What is Responsive Web Design and why is it so important?

Responsive Web Design, a term coined by Ethan Marcotte in his May 2011 article in A List Apart, is a set of modern web design techniques by which a website adapts to different devices’ screens and windows and is automatically rendered according to the screen size (or the viewport size).

This means that the website’s look and feel, layout, design and user experience remain consistent, usable and easy to navigate regardless of the device or platform used to access it.

Although the first seminal proof-of-concepts can be traced back as far as 2004, it wasn’t until 2010-2011 that basic responsive design technologies such as fluid proportion-based grids, flexible images and, most importantly, CSS3 media queries became mature and mainstream.

Why is it so important nowadays?

With around 57% of all global web traffic coming from mobile devices as of February 2022, a responsive web design is now a must and the de facto expectation of everyone visiting a website. Thus, failing to make your website responsive can quickly make your bounce rate to sky-rocket.

Eventually this became so important that in 2015 Google introduced an update nicknamed Mobilegeddon in its search engine algorithm to boost the ranking of mobile-friendly websites. And other search engines soon followed suit.

So, in summary, if your website isn’t responsive and displays optimally in all sorts of devices, from desktop to mobile phones, it will be poorly ranked and your visitors are likely to bounce off almost immediately.

Are xcentra’s advanced WordPress websites responsive?

Short answer: Yes, completely, from the ground-up and in all our projects. We use cutting-edge page builders and integrate them with other technologies, resulting in 100% responsive, mobile-friendly, faster and problem-free websites from scratch. They allow our clients to focus on what is more important: making their business thrive.