3 Methods to Help Make Your Site Look Great On Mobile (with pros + cons)

You don&#8217t need to be an internet consultant to understand that mobile usage is skyrocketing.

And particularly if you’re a content website, or consumer product/service website &#8211 your clients are most likely already visiting your site using their iPhones, Galaxies, Droids, etc, etc.

(Despite the fact that &#8211 it is simple to discover the number of mobile visitors and when an internet site re-vamp makes it worth while via Google Analytics. See our help guide to that here.)

However , smartphone hardware gets better considerably faster than website design technology (and designers) and up.

This means that there’s not one proper way to &#8220make my website look great with an iPhone.&#8221

You will find, however, 3 general approaches that web-site designers are utilizing.

These are, combined with the benefits and drawbacks of every&#8230

Responsive Design

This method would be to help make your full website collapse, shrink, and re-decide to fit the screen on any device.

You’ve one site that fits all. These include the Boston Globe, Lancaster College, Smashing Magazine, and Obama (seen below)&#8230 (and my own blog at nateshivar.com). Here&#8217s the entire site:

Compare that towards the mobile site loaded with an iPhone:

Responsive design is extremely, very new &#8211 and it has some definite benefits and drawbacks.

Pros of Responsive Design

• You build/own/manage 1 website
• No recourse of Google duplicate content penalty
• Entire web site is available initially load
• Feels awesome to make use of, and appears great when done correctly

Cons of Responsive Design

• Forces the consumer to see the website this way (perhaps violates usability concepts)
• Could be slow on cellular devices (because they need to download the whole site)
• Can be quite costly to complete well (otherwise, be suspicious)
• It&#8217s very difficult to prosper
• Requires lots of testing and time
• Very trendy &#8211 which may be bad or good (Flash used to be trendy, but has become disdained)

Separate Mobile Site

This method would be to design another website particularly for cellular devices.

It functions by living at, say, m.yoursite.com. Each time a mobile user types inside your website, your server detects that they’re utilizing a mobile phone, and redirects these to your mobile site, which looks and works excellent.

This is actually the most typical way of most companies &#8211 and coincidentally, for Mitt Romney. This really is his full site:

Here is his mobile site:

Note the &#8220Go to Full Site&#8221 link on Mitt Romney&#8217s mobile site.

Just like responsive design &#8211 utilizing a mobile site has some benefits and drawbacks too&#8230

Pros of the Mobile Site

• Faster, cheaper to create
• Looks great on any device
• Loads rapidly on any device
• For a lot of companies &#8211 it’s greater conversions (knowing that which you customers want&#8230like telephone number or directions)

Cons of the Mobile Site

• Build, manage, and own 2 separate websites
• Very difficult to perform the mobile redirect properly (it sometimes won&#8217t work, because of referer information sent or otherwise sent in the device)
• Is definitely an annoyance for users (just like a pop-up ad online) when they would like your full site
• Limits available information that may be proven
• Forces mobile users to load the website two times when they want the entire version
• Search engine optimization could be punished when the duplicate content penalty isn&#8217t prevented

Inclusive Design

Inclusive design is really a term I composed to capture the approach of creating a website that appears good everywhere &#8211 without changes.

It offers a couple of such things as,

• Minimalist design, with enhanced images and video for faster load time
• Bigger buttons
• Bigger text
• Apparent navigation
• No Flash &#8211 and limited Javascript

Pros of Inclusive Design

• User isn’t made to do or view anything
• User can access entire website constantly
• Less expensive than both responsive and mobile
• Only build/own/manage 1 site
• Uses smartphone evolving technology instead of reacting into it
• Usually creates a much better desktop design

Cons of Inclusive Design

• Inherently an agreement
• Less flashy as responsive
• Limits features available

Conclusion

[insert cliche about how exactly the long run is mobile] so watch owner, blogger, and web design service will have to evolve.

But simply like thinking about buying or develop a house &#8211 it will help to understand about the overall benefits and drawbacks of every approach available.

Tell me questions you may have below within the comments!

ShivarWeb does web talking to &#8211 and web development. Speak with us today!