If you are the owner of an eCommerce store or in fact any business website which aims to capture leads, you will know that your websites design is essential to its success. Unlike 5 or 6 years ago when the majority of business searchers and consumers were trying to find information online using desktop computers, now people are increasingly using mobile devices to access information online which means that your website is being accessed on devices with display sizes from 3.5-inches to 5.5-inches within the smartphone market alone.

Aside from other things, having a website which is not designed for mobile users means that you could potentially be missing out on hundreds of sales and leads per month. You have around 4 seconds from when a potential customer lands on your website to capture their attention, and if you do not, they will close your website and go elsewhere. Can you afford for this to happen?

The word mobile website design has been used an awful lot since 2007, which is the year the iPhone was released, however it is not something which you can afford to push back any longer. If your website is not mobile ready during 2013, you can say bye bye to thousands of leads during the year whilst your competitors enjoy the spoils of your online mistake.

Responsive website design is the answer

If your website is hard to navigate on a smartphone, difficult to read on a smartphone or simply impossible to fathom on a small display, responsive website design is for you.  Here are 5 fantastic examples of real live responsive websites:

1. http://thenextweb.com/

2. https://www.fundraise.com/

3. http://stephencaver.com/

4. http://foodsense.is/

5. http://www.fork-cms.com/

All of the example responsive websites above feature different messages that they want to convey to the end user. Despite this, all of them follow the same basic design principle: important information is always right at the top of the page, log-in areas and subscribe areas are near the top of the page and all navigation is made easy whilst all images automatically re-scale as to look perfect no matter what.

Closing thoughts

Responsive website design is not the future of web design. It is the now. It’s important that we recognize this and stop thinking that making our websites responsive is something that we can leave until next year or some other time in the future. We can’t afford to – not now that we have reached the mobile tipping point. If you’re not catering for mobile, you’re missing out on huge amounts of traffic and exposure, whilst your competition reaps the rewards of your slowness to adapt.

For more information, call 01904 430 666 or get it touch via the contact us page.