As a fitness club owner you must be aware that most of your customers are accompanied with their mobile phones the moment they step into your facility. They occasionally stop during their workout to scan their updates and feeds, and share their latest workout pics. Though their workout is quite essential for them, staying connected is far more important as they are able to track, analyse and discuss their progress.
This increased use of on gadgets isn’t merely limited to gym workouts. Smartphones have a strong influence over our lives and are embedded into our lifestyles that most of our actions are dependent on them. More than half of smartphone users switch on their devices after 2 to 3 minutes of waking up. As the use of smartphones and tablets continues to increase, businesses are looking to attract new clients on the devices that they prefer using.
But the real challenge arises in reaching out to all clients who use a variety of gadgets – tablets, smartphones, different browsing systems etc. It is important for gym owners to get their message across in the wild noise of buzzing devices. Here is where responsive design comes in handy.
Responsive Website – A Single Design That Helps You Sell Everywhere
A responsive website is a design that can adapt to all types of users interface, making it possible for the viewer to have a rich user experience on all devices. The website is designed on a flexible structure that adapts itself to the device and platform that are being used to access it and adjusts the pictures, resolutions, font size and other aspects of the website automatically.
Initially, websites were custom designed i.e. they were built in a manner that they could only be accessed by desktop. With the emergence of mobiles and smartphones, users found it extremely difficult to visit these websites, as they were extremely difficult navigate. This was a great offset for online customers as they weren’t able to make their purchases. A responsive website addressed the pressing need to allow customers to navigate online stores from their favorite devices.
A website that adjusts to all user interfaces means that you don’t need to spend money on designing multiple custom-made solutions, which is time consuming too. Rather your consumer can surf on easily accessible website that doesn’t take long to load.
Why Should You Choose Responsive Designs For Your Online Business?
There are many problems online consumers face when accessing a traditional website. Responsive website provides an uncluttered experience by addressing many of these issues. Prominent features of responsive design include:
- Less loading time
- Easy navigable
- Attractive layout
- Image size as per device’s needs
Nowadays, responsive design is the key solution to providing your customer with a faultless online experience. If you are not providing with your online consumers with a quick solution to their shopping problems, then you are missing out on a huge audience. Your online consumers will view you as incapable of fulfilling their needs, providing them with a poor experience.
According to a survey conducted by Kissmetrics, the biggest factor that affects the shopping experience of online consumer is the load time. Most of the online shoppers are willing to compromise on the way a site a looks, only if it is quick to load.
47% of your consumers expect that it would take lesser than 2 seconds to load while 50% are of view that the basis of customer loyalty lies in quick accessibility. If you are willing to address these issues, you can easily see encouraging stats regarding your bounce and conversion rates and above all your sales numbers.
M Commerce Is The New Thing
The reason why it is important to have a responsive design is because the usage of mobile phones has taken over our lives. More and more customers are now accessing online stores through mobiles to make their purchases. Despite huge amount of customers turning towards online shopping trend, there are many businesses that have still not considered adopting responsive web design.
As a fitness business owner, you need to analyse the following statistics, so that you can weigh in the importance of a responsive website for your sales.
- Consumers all over the planet are showing a similar trend in shopping i.e. purchasing through mobiles.
- Americans spent almost 71% of digital minutes on mobile in 2017, and the numbers are expected to rise.
If you are not willing to embrace this new trend, you are likely to lose a huge market of online consumers to your competitors who have already implemented a responsive website. Now you shouldn’t be questioning yourself about the importance of mobile, rather you should be thinking what solution you can provide to mobile users.
By choosing to adopt a responsive web design, you’ll be catering to the needs of 1.08 billion smartphone users without any impediment. And the number is expected to rise in the coming years.
Improved Conversion Rates
In business, greater conversion rates are directly correlated to higher sales. But more than often, business owners find it hard to improve their this game-changing stat. This can be conveniently done by simply choosing to opt for a responsive website.
According to a survey conducted by eConsultancy, 14 firms boosted their conversion rates considerably by opting to switch to a responsive design. Some notable names are State Farm that saw a rise of 14% in their conversion rates. FreshSparks, on the other hand, had a boost of 42% in their revenue.
You might question the link between a responsive website and improved conversion rates, but so far there isn’t any single case where switching to a responsive website would have adversely affected the business.
Improved Search Engine Rankings
Since most users search for websites on their mobile rather than their desktops, another important feature of responsive web designs is that they play an integral part in getting higher rankings on Google. For ecommerce gurus, it is no secret that Google urges business owners to adopt a responsive design as means to drive more traffic to from mobile users. Google also prefers to display mobile-optimized websites on top, when mobile users make a particular query.
There are some significant reasons why responsive design improves Google rankings. Mobile sites need to be focused or otherwise they are susceptible to high bounce rates, which adversely affects the user experience. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, chances are that it wouldn’t be shared much by your consumers, which would also affect the overall rankings.
When you opt for responsive design, the mobile and desktop version of your site share the same URL, which makes it easier for Google to crawl and index it.
Going Responsive For Your Online Fitness Store
If you aren’t a website designer, building a responsive site on your own can be a bit of an uphill task.
So how do you get your site responsive?
Getting responsive now isn’t as difficult as it was years ago. There are a large number of free website builders that provide you detailed assistance, allowing you to manage your business without any curbs. Some of these sources enable you choose from multiple themes that help you translate the vision of your business onto your site.
After going through this feature, you can now understand the significance of a responsive design and its impact on your sales numbers. Now it’s time that you invest some time in turning your website responsive. Once you have done that just watch your conversion rates improve and SEO rankings get higher.
Good luck selling online!
