As a user, nothing annoys you more when you open a website on your device and half of the material is cut off or you need to zoom in to read the content. So, why does this happen to some websites while others can fit into your device’s screen without any problem? The answer is responsiveness of the web design.
A WordPress website’s opportunities for selling your products, promoting your services, and building a larger community are infinite. However, one question that several website owners need to remember to ask is if their website is responsive.
A website is a marketing tool that must adapt to accommodate present-day user requirements. We live in an era where every other individual uses a mobile device for accessing the sites on the internet. And each of these devices has varying screen sizes. Hence, building a website that serves all your customers and increases your reach becomes vital.
In this guide, we will walk you through a responsive website, the seven characteristics that make a website responsive, and the benefits of building a responsive website.
What Is Responsive Web Design?
Responsive design is a web design practice that proposes your website’s development, and design should cater to the behaviour of your website user. It should also respond to the user’s device’s screen size, its orientation, and the platform they are using to view your site.
For a clearer picture, displaying your content in columns can be an idea for your desktop users, given their device offers enough space to deliver a readable design. However, if you expect a user’s mobile device with the same layout is viable, then you are mistaken. It will only create difficulty for the user to grasp your content.
Therefore, a responsive website design ensures that where one layout looks best for one user’s PC, another is functional for a different user’s smartphone. An impressive responsive design pays attention to every website detail to guarantee your user only has a good experience while navigating your site.
The approach includes an ümraniye escort amalgamation of layouts, visual elements, scalable grids, and, of course, the usage of media queries combined with CSS. Thus, when a user shifts from a tablet to a mobile phone, or vice versa, the website instantly adjusts the size of the images, typography, screen resolution, layout, and more.
Characteristics That Make Web Design Responsive
Organizations and businesses of all scales rely on websites for their growth. Online sites are ideal for reaching a larger audience and building a new customer base. An indispensable quality of a magnificent website is its responsive design. So, what makes a responsive website design? This section will discuss factors that uniquely make your site adaptable to all kinds of devices.
1. Choose the Responsive WordPress Themes
Is your WordPress theme responsive? In the past, not all pieces offered responsiveness as one of their features. If you have been using your website for the longest time, it is time to contact the provider of your WordPress theme and ask for a responsive design.
However, if you recently created a WordPress site or are just starting to create one, you must have come across several WordPress premium themes with responsive design. For website building, ensure your website uses a WordPress theme with supreme responsive quality. Today, to cater to this, almost every piece is responsive.
Generally, WordPress theme providers offer updates to increase the responsive nature of your website. Therefore, another thing to check for on any updates for your theme. Use the staging site to try the plugin compatibility before updating the article.
Ideally, most businesses rely on custom-built themes that offer more responsiveness and options than a pre-built theme. However, you can use a pre-built theme after verifying its features, reputation, etc. Also, make sure to check for reviews before coming to a decision.
2. Trigger the Grips with HTML and CSS
In every web browser, if something has control over a web page’s layout and the material, it is the two languages- CSS and HTML.
Everything is under HTML’s control, from a webpage’s content to its structure and elements. So, if you want to include an image on your website’s page, you will need an HTML code. Inside your HTML, you also get the option to control height, width, and other primary attributes (although this practice needs to be updated).
CSS language is used for editing an element’s design, and HTML takes care of its layout. You can include a <style> section in the HTML document or create an individual style sheet file.
Apart from altering the color, height, and width, you can control various other aspects of your design. As a result, you can create responsive designs by employing CSS in such a way and combining it with media queries.
3. Superior Compatibility with Screens Size
The market is full of devices that come in all kinds of orientations and screen sizes. Consequently, as a website owner, you must ensure that your website can accommodate multiple devices’ screen sizes that enable users to access your website from every device.
Every website aims to enhance its user experience and further create positive relationships. A responsive design enables you to achieve this goal as it facilitates your website to change its size according to the user’s device’s screen. It will change the font size, adjust images, alter orientations, and ensure the content suits the viewer’s screen.
You can increase user engagement and build a more significant customer base or community by making your web design compatible with different displays. Other benefits include increased conversions, revenue generation, and more sales.
4. Scalable Images
Another thing you absolutely must take advantage of is scalable images for your responsive website. A significant characteristic of this web design is responsive images that alter their size based on the browser’s width and the display of the user’s device.
It is impractical and impossible to try and upload different image sizes for them to be compatible with all devices. Therefore, you can eliminate extra work and let the responsive website design do its job. The feature of scalable images ensures that images look stunning on all devices effortlessly.
Additionally, responsive images improve user experience by faster loading and downloading of images, decreasing waiting time. Search engines favour this characteristic and increase your ranking on result pages.
