Why responsive design matters for your online business

Good design attracts customers and lets them move around your site comfortably. But more and more people now reach the web from a phone: to stay informed, to buy things and to share content on social networks. It is precisely this shift in habits that makes responsive design essential for an online business.

What it means

Responsive design is a development technique that lets the layout of a page adapt to the visitor's environment, whatever device they are on. The site is not only readable on a desktop, but equally usable on the phones and tablets people carry everywhere, so a visitor can reach you from wherever they happen to be with the same ease.

Why it is not optional

• Most of your traffic is mobile. A site that is awkward on a small screen is awkward for the majority of your visitors.
• Search engines rank the mobile version. How your site behaves on a phone is what determines where it appears, even for desktop searches.
• One site instead of two. A separate mobile site means maintaining two versions and splitting your search authority between them.
• Checkout is where it hurts. A form that is hard to fill in on a phone is the single most expensive design flaw an online shop can have.

Beyond making it fit

Responsive is not only about the layout reflowing. It means touch targets big enough for a thumb, images sized so the page loads over a mobile connection, and putting the important content where it can be seen without scrolling past three banners to reach it.