Responsive Website Designs Helping SMEs Get Maximum ROI Online

Alphan Maina
4 min readJul 16, 2019

The internet offers numerous opportunities for businesses to thrive in niches that were previously difficult to penetrate. Over the last half a decade, website designs have undergone tremendous changes. The changes aim to ensure that the target audience can access the sites using any smartphone or mobile device.

For example, Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in the world, with most adults having more than three internet-enabled mobile devices. Any business that wants to thrive in such a market needs to have a responsive website design.

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How the term “Responsive Website Design” Was Coined

The term “responsive website design” first came to the limelight in an article published online by Ethan Marcotte in 2010. The article garnered massive traction online, and website developers started to embrace the “en masse” approach that was discussed in the article. One of the things that motivated Ethan Marcotte to write the article was that mobile phone screen sizes were becoming more and more advanced and disparate.

Most of the companies that embraced the design reaped massive profit, as they were able to connect with a more extensive clientele base compared to their counterparts. The main objectives of responsive website design is to provide the visitors with an optimal viewing experience regardless of the screen size of the device they are using to access the website.

However, the paradigm shift in mainstream website design practices only started gaining traction over the last five years. Excellent user feedback encouraged more businesses to invest in the new design.

Let us shift gears and look at the benefits of responsive website design.

1# Caters for every visitor

One of the challenges associated with traditional website design is that users had to zoom in or out the screen to view text published on the pages. Responsive design solves this problem by using a custom code that detects the screen size based on the viewer’s browser and adjusts the page accordingly. The design elements can also be tweaked, removed, or added for as many screen sizes as you want.

2# Inclusion, not exclusion

Responsive web designs allow the target customers to seamlessly access and navigate the main website instead of the mobile version of the site. This capability alienates the feeling that they are secluded and shown a different website because they were using a mobile device.

Concisely, potential clients who visit the website using a computer get the same experience as those who use a smartphone to access it.

3# Easier and accurate tracking of data

As an online business owner, it is imperative to monitor the performance of your site to know if you are headed in the right direction. The data will help you to know if there are individual pages that need to be improved or deleted. A responsive website makes it possible to collect and track data by centralizing the traffic.

Tracking clicks, interactions, conversion rate, and organic traffic is easier with this new generation website design. The amount of data that can be captured is more diverse and can be used to make informed decisions.

4# Unlimited Design Freedom

By writing the elements of the responsive web design in the CSS stylesheet, web designers can either decrease or increase the standard width of the desktop screen website pages from 960px to 1024px or more depending on the needs and expectations of the client.

Note that the default desktop font size is currently 16px. This size is much bigger than before and ensures that readability is not compromised on both small and large screens.

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Another factor that affects readability is line spacing, also referred to as padding. Currently, padding is at least 20px. Well, it might seem too much at first until you see the results after the update. Multiple research studies have proved that users embrace clean web design and ease of information digestion on such sites.

5# On-site content management efficiency

In the past, companies would spend thousands of dollars, adding fresh content and elements of existing website pages. This process would take days and would result in a significant loss of revenue since the website would be unavailable until the updating process is completed.

The new content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress eases the process of adding content on website pages. Little or no prior experience is needed to add content or elements such as videos and images on an existing page.

Concisely, the new CMS that powers responsive website designs saves time and cost of updating websites. Such improved efficiency helps businesses to get maximum ROI from the site.

6# Increase Competitiveness

Surprisingly, despite the huge popularity that responsive website design enjoys in Singapore and abroad, there are still businesses that are yet to redesign their websites. Research shows that 44% of the listed Fortune 500 companies do not have responsive websites. Get ahead of the curve in your niche by embracing a responsive design that resonates with your brand and hiring the top web designers in Singapore.

Closing Remarks

Responsive website designs will continue to dominate the web development industry across the globe. More business will invest in them, and new designs will be developed to meet the ever-changing digital marketing and technology dynamics.

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Alphan Maina

Self-driven SEO specialist and skilled copywriter passionate about delivering tangible results. Contact me at alphan@alphaseoplus.us