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Do you need a mobile site ...? It seems it is a bit of an investment is it worth it ? I know just about everyone has a smart phone and spends times browsing.
Any thoughts ?
Any thoughts ?
Did you get a hold of Greg Fay?You should have a site that is at least responsive or renders fine on a mobile device. Do you need a "standalone" mobile site? That really depends...
If you're a plumber then yes you'd probably want a standalone mobile version. When people need your services it's NOW and the benefits of a mobile site in that situation are many... You however build custom decks... People will likely want to see detailed pictures of your work on a larger device than their smart phone and probably don't make their buying decision based on their first visit to your site.
I would just consider a responsive WP theme for your site and call it a day.
Yep, we're playing phone tag at the moment.Did you get a hold of Greg Fay?
Wordpress plugins can make your life so much easier. I've used WPTouch before. I highly recommend it.Just this morning I installed a Wordpress plugin called WPTouch that converts on the fly my website for mobile users. I need to do some tweaking but it works.
Huh? That reminds me of a blog post shared on a design pros discussion touting all the reasons not to use responsive design. The blog author received some well deserved critiques of his lame reasoning and misunderstanding of what responsive design really is.I recommend that you dont go with a responsive design and jump to a mobile site built on its own domain (m yoursite.com). Its only my assumption / guess but I feel responsive will be a fad that will maybe last until the end of the year before the mobile optimized web designs take over. A lot of large corporations are already doing it. Responsive designs still load all the content from the desktop site which depending on what that content is can still cause the site to load slow and be hard to navigate.
Mobile designs remove the pinch and zoom, make it easier to navigate and load faster. You will get people on both sides of the argument so go with whatever you want to and know that there really isnt a wrong decision to be made.
Honestly I only provided my opinion and I as well am not here to point out other peoples "inaccurate" information on posts. The information I provided I dont believe to be necessarily inaccurate. You can bridge a desktop and mobile site to share the same database. I do it on every mobile design we create. Theres a little redesign / re-coding that needs to be done here or there but I have never had to maintain a desktop and mobile site separately.Huh? That reminds me of a blog post shared on a design pros discussion touting all the reasons not to use responsive design. The blog author received some well deserved critiques of his lame reasoning and misunderstanding of what responsive design really is.
I'm not seeking an argument but I can't let inaccurate information go unchallenged because the members here are contractors, not web people, and they need to be given reliable answers.
First of all, a separate mobile site gives you two sites to maintain instead of one. It doubles your maintenance, increases the risk of error, and introduces duplicate content which can weaken your site and ranking.
The statement that it loads all the same content as a desktop page is more a lack of proper planning than a truth. Good responsive design includes deciding when and if some elements of a page should load on smaller device screens. I assure you, well implemented responsive design will also eliminate the need to pinch and zoom.
Arguments against responsive design are the result of poor implementation of it, not because responsive design is bad. Responsive design may very well be a fad. The fad will pass as soon as people stop using devices to access the Internet.
I'm glad you clarified that. A database driven site would certainly make a difference in maintenance.Honestly I only provided my opinion and I as well am not here to point out other peoples "inaccurate" information on posts. The information I provided I dont believe to be necessarily inaccurate. You can bridge a desktop and mobile site to share the same database. I do it on every mobile design we create. Theres a little redesign / re-coding that needs to be done here or there but I have never had to maintain a desktop and mobile site separately.
My opinion is still that responsive design will be replaced by a mobile optimized website. Predictions are that more people will access the internet with their smartphone or tablet than a desktop computer by the end of the year. If thats true then I feel that anybody reading the forum should know the flipside to responsive.
Again I dont think either one is a wrong choice. My argument against it isnt based on poor implementation. Its based on what I experience and what I think may be needed / wanted in the future. My only question is if dedicated mobile is so much worse than responsive why again wouldnt large companies and online retailers stick with responsive and not have a mobile dedicated website?
I think LogHome's response has answered your question better than any one of us could. His personal situation requires a mobile site. Does yours?most of my clients log homes are second homes where they don't have desktop computers and land line internet. My customers do use their i-phones to find me the most as they bring this along with their cellular connection to their second home.