“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” -Milton Glaser

Responsive website design (RWD) is one of the newest terms in the website design world. Due to the rapid increase in the number of people who access the Internet via one or mobile devices, it is vital for website owners, especially eCommerce site owners to ensure that not only are their websites are easy to navigate around on a mobile device, but they are eye-catching as well. Consequently, a business case for responsive website design can be made to justify the costs involved in ensuring that your site works well and looks great irrespective of the screen size.

What is responsive web design?

Before we look at reasons why you should prioritise responsive web design, let’s have a look at a formal definition to understand the concept as clearly as possible:

In essence, responsive web design is a web design approach "aimed at allowing desktop webpages to be viewed in response to the size of the screen or web browser one is viewing with.”

Additionally, it's important to understand that part of the design process is to offer the same technical support to all of the devices that your website can be viewed on. Ergo, it is not just the design process that it is important, it is the holistic development and support package that will ensure that your website will play a significant role in increasing your company's sales.

Reason to prioritise RWD

Arguably, a clear understanding of the RWD concept goes a long way towards clarifying the reasons why you should make sure that your website is developed in such a way that it can be accessed successfully on all the different platforms from mobile devices to desktop computers. However, here is the most important reason why a responsive website is a critical part of your digital media marketing toolkit:

Increased Return on Investment (ROI)

It is an accepted fact that companies are moving towards the understanding that the best ROI comes from fully integrated marketing programs. Ergo, if your website has more than one version or a single version that displays poorly on all of the different platforms available to consumers today, you will find that visitors to your site will navigate away from your site, resulting in the loss of sales. Therefore, it is vital to ensure an increased ROI that your website is responsive to mobile device screens as well as laptop and desktop monitors.

Better SEO Rankings

Google officially admitted that websites that do not have a responsive design will not suffer in rankings. This practically means that you can end up buying thousands of SEO links and still no results will appear when no responsive website design is present. As the industry is moving towards RWD you simply cannot lag behind or your competition will be higher than you in results pretty soon.

Final words

There is no doubt that developing your website so that it works across all platforms from mobile devices to laptop and desktop computers, will not only help you drive your sales figures up, it will improve your brand’s reputation which will help your company develop sustained business growth.