Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night with a toothache. What would you do? Or instead, imagine you are at a theme park with your kids when suddenly one of them trips, falls and chips a tooth. What would you do then?
Most people nowadays would grab their smartphone or tablet and search the internet for a nearby dentist. Mobile browsing is convenient. You can access the internet from virtually anywhere you go-literally from the palm of your hands.
Think about what the power of mobile browsing means in terms of your business. If your corporate website isn't using responsive design yet, you are missing out on major market share. Find out what responsive design is and why you should have it if you don't already.
What Is Responsive Design?
Your site is responsive when your visitors can click on buttons that link to other pages. Unfortunately, that isn't as simple as it gets. Designing the layout and implementing the code to make a website work is complicated. The issue of adjusting layouts, buttons and images to accommodate for a variety of monitors with different resolutions has plagued web designers since the beginning.
HTML, CSS and JavaScript are constantly changing to keep up with new smart devices that hit the market every year. Responsive website design is the most up-to-date solution designers have found.
To simplify a complex issue, image another scenario you have probably experienced. Let's say you click on a website from your smartphone to read an article. Do you have to scroll in several times before being able to read or make sense of a large page on a tiny screen ? Or does the page come up perfectly formatted to your device and easy to use? It's easy to choose which one you prefer.
Responsive design is code that detects what device is asking for your website's information and automatically adjusts the format for the viewer. Essentially, it makes it possible to have several sites in one with the same information on each of them. It is a simple but crucial difference-having responsive design makes a business' website viewable and user-friendly.
Why Should I Use Responsive Design?
You understand the concept of responsive design, but let's drill down to the specific reasons. What is the actual value of responsive design that proves investing in it will increase your clients and profits?
Reason #3: It Saves Time
It might not save you a lot of time, but it saves your customers and potential customers plenty. Think about it-with responsive design, when someone lands on your site looking for an address during a dental emergency, they will find it easily. Rather than attempting to navigate and scroll, the website will adjust and the information automatically populates.
Having a user-friendly site is important to your customers. This small difference could be the differentiating factor that gives you one-up on your competition.
Reason #2: It Makes You Money
Even if you're trying to tailor your business to an older audience who still mainly uses their desktop computers, you'll still benefit from using responsive design on your site.
Responsive design doesn't change anything about your website, except for optimizing the site so it can operate on a variety of devices. Why not use it? You will not only capture the audience you are attempting to, but avoid alienating anyone who prefers their tablet over their computer.
Additionally, you might expand the demographic your service appeals to and capture more clients. The more people who can find you, the more people who might come to you.
Reason #1: It Is the Wave of the Future
The main reason you should change your website to a responsive design is because it is simply the way all websites will eventually need to be. It's only a matter of time before you will need to make the switch. More and more smart devices are being made and sold every single year. Not only that, people are using their smart devices to do everything.
Thanks to our mobile abilities, the way business is done is changing. You don't even need to go to the bank to deposit a check any more. As a business owner, you need to stay on the cutting edge and move with the changes. As the owner of a business that provides a service, you need to make your site's information easily accessible from anywhere.
How Can I Switch to Responsive Design?
You understand responsive design, you see the value it has for your business, and you are ready to make the switch. The only problem is that you are a dentist, not a web designer. You don't have the time or know-how to re-code your site. In fact, you don't have time to update your site's blog, even though you know it would boost your Google rankings.
This is a common problem for business owners right now. Start viewing your website as your main source for advertising and marketing your business. Invest in an SEO company or a specialist to optimize your website. They will do the hard work for you while you watch the customers show up.
