The Flow of Responsive Design

For Immediate Release:

August 27, 2015 – The web developers at webworks89 in Wilmington, NC., strictly build websites that incorporate responsive web design. Read here about the significance of responsive websites and how this has impacted mobile advertising.

Over this past decade, the internet has subjected websites to a period that has (metaphorically) resembled the ice age. In this glacial landscape, websites were rigid, unable to alter their own shape. Responsive Website Design has melted away these icebergs of past and opened the door for new, shapeless websites, that flow like water.

These responsive websites have the capacity to adapt the new fleet of devices people now use to access the internet, namely smartphones and tablets. With the development of networks and mobile internet, our society has obtained a growing thirst for instant gratification. We demand immediate results and are quick to look elsewhere when these answers are not readily available. This short consumer attention span has led companies to focus on homepage retention, triggering the high demand for responsive web design.

Websites that are responsive mold their design to whatever device is accessing it, this includes Androids, i-Phones, tablets, desktops; you name it. This compatibility is instilled through Content Management Systems (CMS). To put it briefly, CMS’s serve as the architectural foundation for a website to neatly adjust to different devices. These systems can add plug-ins to your site so that it may enhance speed, security and overall performance. This new adaptability has had a dramatic impact on the amount of mobile users who can access the internet.

Nowadays 80 percent of smartphones users choose to use mobile phones when shopping online. From 2014 to 2015 mobile device grew at a whopping 137 percent. Compare this to desktops that still grew at a respectable 14 percent. This drastic jump in mobile use means that people are on the internet now more than ever and to no one’s surprise, advertisers have begun to take notice.

Banner Ads have become a popular strategy for advertisers marketing on responsive websites. They understand that the attention span of a mobile user is short and should not be disrupted. These banner ads offer brand recognition and direct response interaction with viewers, all without disturbing the user experience. Facebook Ads have also become a favorite for advertisers using mobile marketing strategies. Alicia Wagner, a Social media Specialist at Coegi, a digital marketing company, said, “Unlike mobile banners, Facebook mobile placements are all prominently placed in the newsfeed with a large visual, and take up the entire screen in the app environment.” Advertisers gear these mobile marketing efforts towards responsive, user friendly sites because they’re easily discovered and visitors are more likely to stay on that page.

Google Analytics is a tool that many companies now use to analyze metrics as well and other important demographic information.

Google Analytics allows you to monitor metrics and determine the quality of website performance. Page views, bounce rate, users, sessions and average duration of session, are all key metrics that inform hosts on what the average user experience is on their website. Responsive websites strengthen these measurable metrics by pulling in more users, increasing duration of sessions and subsequently decreasing your page bounce rate. These tools ensure that your website is living up to its full potential and gains the undivided attention of advertisers.

Money is the name of the game, and your website should be your best salesperson. It should have a neat appearance that leaves a positive first impression. By embedding content that contains key words and useful plug-ins, your responsive website will become Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly. Beginning April 21st of this year, Google has actually gone through and indexed websites, pushing older, outdated websites lower on the page ranks. More users feel encouraged to use mobile internet and as a result, the Business Insider found that the US mobile ad spend will reach $42 billion by 2018.

Having a responsive website is central when climbing your website to the top of the Google ranks. Properly managed SEO can play a significant factor on your site’s advertising appeal, in a sense, killing two birds with one stone.

First and foremost, it benefits your brand. Your responsive website will be more readily discovered with searches surrounding your business and business location. This exposure will give you an edge up on your competition, sending more of their potential customers in your direction. This seamless form of advertising that exposes your brand to thousands of viewers simply through having a functional website. Secondly, a well structured SEO campaign will make your website the ideal landing strip for outside businesses.  Advertisers across the board take note of these SEO rankings and the higher your page is, the more likely you are to be contacted by interested marketers.

A quote from the legendary Bruce Lee seems to sum-up responsive design nicely, “If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. If you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be like water, my friend”. As your responsive design molds to smart phones or tablets, it will be like water. When your business thinks in a progressive direction it will be less likely to crash, falling through the cracks of the vast internet landscape. Be responsive, my friend.