What’s all this ‘responsive’ stuff people are talking about these days? It simply means websites that adapt to the size of screen they’re being viewed on. A responsive website will look big and expansive on a large desktop display, be a bit more condensed on a tablet and perhaps feature special mobile specific tools such as menus, on a phone. Responsive site content may wrap around or reformat from horizontal to vertical, or certain page elements may be hidden for devices where they’re not required or won’t display right. ‘Responsive’ means making a website accessible for the different devices that it might be shown on.
Why is this important?
Well, fascinatingly, more websites are browsed on mobile phones now than they are on desktop computers. Almost everyone has a smartphone these days, and tablets look set to replace laptops for many people. Because of this trend, Google now also penalises websites for not being responsive for mobile devices by ranking them lower in it’s search results. For this reason, many website providers are contacting businesses with older websites encouraging them to ditch the old site in favour of a new responsive one.
Can’t I just modify my existing site?
You can. There are plugins available that will help you add a mobile menu, and a developer could re-program your site’s code to fit devices better, but this could be expensive depending on how your site is made. Sometimes it’s the only option, particularly if your site is large and complex and you’re actually quite satisfied with the way it looks and works. However, these days we live in a world of website themes and templates, and many people have the ability, particularly if their website is based on a platform like Joomla or WordPress, to just change the theme (the design) without affecting the content too much.
Perhaps the first port of call would be to simply have a professional developer look over your site and advise you on what you should do. Certainly, it is important for your site to be mobile responsive, and it will benefit your business to find a way to upgrade your website for today’s technology.
At Deluxe Web, we can advise you on the available options by taking a look over your current website. We can also create a new site for you that closely matches your current design if that is something that is important to you to keep. Alternatively, we can create a new responsive site that can take your site to cutting edge design and functionality. Simply get in touch with us to discuss your project.