Responsive sites – what on earth?

Is your site responsive?  Do you know what a responsive site is?  They are all the rage and with good reason.

A responsive site is one which changes automatically to allow your website to be viewed on different device types.  No longer is the desktop PC king.  Instead laptops, tablets and mobile phones are starting to take over for day to day Internet use.

In every study the smartphone is increasing its share of searches on the web.  I’ve seen a few studies that show that over 45% of people are now using the smartphone/tablet as their primary source of research.  Which has big implications for you as a website owner.  If you’re not addressing these people then your missing out in a big way.

It’s important to have a website that works well on tablet, smartphone, laptop and PC.  You can’t just have one thing.  You need them all.  Study after study shows that the lack of a mobile site causes harm to brands and in some cases can loose sales.   For the small website owner though this can be a big problem.  It’s fine for the big companies that can afford to have different sites for different devices but for the small of medium website it’s not a viable option – the cost is too great!

At Websites4Christians we overcome this by building responsive websites that automatically scale.  This means you church, charity or Christian website is going to look great across all formats.  It’s not a perfect solution for that you need separate sites but for the majority of websites it provides an excellent solution.  If you want to see it in action have a look at our site www.websites4christains.com.  Resize the browser window and watch the site change to fit.

Now not all website providers are equal.  You can get websites from lots of places and many, many companies offer website builder systems and hosting.  So when you go looking check that it works in a responsive mode.  Check that the look and feel for your website is going to work across all the devices and make sure that the company can deliver that.

Finally if you’re in any doubt about the need for a responsive site, just look around.  Look at the people on the bus and the train.  People on their daily commute.  They are searching right now on their devices.  They are looking for information to keep them going.  Could that be information about your church, your Christian organisation, your Charity?  Are you missing our on the donation, the new visitor and the possible new contact? Can your site deliver to them?