Friday, June 27, 2014

Responsive Website Design in Layman's Terms

There's no doubt that your company needs a website where customers can go to learn more about your offerings and hopefully persuade them to make a purchase, contact you, or tell a friend how great thou art.


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Before I dig too deep into the topic of Responsive Web Design (RWD), let's go back to a time period before the smartphone - back into the days of flip phones.  The company website was one entity, updated by you or your webmaster - you simply could not access your companies website on a mobile phone.  

Then came the smartphone where you could actually surf the web and find your favorite restaurants and directions using Google Maps - you would simply pinch and zoom or swirl your finger across, up, and down the screen to see the website.


Smartphones and tablets are made for convenience - they are smaller and fit into small compartments - so the screens are much smaller than your traditional laptop or desktop computer which offers a pleasing viewing experience because they both have bigger screen sizes.  Meanwhile, your website is one size - not taking into consideration the grown number of screen sizes.  Houston we have a problem!

Some small business owners have hired website designers and developers to create a mobile website - one that looks better on smaller screens.  Mobile websites get the job done, but they also create a job - they double the amount of time necessary to update the content on two sites.  Last I checked, time equals money.  And let's not overlook the fact that most mobile websites often dilute your company branding efforts by limiting graphic content, structure, and overall user experience.

Today your website can be more instinctive.  Allowing you to upgrade your current site and ditch your mobile site. Responsive Web Design and development responds to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform, orientation and eliminates the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market. Even better, responsive web design allows you to use your marketing dollars on areas that increase your business's exposure instead of updating content on your current site and mobile site.  Responsive web design is a real two-for-one deal.

Responsive websites do not merely shrink-to-fit differing device sizes, instead, responsive web design becomes more flexible:
  • Enhanced user experience / easy reading and navigation
  • Instantly switches between portrait and landscape orientation
  • Automatically adjust to different screen sizes
  • Uses smartphone and tablet touch/swipe functions
  • Easily maintained website content
  • Improve website search engine optimization (SEO)
With an increasing number of people purchasing and using mobile devices to access the Internet, a higher percentage of visitors will access your website with a mobile phone or tablet.  When they land on your website, I know you want them to have a rewarding experience.  This requires a website that allows visitors to navigate and read content with the greatest of ease.

Why would you create a custom Web design for each group of users; after all, architects don’t design buildings for each group size and type that passes through its doors and hallways?

With responsive Web design, we create custom solutions for a wider range of users, on a wider range of devices, and making you more responsive about your website - customers will see you do care and are willing to be accommodating - no pinch, no zoom. Just right!

When it boils down to it, you can ignore the evolution of technology or take advantage of a unified approach to content management and simplify internet marketing and SEO.  In fact, Indie Media Club published 10 of the best content management software tools we could find on the market.  They go beyond the definition of a content management system, and breakdown topics such as criteria in choosing the best content management system, key features of a good content management solution, and other web content management options – they quote 28 different sources in the article – it's quite authoritative, you may really find it helpful.


Now turn your attention to Oevae Marketing Consultants.  Try searching Google for the "best marketing consultants in the world" and see Oevae.com is in the top 5 listings.  We are proud of our achievements because it takes satisfied clients to make this possible.  We are known for creative designs and sharing our research and development with small businesses.  It is our goal to make small business success stories.  Your company could be next.  Contact us at oevae.com so we can begin the discussion.

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