Are stand alone Mobile websites needed anymore?

11 years ago

Yes, a standalone website is always better, a lot of these responsive sites don't look all that great in mobile phones, also a lot of businesses don't have wordpress sites to begin with, so therefor you will need a standalone website to.

Last you will have more design/using options with a standalone then with a responsive theme, as your depended on how that theme is designed...

I will always go for the standalone version.

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maricelu

11 years ago

There will always be market for what you sell. Tell your prospect "Hey mister, your site looks ok on mobile phone as it is responsive but we can use a mobile version and put a Click to call button in there for your prospects to reach you directly".

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bawls 11 years ago

plus there is the fact that a .htaccess redirected referring agent can be easily added in the event of a new mobile device not to sure about the all the "responsive themes"
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- Bizzoom 11 years ago
  
  Okay, I am not even going to attempt to explain the full power of Responsive Design Websites. I will let the experts do it.
  
  Once you have read articles here on why Responsive Design is the future here and now, you will gain a real working appreciation and knowledge as to why you must focus on selling Responsive Design websites rather than the old outdated mobile sites, as pretty as they might be.
  
  "Google recommends webmasters follow the industry best practice of using responsive web design, namely serving the same HTML for all devices and using only CSS media queries to decide the rendering on each device."
  
  Fact.
  
  Secondly, the web is the universal ocean of people online world wide and Google is the big whale shark swimming in it, and when Google swims in a certain direction all the little fish usually follow and feed around it.
  
  Google is now and will continue to rank Responsive Design websites higher.
  
  That is a stated fact by Google.
  
  Stand alone mobile sites, though pretty are not as easily searched and found as Responsive Design sites, and Apps, though tech cute, are only found if you are already on a site or are directed to a site via a TV ad or similar. They are not easily searched either.
  
  It can be argued that people spend lots of time on apps, but most of this is either social or gaming apps. Something to do when they have nothing else to do. But when it comes to them looking for something on the web because of a need, they search, and Responsive Design will win hands down every time because of Google's ranking preference for them, and Google OWNS 97% of search!
  
  Another fact.
  
  All the major asset holders on the internet know this and are spending big bucks to change their old and heavy websites to Responsive Design.
  
  Another fact.
  
  Conclusion. The web is the web and will always be the dominant power, and Responsive Design websites will rank the highest in it.
  
  Final fact.
  
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  Bizzoom 11 years ago
  
  To be fair on Apps here is a recent article on my blog about the App experience where 85pc prefer mobile apps over mobile Web because ease of use compared to the glut of dysfunctional websites on the web.
  
  However, only 28 percent said apps offer a better user experience than mobile sites.
  
  The key phrase here is "user experience". This is the key phrase in the mind of Google when they rank websites.
  
  The mobile website landscape is changing fast, and when it comes to the finish line, in the end responsive design websites will win the race.
  
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Bizzoom

11 years ago

@ maricelu

All phone numbers and email addresses are click-able on touch on all smartphones. Buttons are an ease of eye contact option, not a necessity. Large fonts for phone numbers and email addys will do the trick just as easily.

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DaniMc

11 years ago

A couple of misconceptions about responsive design.

Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia

Yes, a standalone website is always better, a lot of these responsive sites don't look all that great in mobile phones, also a lot of businesses don't have wordpress sites to begin with, so therefor you will need a standalone website to.

Last you will have more design/using options with a standalone then with a responsive theme, as your depended on how that theme is designed...

Not true at all. You don't need Wordpress to be responsive. All responsive means is that the CSS changes the layout based on the size of the screen. This works the same on Wordpress, Joomla, HTML and most other CMS.

And, as stated above, since there is a change in the CSS based on the size of the screen, you can have a completely different layout automatically. My current site takes my design elements and rearranges them to fit based on the size of the screen.

Originally Posted by maricelu

There will always be market for what you sell. Tell your prospect "Hey mister, your site looks ok on mobile phone as it is responsive but we can use a mobile version and put a Click to call button in there for your prospects to reach you directly".

It is easy to set up click to call on any site. You just put "tel:" in front of the phone number.

Originally Posted by bawls

plus there is the fact that a .htaccess redirected referring agent can be easily added in the event of a new mobile device not to sure about the all the "responsive themes"

You simply configure the CSS to change layout based on any size that may be presented. Going forward, we are going to have dozens of devices with many, many different screen sizes. It is happening already. Are you going to create a version for each screen size?

The point of responsive design is create something once, that will display well on any device, any screen, any size.

Here are some articles that may help.
Responsive Web Design Guidelines and Tutorials | Smashing Magazine

http://mashable.com/2012/12/11/responsive-web-design/

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YellowGreenMedia

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan McCoy

A couple of misconceptions about responsive design.

Not true at all. You don't need Wordpress to be responsive. All responsive means is that the CSS changes the layout based on the size of the screen. This works the same on Wordpress, Joomla, HTML and most other CMS.

Good luck witch creating a good working responsive for HTML websites that look good in all devices with all the options you need.... It can be done of course, but it will never be as good as a separate mobile website special created for for mobile screens.

Look at all the responsive options you have now on WP themes, most of them look like crap at best, not something i would wanna sell my clients, but each their own i guess...

And I really don't care what Google says about rankings and mobile phones, 90% of the statements they bring out are lies anyway, i have never seen a dropping in rankings for any of my mobile clients.. So i tend to go by my own data rather then what Google says..

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DaniMc

11 years ago

Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia

Good luck witch creating a good working responsive for HTML websites that look good in all devices with all the options you need.... It can be done of course, but it will never be as good as a separate mobile website special created for for mobile screens.

Look at all the responsive options you have now on WP themes, most of them look like crap at best, not something i would wanna sell my clients, but each their own i guess...

