- Over 1.2 billion people worldwide access the internet from their smartphones. – Pixel Union.net
- Click-through-rates increase 21-24% with a responsive website as compared to mobile versions or any other versions. – Dzone
What is a fully responsive website?
Responsive web design? What is that? If you are searching for a web designer, you can often feel a bit overwhelmed by the terminology. How can you begin to know what you want if you aren’t really sure what is on offer?
In my list of services available at McGrath Web Design, I state that all websites are “fully responsive”, but what does that even mean?
A responsive website automatically resizes and rearranges any content, so that it works seamlessly on all devices. This will mean that a customer can easily move from PC to I pad to phone and your website will perform as smoothly. Images will remain as clear and text will not suddenly overlap. The customer experience is as good as ever.
“Click through rates” refer back to the likelihood of a customer clicking on a specific link and looking through the pages. This likelihood is increased if the experience is not adversely affected by a site that does not look as attractive on a phone.
How many of us use our phones to shop?
How common is it to see a product on social media, whilst browsing in the evening and then follow the link to the website and before you know it, a purchase has been made? This chain of events does not occur if the site is unattractive and clumsy on different devices. Your customers “bounce” straight off.
Over 60% of people in Britain use their mobile devices to shop. If your website looks dreadful on a mobile, you are slamming the shop door in their faces.
“Big mistake! Huge!”
If your pages are clunky and images take an eternity to load, you may as well have left your customer standing in the shop unattended. As Vivienne says in “Pretty Woman”, “Big mistake! Huge! I have to go shopping now” and out marches your sale!
According to Pingdom, “the average bounce rate for pages loading within 2 seconds is 9%. As soon as the page load time surpasses 3 seconds, the bounce rate soars, to 38% by the time it hits 5 seconds!”
The Holy Grail of loading speed is 2 seconds!
So how do you make sure your customers enjoy their shopping experience and importantly, come back for more. The answer is ensuring your site is easily accessible to mobile customers. And that’s where I come in…!
Vicky McGrath,
McGrath Web Design.