Does responsive web design really help in targeting more visitors?

Google Mobilegeddon rolled out on 21st April, 2015. Before its launch, a lot rumors were flying that it could be a huge change in SERP’s because of this about Google’s mobile-friendly update but the impact is not as much strong as all expect.
Have you created the responsive version of your website? Does is it really helps you in targeting more potential buyers?

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To me it seems sensible to give your mobile users the best experience possible if you want them to engage with you and your site. There’s no doubt that the balance of unique visitors is shifting towards mobile and away from desktop/laptop.

Broadly speaking, I take the view “It’s happening, get ready for it”. The alternative is that someone else will be ready and they’ll be busy taking your customers, whether you are ranked highest or not.

To me this is the same question as has been discussed many times before. Yes it’s important. Yes, it will help your mobile conversion rates (or whatever metric you use) - if you have mobile viewers, this will make them happier. Heck, if you have viewers on some types of desktop or laptop screens, it also might make them happier, if done right. There’s really no doubt about this. You’d have to do some serious number crunching with your statistics and analytics to figure out how much a RWD rebuild/adaptation would cost you vs what you think you’d gain to see if it’s monetarily worth it, but in a lot of cases it is.

That’s not about Responsive Web Design in and of itself, but mobile first is a linked concept. Decent read.

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Mobile users are a growing proportion of web users. In the past they were always a minority, but they have been steadily growing. The Analytics for the past month on a site I manage show they have just about broken even with desktop users, forming about half the sessions.
Its impossible to say, but maybe this rise would not have happened on this site had I not re-coded it to RWD earlier this year, prior to “Mobilegeddon”.
At the end of the day, it can’t hurt to go for RWD. But I do sense there seems to be some fear, trepidation and misunderstanding about RWD, like it’s really hard to do, or somehow cheapens the design of your site for desktop users, not true at all.

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Amen…Amen…

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We did, even before the Mobilegeddon.

RWD’s effect on our website isn’t that monumental, but it definitely helped a lot, seeing as our traffic comes from mobile users.

If your traffic comes from mobile users, perhaps it would be monumental in a bad way if you hadn’t switched to RWD.

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That’s a fair point - it’s difficult for us to measure the amount of traffic we might have lost over time had we not implemented (some feature or change, in this case, RWD).

Back to the OP question. Yes I have. And no. Well its not a commercial site, but the number of visitors has not really changed. But as mentioned, the proportion of mobile/desktop visitors has changed from about 30/70% to nearly 50/50%
The thing I would expect RWD to change would be mobile bounce rate, but I have not noticed much difference there.

Yes, responsive web design always be helpful to get more visitors to the website or webpage…

Yea, I site I work on which has between 2 and 3 million monthly visitors with just under 70% on mobile devices it’s very important that site responsive.

So mobile is a majority there, I don’t have that yet, but its getting closer.
Its not just getting the mobile visitors, its getting them to engage with the site, not bounce. So even if you do get mobile visitors, if the site is not responsive, they will bounce.

Most of the website visitors click through from social media links (Mainly Facebook), the bounce rate is kind of high (around the 80% mark), definitely higher on mobile devices, but the returning visitors stats are always between 40% and 50%, there is definitely a core following to the site (It’s an Irish Satire News Website) which we wouldn’t have if the site wasn’t responsive.

And we did notice the site visitors grew after a responsive wordpress theme was installed two years ago, but that is just one of the many reasons why site traffic has increased.

Still i don’t get any changes for non responsive website… Visitor are increased after update… Also i have a website with Responsive design… Nothing is changed to them. No ranking increase for mobile version.

But i believe that a responsive design can make your visitor happy :slight_smile:

In my opinion Responsive site are very helpful for increasing our visitors. In today time many people use internet on their mobile phones, tablet etc. If website are not responsive then only it open on desktop. And the result we lost lots of visitor that not good our business.

Specially in Ecommerce website, they should be responsive so that people visit on their site from any mobile, tablet or desktop.

Responsive sites also give other advantages like:-

  • All Search Engines loves Responsive Websites
  • Responsive sites helps to combat a High Bounce Rate
  • Enhanced User Experience
  • Many more

Mobile and tablet searches are growing day by day, if you‘re using analytics / or have analytic view of your client then you can easily grab an eye on mobile analytics. A considerable amount of traffic comes from it, so it’s quite necessary nowadays to build a responsive website which is compatible with nearly all the devices. Be patient :blush:

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