What is responsive design?

Responsive design, also called responsive web design, is a design approach in which the layout of a website adapts automatically to the device it is viewed on, to that device’s screen size and its resolution.

What are the benefits of responsive design?

More than 50 percent of all page views worldwide in 2020 came from a smartphone. Because the share of mobile devices is that high, responsive websites contribute enormously to a positive user experience. As an alternative to responsive web design, you could also build a separate mobile website. In that case the effort of maintaining the site is often higher, because the different versions usually have to be kept up to date separately.

On top of both points, displaying a website well on a mobile device has been a ranking factor for Google since 2015.

What role does responsive web design play for SEO?

Since Google moved its indexing from “Mobile First” to “Mobile Only” in March 2021, responsive design has mattered more for SEO than ever. Websites that only exist in a version built for the desktop are no longer listed by the search engine. A website that adapts to every device is simply part of the modern web.

How fast that layout loads on the device is the next question. The Core Web Vitals, the Largest Contentful Paint above all, and the image formats you serve decide that, which is why we treat both together in our web design work.

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