neglecting a website’s design can be a major hindrance to the success and growth of a business. Therefore, proper consideration and investment should be made towards keeping a website up-to-date and appealing.
Get Your Business a Responsive Website Today!
The experienced Advertising Solutions Web Design team can quickly set you up with a new responsive website or a redesign of your current site. All the websites are made to be responsive unless specified otherwise.
