6 Rules of Creating Responsive Web Designs

It’s no secret that Google prefers websites with responsive Web designs. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, then you can expect your rankings to plummet, if they haven’t already. The year 2016 is going to showcase more favoritism for responsive websites, so it’s up to you to begin renovating your online real estate as soon as possible. You can work with an SEO company in Los Angeles that offers Web design services. SEO companies are familiar with Google and how to stay on its good side.

Don’t wait until it’s too late – here’s how you can ensure your website is responsive for any and everyone that decides to take a looksee.

Design with Small and Big Screens in Mind

This is obvious, since there are all types of screen sizes used to browse the Web today. It only makes sense for you to accommodate multiple screen sizes, ranging from the small smartphone screen to the large desktop monitor. A lot of people mistakenly think small only, focusing too much on smartphones and tablets. The idea is to make your site accessible to everyone. Los Angeles SEO companies can assess your website to ensure it is responsive.

Consider Context

A responsive Web design is about more than just fitting your site to various screen sizes. For instance, a single column layout that opens up into multiple columns and stops once it reaches the edge of the screen. This is considered a fit-to-size, which makes sense from a scalability perspective, but doesn’t take into account the context of your content.

A good example is a restaurant website – it wants to fit on all screens, but it also must consider what’s most relevant to mobile users. Rather than looking for reviews and directions, they’re likely looking for the restaurant menu. You can learn more about your mobile users by reviewing your Google Analytics.

Practice the Laws of Simplicity

The Laws of Simplicity is a book written by designer John Maeda, which speaks of thoughtful reduction. In his words, “When in doubt, just remove.” The concept is to remove anything on the site that’s extraneous. Be more strategic about what elements are being placed in your site’s design. This will also make it clear what features are important for functionality.

Prioritize Content and Features

We already mentioned how going down to a single column can be advantageous for mobile devices. Now, it’s time to lightly touch on giving priority to certain content and elements in your design. For example, in this website, you can see an editorial image, author image, title, author’s name and date.

Then in the mobile version of the website, you can see that there are changes to the layout. The editorial image has been removed to make space for the content that really matters. It’s a great example of how to prioritize content differently.

Make Navigation Simple

Still going off the concept of simplicity, you should focus on creating a navigational structure that is easy. This may require different navigations on different screens, depending on how you set things up. The important thing to keep in mind is user-friendliness and clarity. Make sure your navigation is consistent on each device. It may vary in how the layouts look and operate, but that’s the only difference there should be.

Be Mindful of Images and Download Speed

Visuals are a major part of website designs today, but this can be a double-edged sword. It looks awesome, but could be slowing down your page load speeds. A lot of site owners are venturing over to images that span across the entire screen. This brings us back to simplicity – if it’s not needed for functionality and experience, then consider removing it.

Work with SEO Firms in Los Angeles

It’s a good idea to create a responsive Web design with the help of an SEO firm in Los Angeles. SEO experts will maintain focus on improving the user experience and optimizing for search engines, which is important if you want to boost organic traffic.

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