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You think that your business website looks absolutely fabulous. It’s got a slick design. It’s user-friendly. It’s easy to navigate.

When viewed on a desktop PC monitor, anyway.

But what does it look like when someone views it on a tablet? On a phablet? On a smart phone? What happens when the user of any mobile device switches between portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) orientation?

The fact of the matter is that websites can be accessed on a variety of devices. Your website should be able to support all of them.

Enter responsive web design. That’s a web development methodology that, as the name implies, produces an output that “responds” to the device that’s being used to view it. If the device is a desktop PC monitor, then a wide-screen format of the website is typically presented. If the device is a smart phone, then a condensed version is presented so that the user can easily navigate around.

It’s important because mobile usage rate is growing rapidly. Many people in your target market are likely to view your website on a smart phone or tablet. If your website isn’t responsive and presents a user-hostile or unprofessional output, then you’re likely to lose customers to a competitor who has a website that looks great on a mobile device.

It should be noted that responsive design is not something that’s intuitive to web development hobbyists. Unless you’re a professional web developer, it’s likely that you’ll require the assistance of an experienced technologist to ensure that your website looks great on all devices. Responsive design requires not only an understanding of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), but also advanced CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

The word “responsive” is also important to keep in mind if you’re browsing around for a new website template. If you see a template that appeals to you, make sure that the author has identified it as “responsive.” If that word isn’t used in the marketing description of the template, then you should move on to another option. Also, be sure to view the template using various devices before you purchase it. That way, you can be sure that it is, in fact, responsive.

If you’d like to learn more about responsive web design, feel free to contact us. We’d love to hear from you.