The concept of Responsive Web Design (RWD) only came to the limelight first in 2010. In the short four years it has existed, it has totally changed the way people looking to create a website. Unfortunately, many web designers are still not buying this idea when it comes to WordPress. This is a bit of a shame really as WordPress, being the most popular CMS should be at the forefront of this.  Many people are buying into the WordPress popularity but some are yet to make their websites responsive.
Not sure of WordPress dominance?
Here are some statistics
WordPress is the CMS of choice for 20% of websites in existence today. There are arguments for Drupal, or for Joomla, but WordPress is certainly the preferred option for most. 50% of new websites created in 2014 will be made in WordPress. On WordPress.com, over 73 million websites are hosted. This figure doesn’t include bigger private businesses with their own version of WordPress. By the end of this year, one in every four websites will be WordPress powered.
Again, WordPress accounts for 50% of all CMS based websites. For perspective, the next on the list weighs in at 17%.
Now, many people have gone with the WordPress popularity while ignoring RWD and this is because they are yet to understand the impact of mobiles on today’s internet space. WordPress is beautiful and easy to use but if deployed in a non-responsive manner, you will lose site visitors.
In 2012, 30% of e-commerce traffic was mobile. By the end of 2013, that number grew to over 50%. Black Friday shopping by mobile users topped $691m in 2013. For perspective, 2012 was the first time total Black Friday sales hit the $1million dollar mark.
So from all of this, you can now see why you should consider making your WordPress website responsive. If you create a website from scratch, or create a site with an online site builder, you will be forced to think about RWD. The advantages, and beautiful designs available, by keying into the popularity of WordPress will be lost if you fail to deploy RWD techniques.
Here are more reasons why your WordPress website must be responsive.
Ensures your website works on all devices
The technology world is seeing some of its best years lately and with this come a plethora of devices with specification focused on beating the competition. With a responsive WordPress website, you will be able offer your visitors a website that doesn’t require their scrolling right or left endlessly to read text or view half-rendered images. If the responsive WordPress site is properly designed, you won’t have to sweat over the specifications of future devices.
It will be easier for you to make updates
If you create a website, whether from scratch or using one of the nifty online site builders available these day, and don’t have adequate plans for content marketing, the website is on its way to failure. Having fresh content is what retains your old visitors and brings in new ones. If you have separate mobile and desktop platforms for your websites, managing content updates becomes more difficult. A responsive design however ensures you only have to update one website and it appears on all platforms.
More positive for SEO
Everyone wants to be in the first page of search results. A non-responsive designs means you may have to do double the work to keep different platforms SEO compliant. Your chance of improved rankings is high if there is only one website for the search engines to look at.
With a responsive design, you make things easier for the search engines as they will only have to crawl and index your page once.
Best user experience
The average web visitor is impatient and for good reasons too. There are thousands of website that offer solutions to one problem and so they won’t want to spend time on a non-responsive website that doesn’t load properly on their device be it a tablet, smartphone or even tech like Google Glass.
Cheaper solution
When you are looking for a fully responsive website, the costs for design may be slightly higher than the normal website but still it is cheaper if you intend to have both a regular and mobile website. Also, when you factor in the cost of editing more than one website, you will understand why a responsive WordPress website is a more cost effective option.
In conclusion, the internet world is moving away from desktop at an alarming pace. Having a light CMS like WordPress as the base of your website is no longer enough. It also has to be responsive to fit in with the variety of specifications in the technology market today.
