Separate Non-Responsive Mobile Sites vs Responsive Websites

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Why are Mobile Sites Important?

When it comes to traffic on your website, as much as two-thirds of visitors now come from mobile searches, such as those made from smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately, over half of mobile users will reportedly back out of a website for a variety of reasons, including: A) the website does not have a mobile version of the site, and B) the mobile site contains content bugs that make it difficult to use on a specific mobile device.

Common Pitfalls

Many times mobile user issues happen to select, rarely used devices. This is especially true of mobile devices and tablets from small or new companies. The issues these devices experience can be caused by several things. If you try to create a mobile site from scratch, or by not using the proper technique, this can lead to problems. Additionally, creating a mobile-friendly site without field testing its mobile performance can lead to unforeseen issues. Below we’ll look at the difference between a mobile site that is separate from the main website (bbc.com vs m.bbc.com) and a responsive website that has a single version that can run on any device without a mobile redirect.

What is a Mobile-Friendly Responsive Website?

Sometimes the best way to accommodate all of the different types of mobile devices is to use a responsive website. Some templates, such as those from Bootstrap, and increasingly those from WordPress developers, have built in responsive features. A responsive website will automatically shrink and/or rearrange content to display the website to users in the most effective manner. This means that when someone visits your website from their phone, tablet, or laptop, your website will automatically adjust so that the content fits their screen appropriately.

Advantages of a Mobile-Friendly Responsive Website

While separate non-responsive websites are still used, many site owners are converting to mobile responsive sites. There are multiple advantages to using a mobile responsive website, including:

Adaptability: Mobile responsive sites use percentages to determine what size adjustments to make to the website, instead of manually set sizes. Because of this, responsive websites can adapt to fit almost any device’s screen size without modification.

Zoom: Mobile responsive sites also allow users to zoom in for a mobile serving version, or to zoom out for the traditional desktop version. Chrome currently has an option for visitors to view a site in desktop mode on a mobile device, but most site visitors do not use this feature.

Styling: Another advantage of mobile responsive sites is that they automatically work with most page content, such as images, text, and page design. This ensures that the content you put on the page will be what users view when they open the website on a mobile device.

In our next article we will look at tips on how to give users the best experience for both mobile responsive websites and non-responsive separate sites. For more information on making your website mobile-friendly, contact tekRESCUE, an IT company in San Marcos, TX, to speak to a technology professional.

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