A clean, user-friendly website is essential for every organisation. Your business website not only acts as the digital home base for your company and product line but also supports your whole digital marketing strategy. Providing a primary portal for customers to point toward and engage with your brand and business. A bad website experience can hinder such attempts and cut off those connections before they even begin.
So, how to make a website more responsive? Here is a simple list of practices you can put in place to provide your consumers with the greatest experience possible, regardless of the device they use.
1. Keep Things Simple
We all know the saying: “You only get one chance to make a first impression,” and nowhere will this ring be more true than on your website. While the days of “cutting the ribbon” and declaring a new website “live” have come and gone, the fact is that a well-designed, effective and intuitive website needs to be visually appealing, easy to navigate and frictionless.
Visitors are unlikely to return to your site if they have to peck their way through a slew of links and navigational hurdles. Rather than viewing this as a function-oriented compromise, consider it a win-win situation; a well-executed minimalistic style will make your website seem exceptionally appealing to a modern audience.
Clear user interfaces are becoming increasingly popular as a technique to make your calls to action stand out even more.
2. Maximise Your Load Speeds
When it comes to waiting for websites to load, today’s users are not exactly patient. Attention spans are short. Most visitors will abandon your site if it does not load within a few seconds. This has two negative consequences:
- You’ve lost a potential customer.
- Google penalises your website in its ranks.
Too many visitors abandoning your site before it is loaded is also a major SEO issue, which might cause fewer people viewing the site. If your website takes over two or three seconds to load on a fast internet connection, it’s time to make some modifications.
3. Optimise Your Media For Mobile
Responsive design has become an essential element of any digital marketing strategy. According to W3, almost 50% of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices. This is great news for businesses with intelligent websites that automatically adjust to fit any device.
Google’s mobile-first indexing initiative is part of its effort to keep up with mobile users and how they interact with the Internet. The results Google delivers to mobile searchers will be more relevant if the content is designed for mobile. If a website is not optimised for mobile, Google might not rank it as high as it would a mobile-friendly website.
4. Consider The User Intent
As you create content, keep the user’s intent in mind at all times. What are they looking to accomplish by visiting your site?
- Are they looking to purchase a product?
- Download a white paper or e-book?
- Subscribe to a newsletter?
- Get in touch with customer support?
Your content needs to meet their needs and answer their questions. If you’re not sure what kinds of content will resonate with your audience, consider conducting user research or A/B testing different content to see what performs best.
By understanding the user’s intent, you can better design your website and content to guide them through the sales funnel or conversion process. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for visitors to take the desired action.
5. Use Engaging Visuals
Humans are visual creatures. We process images much faster than we do text. The right visuals can help break up large blocks of text, making your content more digestible and engaging.
When used sparingly and effectively, images, videos, infographics and other types of visual content can be extremely helpful in getting your message across to visitors. Just be sure that any visuals you use apply to the topic at hand and add value to the user experience.
6. Don’t Forget the SEO
SEO is another important consideration, as many customers rely on Google to help them locate businesses and products.
Make sure your website is using the right keyword density and that your titles and descriptions are optimised to draw clicks from organic search results. You should also focus on creating quality content that provides value to users and earns natural links.
A well-optimised website that follows search engine rules, including content optimisation and on-page SEO, will help ensure that your website ranks highly in Google search results.
7. Don’t Miss Out On Responsive Typography
With the rise of responsive design, typography is more important than ever. It’s one of the few elements of web design that will almost always have to be re-thought, re-scaled and re-prioritised when designing a website for multiple devices.
The size, hierarchy and legibility of your typography all need to be considered when creating a responsive website. Use a font size that’s large enough to be easily readable on small screens and make sure the most important information is given priority in your layout.
If your website has the same font size and typeface on mobile devices as it does on desktops, you’re making a huge design error. Not only will your website look “fat” on mobile, but it will be much harder to read, and your customers will abandon it for a more readable site.
8. Simplicity Is Key
For responsive design, simplicity is key. Don’t cram too much information into a small space. Stick to the essentials and focus on delivering a great user experience.
Your website should be easy to navigate, with a clear hierarchy that allows users to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Use negative space to your advantage and don’t be afraid to use white space to break up large blocks of text.
Design for the smallest screen first, then work your way up. This will help you streamline the content and keep only the most essential information.
9. Always Test
Last but not least, in order to make a website more responsive, you need to always test your site on as many devices as possible. This includes different screen sizes, browsers, and operating systems. Testing will help ensure that your site looks and works the way you want it to on all devices.
If you’re not sure how to test your site, consider using a tool like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or BrowserStack. Both tools allow you to test your site on a wide range of devices and browsers, so you can be sure it’s working correctly.
Final Thoughts
A responsive website has a variety of advantages over a fixed-width site. A responsive website can present the same content to a wider audience, and it would be easier for search engines to crawl. Another advantage is that it will cost you less to redesign or upgrade the site in the future.
However, the most important thing to remember is that a responsive website is not just a design element, but an important part of your overall digital marketing and web presence strategy.
By following the tips in this article, you can make sure your website is responsive and gives users the best possible experience, no matter what device they’re using.
Need help with your business website?
Improve your business’s online presence with the help of We Are Innovative. We are a digital marketing and web design agency that provides affordable web design in Southampton. We specialise in building stunning WordPress websites and eCommerce sites. Get in touch with us today!
