The Devil’s Triangle of web design

Just yesterday (19 July, 2022), a leading SEO journal published a blog with the provocative heading “Putting lipstick on a pig: fix the website or fail at SEO”.

One of the points Search Engine Land made is that there is no point optimising a site to get extra traffic if it has too many fundamental fail points, one of which was not being responsive (ie adapting to the screen size a website is being viewed on).

At Boylen, we think of it as the infamous Bermuda Triangle, also known as The Devil’s Triangle, where ships and aircraft have mysteriously disappeared.

The devil’s triangle for website design is when your web designs don’t seamlessly move from desktop down to tablets and then down to the tiny screens of smartphones.

Google boosts the ranking of mobile-friendly websites in its search results. It penalises those that fail this test and your rankings in the search results sink to the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle!

As a result, it’s essential to make sure that your site is optimized for mobile devices if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

That’s because some 60% of the time spent on the internet is via a phone and over 90% judge a website based on how well it displays on phone.

The ability to move fluidly from one screen size to another is known as responsive website design.

The key features of this design are flexible layouts, media queries and fluid images. By using these techniques, responsive websites can provide an optimal viewing experience for visitors no matter what device they are using.
 
Not surprisingly, responsive web design has become an important skill for any web designer to have in recent years

If you want to improve any metric, you need to start with the strategy. The first question to ask yourself is: What is the goal of your website?

• Book an appointment or consultation?
• Do you want to sell products and services?
• Or do you want people to sign up for your email list?
• Make contact?
• Book a tour?

Once you’ve decided that, the next step is to ask yourself: What are the best ways to achieve those goals?

This is where responsive web design comes in. If you want people to buy your products and services, you need to make it super easy for them to do so.

If your website is not responsive and doesn’t look good on mobile devices, you’re essentially shooting yourself in the foot.

People who visit your website on their mobile phone are probably in a hurry. They don’t want to scroll through a massive desktop site on their tiny phone. They want to be able to easily click on the button that takes them to your shopping cart.

However, there are still a few common mistakes that responsive web designers and content producers make.

• One shortfall is designing for too few devices. It's important to remember that not all visitors will be using the latest and greatest device; designers need to consider how their site will look on older devices as well.
• Some designers get too creative with their responsive designs, resulting in sites that are difficult to navigate or use. While it's important to be innovative, it's also important to keep the user experience in mind. It gets harder when the screen shrinks!
• A responsive website design is one that responds to the user’s behaviour and environment, adapting its layout to fit different screen sizes. This helps to ensure that users have a seamless experience regardless of how they are accessing your site.  But one of the most common errors is failing to properly test designs on different devices. Responsive designers need to test their designs across a range of phones and computers to ensure that they function properly. Lesson: don’t just reply on automated testing tools!
• Another avoidable mistake is not making use of existing CSS media queries. Media queries allow designers to target specific styles to specific devices, ensuring that each device gets the best possible experience. By making use of media queries, responsive designers can avoid common mistakes and create websites that truly shine on all devices.

These are just a few of the most common mistakes made by responsive web designers; by avoiding them, you can create websites that look great and function well on any device.

These are just a few of the most common mistakes made by responsive web designers; by avoiding them, you can create websites that look great and function well on any device.

SEO guru Neil Patel says, “A responsive design alone doesn’t make a site “mobile friendly”.

How you deliver your content is important. If your easy to ready desktop paragraphs turn into a very deep flow of text only, readers will tune out.

Chunking text with headings, subheadings, photos and diagrams, video etc helps keep the reader engaged. Just make sure those diagrams can be read! And check on the size of videos. The file size may be a major drag on your site speed and need to be sacrificed.

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, it's more important than ever for businesses to have a website that looks good and functions well on all devices. With responsive design, businesses can provide their customers with a seamless experience regardless of how they're accessing the site.

In a nutshell, responsive design:

1. Provides an optimal viewing experience for users.
2. Should be easy to manage and update.
3. Is good for SEO.

We understand that high quality responsive website design can be a complex process, but it’s worth the effort to ensure that your site is accessible to everyone. That’s partly because more and more people use mobile devices to access the internet, responsive design will only become more important for web designers to master. The other reason is that quality leads to higher conversions, which is why most people have a website in the first place.

Yes, keeping up with the latest trends in web design can be difficult, as new technologies are constantly emerging. Despite these challenges, responsive website design is likely to continue to grow in popularity. It is already a “non-negotiable”.

Boylen’s Adelaide web design team is at the forefront of this trend, and we are committed to helping our clients succeed in the digital age.

Enquire here for Responsive Website Design Adelaide.