How much money are you losing not having a responsive site?

Despite the best will in the world we humans sometimes don’t get it right. Just last week I agreed to throw a surprise party for my sister’s milestone birthday. I made a

list and set off to the shops, feeling quite proud at how I was crossing items off so efficiently. I’d just ordered the cake and flopped down for a refreshing cup of tea at the supermarket café. That’s when it hit me. I had not finished ordering her present and the big day was less than five days away. Never mind, I had seen what I wanted on a unique gifts website, so I opened my mobile phone to complete my purchase. Only I couldn’t as the site that looked so user friendly on my laptop at home totally failed to open properly on my phone. I was feeling quite flustered by now and made a mental note not to trust this company nor its website in the future.

It’s so easy to lose a customer this way. People nowadays expect websites they visit to be designed so that what they start on one device: laptop, tablet or mobile phone can be easily continued using another. The big companies have led the way and so to

many customers it has now become the norm. Therefore, when people find the site they were browsing earlier on fails to appear clearly and to scale on another device they often blame the business and go elsewhere. It’s annoying to have to zoom in and out on your smartphone if say you are looking for contact details. If you repeat this scenario several times then increasingly large amounts of money can be lost especially if word about the inefficient site is spread.

Studies have shown that having a website that works on any device increases the chance of the customer browsing for longer. This increases engagement and conversion. Search engines too, prefer responsive websites. In the past, you had to build completely different web designs that weren’t transferable to different devices. Nowadays web design can adapt so that every link will have the same URL. This helps with search engine optimisation and search engine marketing.

Therefore, it is well worth it to pay a little more and to have your website designed so that it can seamlessly transfer to all the mobile devices. Ease of browsing will please the customer and they will be happy to return time and time again. So the question remains; how much money are you losing by not having a responsive site?