5. Fluid Typography
If one element of your website decides how responsive and efficient it is, it is your typography. And most website owners need to pay more attention to their typography and focus only on other elements to build a responsive website. And when their website receives reduced user traffic with a low conversion rate, they wonder what went wrong.
Of course, making elements like images, infographics, and videos responsive is vital for web design. However, responsive typography plays a substantial role if you genuinely want to see an increase in your new visitors and buyers. Typography usually does well if your user uses a desktop to engage with your site. However, the same fails with mobile devices.
Therefore, an integral feature of a responsive web design is fluid typography. It pays special attention to your website’s typography and makes it responsive for all mobile devices. The web designers who design your website or pre-built highly responsive theme will guarantee that every element of your website is responsive, including typography. They will ensure that your user feels satisfied.
6. Incorporate Responsive Plugins
We talked about how responsive themes are significant for your website. Similarly, you can pick from abundant plugin choices when you want your website to be more functional. These plugins offer you the capability to not only improve the backend operations but also allows you to incorporate new elements on your site’s front end.
From visuals to call-to-action and more, a plugin allows you to add everything you want. But for this purpose, you should not choose just any plugin. We recommend you pick responsive plugins for your website. These types of plugins help you scale your elements for various display sizes.
For example, a specific element is only compatible with desktop devices. Then, a responsive plugin will allow you to disable it for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Say, you want a WordPress website to have sidebars. The sidebars work well with desktop users as it increases the functionality of your site.
However, this may pose an obstruction and create difficulty for mobile users. As a result, you will lose a big part of your online traffic, receive low conversions, and deliver a bad website experience. You will require a responsive plugin to deactivate the mobile device’s sidebar to avoid this disaster.
Therefore, whenever you seek a plugin for your website, take notice of its features. Also, just like themes, look at their reviews and their reputation in the market to only pick the top plugin for integrating into your site.
7. All Browser Compatibility
Now you know how important it is for your website to be compatible with different devices. But what is another vital characteristic you cannot skip? It is web browser compatibility. Not all users rely on Google. Several individuals use several other search engines, like Bing, Yahoo, Linux, etc., to visit your site.
For this reason, you must streamline your WordPress website for all web browsers. A feature of good, responsive design for your website is browser compatibility. As a result, your website will look its best on every browser.
It is an essential feature for times when specific browsers may not work in certain places. You can avoid losing significant traffic or potential customers.
Conclusion
With new devices hitting the market now and then, how users interact with the website has drastically changed. Where once users used to depend on desktops to access the internet, today, the same world has been squeezed into one single device- the smartphone. Almost every individual possesses a mobile device, whether a laptop, a mobile phone, or a tablet.
As a result, if your website only caters to a single device, it will most likely lose the attention of its potential traffic, conversions, sales, revenue, etc. This is why building a site that is entirely responsible for users to enjoy surfing through your site using any device is crucial.
The characteristics we mentioned are a must-have in your website’s responsive design. Therefore, ensure that your website incorporates all seven if you want a responsive and efficient web design.
FAQs
Why is responsive web design important?
Be different from other website owners and take an effective initiative to employ a responsive web design. How web design effect? Because this approach offers website users an experience that will leave a good impression. Additionally, there are various other reasons why having a responsive design for your site matters.
Firstly, search engines love websites that say mobile-first. The number of users using mobile devices to surf the net is rapidly increasing. And to accommodate this, browsers look for a website that will provide a user-friendly experience. As a result, a responsive website will rank better on SERPs.
A responsive design ensures that it loads faster for users to easily and quickly navigate your site. They can instantly find relevant information and stay longer on your website. For customers, a responsive design delivers a positive experience, ensures lead generation, and increases paying customers.
Responsive design supports your SEO, optimizing the page’s loading speed and generating more traffic. Consequently, it will also reduce the bounce rate. This in turn increases your content’s popularity because when your visitors like want they see, they will share it on various social platforms.
Significance of responsive website design?
Look around; almost every person you come across carries a smartphone. Gone are the days when people used to sit in front of their personal computers to surf the internet. Most of the individuals who do use a desktop are primarily professionals or gamers.
With the popularity of hand-held devices, such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc., people usually favor surfing the internet. Further, technology is unstoppable, and several new devices are hitting the market daily.
As a website owner, having your website’s design solely streamlined for a single device is not ideal and makes it difficult to reach the potential audience. A non-responsive website is a piece of bad news for your business as it poses an obstruction between your website and potential traffic.
If your website’s design is responsive, visitors can view your site efficiently, which will effortlessly fit their different device displays. Newer visitors will be able to interact with your website effectively and do not have to deal with device incompatibility.
