Have you ever wondered how a website resizes itself for your phone? That website is using what’s called responsive design. Your business should be using it, too!
With so many people looking at your website on mobile devices, you need to optimize your website for both mobile devices and desktop computers.
If your website uses a responsive design, the layout will change automatically depending on the screen size of the device being used.
How Does Your Website Know to Resize?
Responsive websites use what are called breakpoints. These are the points when your website layout adjusts so the page looks better on a smaller device.
For example:
- On a wide desktop screen that uses a 1920×1080 aspect ratio, your website will organize the page so it’s more horizontal in layout.
- On a smaller screen on a phone, your website will stack the content vertically so it has a narrower 1080×1920 aspect ratio.
Test it on Your Desktop or Laptop!
Want to see how a website design changes responsively?
Open a website on your computer and then drag your browser window back and forth, making it smaller and larger.
You will see how the content gradually resizes based on the size of the browser.
When viewed on a wider laptop, some elements might be positioned side by side. That same content on a mobile device will be shown in one long column.
When designing a page, you can choose to hide certain elements from mobile view, especially if it’s something that will slow down the load time or won’t be easy to use on a phone.
Google and Mobile First Indexing
in 2019, Google switched to a mobile-first model for ranking websites. Google based their decison on the growing numbers of people using mobile devices to view websites.
To Google, the mobile version of your site is more important when they rank your site in search engine results.
Not only is using a responsive design for your website important from a user standpoint – it’s also key for your ranking on Google!
