You have probably heard of the term responsive website, but understanding exactly what it is can take some research and time. Responsive websites have become the new buzzword in today’s world of mobile web browsing, where users visit websites on a range of devices ranging from a traditional computer, to iPads to comparatively small screen smartphones. A website needs to be able to function well on all of these devices if it is to be successful. This article will provide a brief outline of what responsive websites are and why they are beneficial for all website owners.

What is a responsive website?
At its heart, a responsive website is a flexible type of web design that allows a site to display correctly on any device, from the largest LCD monitors to the smallest smartphones. In essence, the website should be able to automatically format itself to fit the display that it is being viewed on.

What are the main benefits of building a responsive website? There are many, and we will mention some of the most important ones below.

Mobile Access
By far the number one reason that responsive websites are now virtually mandatory is that so the ever growing number of mobile web users can access all of their favorite sites, no matter what device they are viewing it from.

Better Performance
Your website will run faster on mobile devices if the design and coding has been optimized for them. Websites that are not optimized for these less powerful devices can take up to 30 seconds or more to load, resulting in an almost certain unhappy visitor experience.

SEO Benefits
In an attempt to make their website multi-device friendly, many webmasters make the mistake of creating multiple versions of the website for different screen sizes. However this just results in duplicate content, which the search engines do not think fondly of. Having just one website, with one copy of your content, that works on all sized screens is the ideal SEO route, therefore the best solution, go for responsive websites.