Craft yours to display well on any device.
By Diane Knudson
Sponsored by CU Solutions Group
What devices do members use to view your website?
- laptops
- tablets
- smartphone
- all of the above
The answer to the question probably depends on the individual member; however one thing is clear: Members access their CUs’ websites using a variety of devices. This is a key reason why “responsive” website design (first originated by Ethan Marcotte with his “A List Apart.”) has become so important. The aim of responsive design is to craft websites that provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices.
What are the top three reasons CUs should have a responsive design?
1. You’ll provide a better user experience. With responsive design, everyone who visits your website has the same experience, whether they are on a phone, tablet or desktop. This means that the 25 percent of people who only use a smartphone to access the Internet have the same exact experience as desktop users. Websites that have a responsive design typically see higher user engagement, including a lower bounce rate, higher average visit duration and more pages per visit on average. Such statistics point to an overall better user experience.
2. It’ll make you more competitive. Google has said that it will give priority ranking in its search results pages to sites with a responsive design.
3. You’ll make life easier for your team. With a responsive design, you manage your site in one implementation, so you don’t have to worry about updating multiple sites, making sure your links are correct or duplicate content.
What are the top three pitfalls to avoid when doing responsive design?
1. Not understanding how your website fits into your overall digital marketing strategy. Your website needs to be treated as your most important branch. Understanding how your website and your digital marketing strategy as a whole dovetail with your credit union’s overall strategic plan will help your website be much more effective.
2. Not understanding how visitors actually navigate through your website. Visitors may not use your website the way you think they do, so you need to have a clear understanding of the best way to organize your site architecture while you’re in the website design planning process.
3. Assuming that once you go responsive your website visitors will automatically start converting. Your digital marketing strategy (that includes a responsive website) and your traditional marketing strategy must work together to drive quality traffic to your website and push conversions (making purchases or otherwise taking action on the site).
You’ll know how well your responsive website is working if you have goals set up in Google Analytics, or whatever website analytics program you use to track your website. You can compare site use before and after your conversion to a responsive design. The initial costs for doing a responsive design are typically higher than a traditional design because you are getting four designs instead of one. However, over time those costs are paid back, as you only need to update one design instead of multiple designs and it takes fewer resources to manage. Make sure you work with a responsive website design vendor that understands the technology and design expectations. You’ll also want to work with a vendor that offers a content management system that you have access to and use to easily make changes to your site. Your vendor may also be a partner in developing your overall digital marketing strategy—including online advertising, social media, search engine optimization, content marketing—and make sure it’s working hand in hand with your traditional marketing to help your credit union meet its strategic objectives.
Diane Knudson is director of marketing and technology solutions for CU Solutions Group, Livonia, Mich. Read a Credit Union Management magazine article on responsive design.
