Does My Website Need A Mobile Solution?

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It is clearly evident that more people are spending time using their mobile phones—at home, in the office, on the train. As any online marketer knows, the only way to survive the competitive market is to cater to these group of tech-savvy, mobile phone-wielding ‘netizens’.

So, what’s the trend?

2014 is the year mobile has been foreseen to take over the desktop. As of the present, 1.08 billion of the 4 billion mobile phones in use all over the world are smartphones. This means that a whopping 1.08 billion people, at the very least, access the Internet on their phones to search, socialize, and read news.

How does this affect online marketers and other entrepreneurs?

Responsive web design is needed now more than ever. With more and more people preferring to access the Internet on their mobile phones, it will not suffice that your company or your business has a website of its own; the website must be gadget-appropriate and must take into consideration the shift in gadget preference. It has clearly been recommendation from Google that a responsive website is a preferred method. Only recently did Google announce that it planned to demote websites that have been misconfigured for smartphones.

While the processing power of a mobile device can keep up with tasks like going online, making Google searches, and using social media, there is a very big difference between a desktop and a smartphone. The resolution are not the same, and while a nice, interactive website could be very interesting when accessed on a desktop, this does not always hold true when it comes to mobile phones. And if there is one thing about the busy netizens that marketers must know, it is that they do not have the patience to wait forever for a website to load. The solution to this predicament is Responsive web design.

What is responsive web design?

time4design have discussed on many occasions RWD over the last few years, so it should already be quite familiar to you. Responsive web design, is all about creating a flexible layout that dynamically caters to all devices regardless of the resolution. It enables a seamless accommodation by website layouts of resolution, image size, and style. Instead of prompting the user to download an application, the mobile or tablet website will automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This means that there is no more need to create an application or a separate website for specific devices, taking into consideration future innovations and releases.

So what’s the key to responsive web design?

Simplicity. The website should be simple and sweet, without unnecessary widgets, images, and animated content. The layout should be one-column, with images that are tailored to a lower resolution and slower loading speed for optimum results.

In conclusion

In order to keep your business flourishing, it is important to keep up with recent mobile trends. It is no longer enough that you have a website. With the prevalence of mobile phones, every website needs a mobile solution.