Responsive Web Design: Do You Pass the Exam?

The 75% of Internet searches in 2017 will be done through mobile devices. That said, the big question is: Are you really prepared to take advantage of all this mobile traffic or are you losing it along the way? Responsive design. We are not talking about the future; we are talking about the present. Having a responsive web design, adapted to smartphones and tablets, is no longer an option; it is an obligation, and it is not enough to be halfway there.

Shall we check if you pass the exam?

To start, if you do not have a responsive web design, you are not only renouncing a very high percentage of potential traffic but also, your visibility in organic searches will decrease.

Pay attention to the accelerated pace of the increase in internet consumption through smartphones: in 2013, only 18% of users searched on Google through their mobiles. In 2017, no less than three out of four. The trend is more than clear.

How to know if my website is 100% responsive?

Not sure if your website is responsive? Checking it is very simple. In the previous post of this blog, we indicated a page with this functionality. Google also offers you a simple method to find out.

In any case, you can verify it yourself with a simple action: visit your site and make the browser window smaller. Do you see a scroll bar and have to use it to see all the content?

Then, I’m sorry to say, you do not have a responsive website. Elpais.com is responsive, but Elmundo.es is not, just to give two examples of major Spanish digital newspapers.

What does Google say about responsive web design?

Google, which has recently put the user at the center of its entire strategy, understands that if someone accesses a website, they can do so from different devices and on any of them, they should always find a site where the display and functions are correct.

To promote this in most cases, around February 2015, it announced a change in its algorithm that would come into effect on April 21 of that same year. Of course, all alarms were activated 😉

Since that moment, rumors began to spread like wildfire across the internet, such as that if you did not have responsive design implemented on your website by that date, the site would disappear from searches.

Others, less alarmist but equally false, claimed that non-mobile-adapted websites would be penalized. The snowball kept getting bigger.

In reality, what happened - and continues to happen - was not that websites that do not offer responsive design were punished, but that those that do were rewarded, and more specifically, in mobile search results. It seems the same, but it is not.

Google aimed to raise awareness about the importance of addressing the new consumption patterns of users.

The fact is that the campaign worked, and webmasters worldwide got to work and began to adopt the "mobile first" (designing with mobiles in mind first) as the most logical option to implement responsive design. The hamburger menu - three horizontal bars that expand the sections of the website when clicked - is now a "must-have" for mobile versions. Until another trend takes over, of course.

The Advantages Beyond User Experience

The advantages of responsive web design go far beyond improving your users' experience, which is no small feat:

• It avoids the possibility of incurring duplicate content, as can happen if you opt to create a parallel website specifically for mobile.
• Faster loading of all elements, a key factor for improving your positioning, which in turn will bring you more visits.
• It will favor the dissemination of your content by unifying all links, without redirects. Users will find it easier and more accessible to share content, thus benefiting your website's SEO.
• Your wallet and time will also benefit, as any update to your website previously involved changes in several stylesheets, while now there is only one.
• If your website is an online store, you will notice the difference. Where there were previously insurmountable barriers and you faced the unpleasant feeling of not finding the same on mobile as on the desktop version, with responsive design, there will be a beautiful yellow brick road leading to sales.

Check Everything from Various Devices

Okay, you've convinced yourself and developed your responsive web design. The first thing you should do before putting it on display for everyone is to check for yourself that everything works as it should. Put yourself in the user's shoes, visit your page, and perform the usual actions. And not just from one mobile and one tablet; try to do it from various different models and in different browsers. If someone else who is unfamiliar with your website does it, even better.

We emphasize this because there may be functions that look good and work perfectly on your desktop computer, but then either do not appear or do not load correctly from mobile or tablet browsing.

Remember to test with the screen in both vertical and horizontal positions and ensure that the touch usage of the functionalities is comfortable. Users should not be forced to zoom in to accurately touch a button or a link.

And let’s not focus all the attention on mobile devices. Although still much less prevalent in our country, internet consumption through smart TVs seems poised to increase significantly in the coming years.

With responsive web design, the resizing of all elements on your website on the huge screens of smart televisions - many of which are already curved - should not pose problems either. However, we must remain attentive to any new developments that may arise, as in technology, it is well known: renew or die.

Did you pass the exam? Any doubts or comments? The comments section is all yours 🙂