Every website we build is responsive. That means one website that reshapes itself to fit whatever it is opened on, from a phone held in one hand to a widescreen monitor, rather than a desktop site with a separate mobile version bolted onto the side of it.
This is not an option or an upgrade. It is simply how we build now, on every site, at no additional cost. If you are a hosting client with a site we built, there is nothing to add and nothing extra to pay.
What responsive actually means
The layout reflows rather than shrinks. Text stays large enough to read without pinching and zooming, images scale to the space available, and the desktop navigation is replaced by a menu built for a thumb rather than a mouse pointer. Wide tables become readable lists on a narrow screen instead of running off the edge, and elements that only make sense on a large screen, such as a sidebar, step aside on a small one.
The practical test is simple: nobody should have to zoom, scroll sideways, or tap twice because the first tap missed.
One website, one set of content
Because it is one site rather than two, your content is entered once. When you update a page through the content management system, the change appears everywhere at the same time, on phones, tablets and desktops. There is no second site to keep in step and no risk of the mobile version quietly falling a year behind the desktop one, which was the standard failure of the separate-mobile-site era.
It also means one web address. Visitors, links and search engines all point at the same place, rather than being split between a main site and a mobile subdomain.
Why it matters beyond convenience
Most people will see your website on a phone before they ever see it on a desktop, and many will only ever see it on a phone. A site that is awkward on a small screen is not a minor inconvenience: it is the first impression, and visitors leave rather than persevere.
Search engines take the same view. Google predominantly uses the mobile version of a site to decide how it should rank, so how your site behaves on a phone affects how easily it is found on any device. A site that is hard to use on a phone is penalised twice over, once by the visitor and once by the search engine.
The illustrations below show a site in portrait and landscape view on a phone. Text is larger, images are sized to the screen, and a mobile navigation menu replaces the standard desktop navigation.
If your current site is not responsive
Sites built more than a few years ago frequently predate the expectation that everything works properly on a phone, and it is usually obvious the moment you pull one up on one. If that describes your site, a website redesign can reuse the content you already have rather than starting from nothing, and the result is responsive as a matter of course.
Not sure whether yours qualifies? Open it on your phone and try to use it as a customer would: find your phone number, read a paragraph, tap a menu item. If any of that is a struggle, contact us using the support button at the top of any page and we will take a look at it with you.