Have you asked yourself, “What is responsive Web design?” Responsive Web design is an approach whereby a designer creates a Web page that “responds to” or resizes itself depending on the type of device it is being seen through. 

That could be an oversized desktop computer monitor, a laptop, a 10-inch tablet, a 7-inch tablet, or a 4-inch smartphone screen.

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

Why Businesses Need to Switch to Responsive Web Design

• More people are using mobile devices. (A recent Pew study found that 45% of American adults own a smartphone, and 31% own a tablet computer. Smartphone shipments outpace those of regular mobile phones, and tablet growth is surging.  Check your traffic and you might just be shocked at how many visitors are getting to your website  through mobile devices.  (In your Google Analytics, select “Audience” on the left side, then “Mobile” to see what proportion of traffic is from mobile devices. You can even drill down to see which devices are sending the traffic.)(In WebsiteForge you can see these statistics under Site stats and backups.  Click on the month you wish to view.  Go to "browsers" and "Operating systems". )
• Responsive web development can future proof you and deliver your web site to an ever growing mobile audience.
• Mobile app fatigue is another reason. who really wants a bunch of apps cluttering their phones, wouldn't you rather look at a responsive site?
• Decreased development costs also are a factor. its easier to develop responsively, it’s much more attractive to write one set of code for any different-sized screen.
• The number of tablet and Smart phone users increases every year. (Tablet sales outsell pc sales)

There are a number of practices that you as a website owner should start to do to make your website comply with responsive standards.  See below for a list with links to instructions on how to implement these practices.

• When creating a table, you should set the table to use a percentage of the page. (instead of a set pixel width)
• When inserting videos, they should also be set to use a specific percentage of width and height.