The Importance of a Responsive Website

A responsive website will automatically format itself to fit the device it’s loaded on—whether that’s a desktop computer, mobile phone, or tablet. Years ago, consumers hardly used their phones to go online; tablets weren’t nearly as popular as they are now, either. And depending on how far back your website goes, it may have been designed during a time when neither of these items really existed (Zack Morris’s clunker of a cell phone doesn’t count.) Because just about everyone goes online with cell phones and tablets nowadays, ensuring your website is responsive is essential.

Mobile-Friendly Design

If a website’s design is significantly outdated, it won’t be responsive at all and won’t automatically format to fit a mobile device. Instead, you’ll see a shrunk-down version of the desktop site, which can be a total nightmare for someone to deal with.

E-Commerce

According to Search Engine Land, more than one billion Internet users today primarily use mobile devices. Consumers are doing the majority of their purchases on their cell phones as well. As such, it’s more important than ever to have a responsive web design if you operate an online store. With all of the online shopping options out there now, people usually won’t have the patience to deal with a website that fails to load properly on their mobile devices, and they will just move on to the next. This means you could be losing a lot of potential customers and revenue as a direct result of a poor website design. Ensuring your website is responsive can be one of the best investments that you make for your online business.

Search Engine Rankings

If you want your website to rank well in search engines, you should make sure it’s responsive. Not only does Google have its own algorithm for mobile search, but a responsive website has improved SEO rankings overall.

Not sure if your current website design is responsive? You can easily check by pulling it up on your mobile device, or using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.

If your web design is outdated and you’re in need a new design that’s responsive, or you’re starting from scratch and looking to build a brand new website, contact the team at 1Brand Creative Group today.

Is your website design outdated? 

Once upon of time, your website design may have been on point. It was shiny and new, and looked just as good—if not better—than many of the other top websites out there. But like so many things, after a certain amount of time, the design became outdated. Some people completely recognize and accept this reality—other times, it’s not so obvious. How can you know if your website design is in need of a complete overhaul? The following are some signs:

Music Plays Automatically

Even if the sounds are subtle or go with the theme of your website, music (or any sound effects, for that matter) automatically playing when a website loads is a clear sign that it’s time for a redesign. This may have been the hip thing to do in the 1990s and early 2000s when people first started creating their websites, but these days, it can be downright annoying for many visitors, and turn a lot of potential customers away.

It’s Not Responsive

Because so many people use their mobile phones and tablets to go online, it’s important that your website will load properly on these devices. This is known as a responsive design. Old designs are not responsive and will instead appear as shrunken versions of the desktop site. If your website is not responsive, it’s likely outdated and in need of a new design.

Too Much Flash

In 2017, Google announced their plans to phase out Flash in Google Chrome and Adobe’s plans to stop supporting Flash by the end of 2020. Because Google Chrome is by the far the most widely used web browser today, a website that has too much Flash (arguably, any amount of Flash) is definitely outdated.

So let’s say you do realize that your website’s design is outdated. The next question you may be asking yourself is why it should matter? After all, it gets the job done. You rank well. You’ve got a web presence. You do get leads. Why is it an issue?

There are a lot of reasons why.

Firstly, an outdated website likely won’t be converting as well as it can be. You may be getting leads already, but with an outdated website, you could be missing out on a ton of others. An outdated design likely won’t rank as well as it should, won’t retain visitors as long as it can with a new design, and so on.

Another thing to consider is your brand and your company’s reputation. First impressions are very important. An outdated web design can come across as unprofessional in the eyes of many potential customers, and people are typically drawn to companies with the better-looking websites.

Whether your website can use some sprucing up or a complete redesign, contact a local design company. Do a quick google search for your location such as “Chicago Web Design” and make sure to thoroughly research each agency listing and compare pricing, services and proposals before you make your decision in hiring your design team.