{"id":12478,"date":"2013-01-18T08:04:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T13:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shareaholic.com\/?p=12478"},"modified":"2014-05-09T12:24:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T16:24:00","slug":"blog-responsive-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shareaholic.com\/blog\/blog-responsive-design\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things Bloggers Need to Know About Responsive Design"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: Jhaymesisviphotography<\/a> via Compfight<\/a>
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You\u2019re on the subway, browsing your phone and trying to avoid awkward glances with the person closely pressed up against you. You scroll through your Twitter stream and one tweet catches your eye. You click.<\/p>\n

The display is all of a sudden is too tiny even for ant eyes. You resort to the pinch and scroll, which always cuts off a word or two on either side. You think, \u201cis this tweet really worth it?\u201d You continue reading and reach the end of the end of the article.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may also like:\u201d<\/a> the site suggests, but there is no way you are putting up with the pinch and scroll for another minute. You click away. The end.<\/p>\n

This is what happens to your readers if you don\u2019t have a mobile-friendly site. They get frustrated, lose interest and leave your page, making your bounce rate skyrocket.<\/p>\n

Back in October<\/a>, we saw that almost 10% of the traffic to our publisher network of 200,000 websites and blogs was from mobile devices\u2014and it\u2019s growing. You need to be prepared for mobile visitors on your own blog. After you\u2019ve spent a ton of time designing a professional blog<\/a>, engaging readers<\/a> with fabulous content and networking on social media<\/a>, you don\u2019t want people bouncing away from your site because of the dreaded \u201cpinch and scroll.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, there is a way to optimize your site without developing a whole app or separate mobile page: you can implement a responsive design on your main site. To help you figure out if it\u2019s right for your blog, here answers to the five most basic questions about responsive design.<\/p>\n

1. What is responsive design?<\/h3>\n

A responsive design is a type of blog layout that adapts to whichever device you are viewing the content on. For example, if you\u2019re viewing a website on a wide-screen display and a tablet, the layout will expand to fit the wide-display and shrink to fit to the tablet. With a responsive design, your website\u2019s design will fit in any size browser window\u2014whether it is on desktop, tablet or phone.<\/p>\n

If you want to see some awesome responsive designs in action, check out this website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 What\u2019s the difference between responsive design and a mobile website?<\/h3>\n

A mobile website and a responsive website are completely different. A mobile website is designed specifically for mobile devices\u2014if you view a mobile website on a desktop, it won\u2019t be formatted correctly. If you type the main domain in your URL window, you’ll usually be redirected to a subdomain with a “m.” before the rest of the domain name.<\/p>\n

A responsive design on the other hand, can be formatted for any device. It isn\u2019t a redirect from your main page\u2014your main website will be available to all visitors, mobile or desktop.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example to illustrate the difference:<\/p>\n

\"Mobile<\/a><\/p>\n

3. What are the advantages of a responsive design?<\/h3>\n

Having a responsive design can be incredibly beneficial to you. Here are a couple reasons why:<\/p>\n