How WordPress Can Help You To Create a Responsive Website?

Statistics show the average time spent daily on the phone has increased in recent years, reaching a total of 4 hours and 23 minutes as of April 2021. That number is expected to grow further and reach around 4 hours and 35 minutes by 2023. To understand how you can best support these mobile users, we’ll break down what it takes to make a site mobile-accessible, discuss why responsive website is important, and how you can achieve mobile usability on the WordPress platform.

What’s more, more than half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, which is not surprising considering that in the UK alone, over four-fifths of time spent online is now spent on mobile devices.

If you’re launching a new website, the question isn’t, “Will my visitors access my site using mobile devices as well as desktop displays?” Instead, it’s, “What do I need to do to make my site accessible to mobile users?”

This question becomes even more important when considering that even search engines like Google focus more on mobile-first indexing when ranking websites.

What Responsive Web site Is

Designing a responsive website should provide the same experience on mobile devices as it does on desktop devices. Your visitors shouldn’t have any difficulties navigating the website, reading the content, or interacting with different elements just because they’re using a mobile device.

Responsive web design is also referred to as adaptive design, but the two terms are different.

Adaptive design means websites usually have several responsive layout designs coded with specific breakpoints that work with different screen sizes. That allows the website to adapt to a new situation quickly.

Another reason why responsive web design is important relates to the mobile-friendliness of websites. Just because a webpage is responsive doesn’t mean it’s also mobile-friendly.

A mobile-friendly website is not only responsive but also ensures the following conditions are met:

Buttons are big enough to be easily pressed on smaller screens but don’t extend over the allowable screen size

Images scale nicely and don’t appear cut off

Form fields trigger the correct input methods

Form fields can easily be filled out on smaller screens

Email opt-in forms display nicely and don’t block important content

Social sharing buttons aren’t taking up the majority of the screen

Advantages of Responsive Website

Provides website visitors with a better user experience.

More and more visitors use their phones to surf the web, so it caters to their needs.

Responsive web design and mobile-friendliness are ranking factors in SEO.

Allows you to attract a wider audience since visitors will use various devices to access your website.

Better user experience can lead to higher conversion rates and lower bounce rates.

Is WordPress Responsive?

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that needs a theme to work properly. Thanks to numerous WordPress themes, you can easily make your website responsive.

Themes that adhere to responsive design principles have been available since 2011, and the most reputable, well-known themes are responsive out of the box.

How To Make Your WordPress Website Responsive

When making your WordPress website responsive, you have three choices to follow responsive design best practices. Let’s take a look at those choices more in-depth below.

Use a Responsive Theme

As mentioned earlier, there are plenty of WordPress themes that are responsive out of the box. One of the easiest methods is to simply install a responsive theme such as Astra or OceanWP on your WordPress website.

Because responsive design has become so popular, you’ll find that most WordPress themes claim to be responsive. But don’t just take their word for it. Instead, read reviews of the theme if they’re available.

Did any past users mention issues regarding the theme’s ability to operate responsively? If so, you may wind up facing the same problems yourself once you’ve installed the theme.

And speaking of installation, once your new “responsive” theme is active, test it on as many devices as you can (or use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test) to ensure it’s operating the way you expected.

Use a Bluehost Website Builder

Another option is to use a website builder like the Bluehost Website Builder. Out of the three options mentioned here, this option is best if you’re a website owner who doesn’t have time to learn coding or the resources to hire a developer.

Website builders like Bluehost’s Website Builder make it easy to create a beautiful website without a single line of code. All you have to do is use a simple drag and drop interface to get the job done.

Performance Considerations To Keep in Mind

As you start making your website responsive, remember that adding a lot of CSS media queries, along with various image sizes, can impact your site’s performance. As such, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind:

The screen resolutions should be detected automatically by the browser so it can display the correct image size.

Minimize the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript you need to use and cache the rest.

Use media queries and conditionally load assets so that the browser window loads only what’s necessary.

Use lazy loading for responsive images and other assets.

Mobile Display Approach vs. Responsive Web Design

You can’t answer the question of what is responsive web design without also discussing how when mobile usability came to prominence in the late 2000s, marketers had fewer options to choose from when creating mobile-accessible sites.

One option was to create an entirely separate site — typically, something that would be built using a tool like bMobilized or DudaMobile and hosted on a mobile-specific subdomain (as in, “http://m.yoursite.com”).

Mobile sites often looked completely different than their desktop predecessors, as they were built to showcase the information — such as location, hours, and specials — web developers felt would most interest mobile audiences.

Mobile App vs. Responsive Website Design

With mobile phone usage on the rise, you might be tempted to opt for a mobile app instead of figuring out what responsive web design is and how you might use it. However, not all websites need an app.

More specifically, a mobile app is needed when your users need a specific set of features and functionality that would work better in an app.

Common examples include mobile banking apps. Otherwise, if you have an online store or are a service provider, a responsive website is more than enough to cater to your visitors’ needs.

Article Source By Tiffani Anderson | Bluehost.com