What Has Responsive Design Done to Mobile Websites?

Two to three years ago, the importance of having a mobile website started catching on. The common practice then was to create a separate mobile version of your main website, which was programmed to automatically display when detecting a mobile device being used. The mobile site was usually a pared down version of the complete site, and usually contained only the most important four or five pages. 

What is Responsive Web Design?

Thanks to Google and responsive web design, having a separate mobile website is becoming a thing of the past. Responsive (or adaptive) design means that the website is programmed to be fluid – meaning it automatically resizes and readjusts based on monitor size. All elements on the page “float” so they can readily move to accommodate any resolution and monitor size, including mobile. The goal is to make viewing the website a better experience.

Responsive design has been hugely successful because it means that your site will automatically resize to look good on a mobile device, whereas sites created before never did that -they were static. This means you only need one website, which makes things so much easier, because previously if you had an update, it had to be done on both versions.

Google Changed Things Too

On the heels of responsive design’s popularity came Google’s announcement several months ago that they would no longer be showing results of non-mobile pages to people searching on a mobile device. In other words, if you had a mobile website with only five pages, and someone searched for something that was on another page, Google said it would no longer show that result.

This is great if you have a responsive design, since the mobile version is still the main entire website, but not so great if you have an alternate mobile site with just a few pages. So in essence, that put the nail in the coffin for separate mobile websites.

Do I need a whole new website?

What do you do if your site isn’t responsive? If your site still looks good, don’t worry, you don’t need to have it totally redone. It can be made to be responsive with some programming.

If, however, your site is 5 or more years old and looks dated, you should probably consider a brand new, modern design, and make it responsive. That should last you until the next big thing comes along. 🙂