As someone who grew up using the internet when its greatest social network advances were IRC Boards and ICQ, it still shocks me to see the instant access we have to the Internet, previously known as the World Wide Web, today. A denizen myself, I solemnly swear by the necessity of responsive web design as an essential and indispensable tool for any successful webpage to succeed in today’s arena of clicks and views, tablets and smartphones whether it’s business oriented or not.
With such a drastic rise in mobile usage, incorporating smartphones, tablets and other gadgets, increases the necessity of having responsive web design. Responsive web design (RWD) permits a website’s layout to adapt and change as the size of the screen used to view the website changes and allows for easier programming as it saves your team the trouble of keeping multiple sites consistent and up to date.
1) Recommended by Google
Google holds 67 percent of the search engine market share so, when Google recommends responsive web design as its suggested configuration for mobile use and even calls it a best practice, you can trust the source. Another reason why Google recommends responsive web design is because content that is nested on only one website and one URL is much easier to share through e-mail, social media, message apps, etc. It is also much simpler to interact with and link the content that lives only on one website and one URL.
But most important of all, as of April 2015 Google began rewarding sites built responsibly by boosting their search engine rankings. This means that Google is effectively penalizing websites that don’t use RWD.
2) Comfortable mobile browsing
The rise of social media has come with a significant increase in mobile internet browsing. Mobile browsing can be very visually uncomfortable and also interactively for a user, if the web site they are visiting does not incorporate responsive web design. If a user has to pinch inwards to zoom in, pinch outwards to zoom out, drag an oversized page through a screen just to be able to access information, shop or socialize, you can bet that your non-responsive design webpage will get less visitors, and the ones that you do get will not be quite as satisfied as they probably are with a competitor that does incorporate responsive web design.
3) Cost effective
Given the considerable amount of different gadgets and hardware devices, from smartphones, tablets, to videogame consoles, that integrate web browsers nowadays, responsive website design is the most cost effective way to ensure that your website reaches all users with the same layout without having to pay for design and layout for a different page according to the device you want it to be seen on. Responsive web design solves all your layout and design needs at once and you don’t have to worry about taking on the extra cost of making a different layout and design for your website according to the device it will be viewed on: it can be viewed on any device!
Comfort, aesthetics, cost-effectiveness, SEO bonuses, and an easier experience for your clients and users, and much more is what you can achieve by choosing responsive web design. The choice is yours —my recommendation is that you go for it!