I don't need luck, brother. It took me about 8 seconds. Here is a responsive HTML template that looks absolutely beautiful on any screen. Visit the link on your phone or tablet. Turn the screen any direction. I would be proud to implement this for a client. Best of all, every version looks the same and serves the same content.

http://themes.semicolonweb.com/html/coworker/

And another:
http://www.ixtendo.com/themes/inceptio-html/

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YellowGreenMedia

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan McCoy

I don't need luck, brother. It took me about 8 seconds. Here is a responsive HTML template that looks absolutely beautiful on any screen. Visit the link on your phone or tablet. Turn the screen any direction. I would be proud to implement this for a client. Best of all, every version looks the same and serves the same content.

CoWorker - Responsive Business Theme

And another:
Inceptio - Responsive Multi-Purpose Theme

Those are nice, but the majority of my clients have simple HTML sites, they would need to get a new webdesign because responsive sites are great according to Google.

Well guess what? None of my prospects would buy a mobile site at all, they do not want a new design for there main website. They want a good looking/working/ fast loading mobile site that works with there websites.

Also those designs are really not that converting when it comes to services related businesses, conversion wise.

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mjbmedia

11 years ago

How choosy can you now be about what shows on your mobile version re responsive designed sites?

How choosy can you be about what the mobile responsive site attempts to upload to a mobile device, even if its not going to show it?

How truly mobile user focussed will the content be on a responsive site if it also has to cater for PC based users

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Jay Moreno

11 years ago

There is not just two types of delivering mobile content - if you think that the only solutions are responsive or parallel standalone mobile sites then you need to get more informed and read up on adaptive/dynamic serving of mobile optimized content.

The latter takes the best of both responsive and standalone and delivers the best mobile optimized experience on the same url. It is much more expensive/difficult than responsive or standalone to implement unless you have the right tools at hand or you know what you are doing. But you will find that almost all the top 200+ Alexa sites don't actually use a responsive design but opt for a better user experience with this type of approach.

Google does recommend a responsive design approach for mobile but lets look at their recommendation overview - they also say:

See this screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/vY0TFENrh

Originally Posted by Google

If responsive design is not the best option to serve your users, Google supports having your content being served using different HTML. The different HTML can be on the same URL or on different URLs, and Googlebot can handle both setups appropriately if you follow our recommendations.

Read it however you want but from our standpoint surely isn't the best option to serve your mobile users with the best possible mobile user experience that follows their recommendations? According to Google's mobile initiative GOMO it is...

The approach to mobile development is constantly changing and growing rapidly - some people are starting to realize that responsive is not necessarily the silver bullet they first thought it was for mobile. For a very up to date look at mobile seo and best practices check out this excellent webinar courtesy of SEOMoz (Good Practices to Maximize Your Mobile SEO - Webinar | SEOmoz) - this was presented mid February 2013.

At the end of the day use your best judgement to choose what you believe is the best solution for you and your clients ensuring you understand the pros and cons of all the different solutions you have at hand will only help in making that informed decision.

Our approach is to use responsive for desktop and tablets - adaptive for smaller mobile devices.

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LastBeatleBug

11 years ago

Most of my Clients are small so the responsive wordpress site fits their budget. I love this discussion as you guys know a lot more about this than I do - but I am learning.
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kenmichaels

11 years ago

Seamless integration, THAT is the name of the game. Always has been always will be.
Just like the browser wars in the 90's the different monitor sizes caused problems at first.
Then they came out with wide screen, more problems, now you needed better vid card

in the beginning, it is never seamless, new tech comes out, people wait and see what
direction things are going, and then BAMM ... it becomes main stream

Stand alone mobi sites are no different.

Stand alone mobi = old tech ( useful for now )

Responsive design is new tech, on the cusp of becoming a standard.

So what is the answer? Easy sell them standalone mobile sites for now.

Consider it a simple, low priced entry point to get your foot in the door.

Now you have a customer base. You have there account numbers or credit cards on file.
All you have to do is maintain your working relationship with them.

When they time is right ... Upsell them responsive design.

Anybody that owns a TV, laptop, desktop computer, cell phone, pads ...
anything electronic, they know, 6 months after they buy it, it is out of date.

if you have there business now, as long as you don't mess up, you will have
there business later as well.

Just my 2 cents guys.

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Eddie Spangler

11 years ago

Originally Posted by kenmichaels

Seamless integration, THAT is the name of the game. Always has been always will be.
Just like the browser wars in the 90's the different monitor sizes caused problems at first.
Then they came out with wide screen, more problems, now you needed better vid card

in the beginning, it is never seamless, new tech comes out, people wait and see what
direction things are going, and then BAMM ... it becomes main stream

Stand alone mobi sites are no different.

Stand alone mobi = old tech ( useful for now )

Responsive design is new tech, on the cusp of becoming a standard.

So what is the answer? Easy sell them standalone mobile sites for now.

Consider it a simple, low priced entry point to get your foot in the door.

Now you have a customer base. You have there account numbers or credit cards on file.
All you have to do is maintain your working relationship with them.

When they time is right ... Upsell them responsive design.

Anybody that owns a TV, laptop, desktop computer, cell phone, pads ...
anything electronic, they know, 6 months after they buy it, it is out of date.

if you have there business now, as long as you don't mess up, you will have
there business later as well.

Just my 2 cents guys.

My favorite answer so far.
Its not that expensive so easier to sell and will do the job well enough
for the majority of small biz owners.

Plus its going to likely be easier to learn how to do and how to manage
workflow for most people here still working out the kinks in their offerings.

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Adrian John

11 years ago

My point of view and I can speak for my consultant partners too:
Stand Alone Mobile Website: Focused on Call to Action (tap to call, quote, sign-up for newsletter), most important information concentrated within several paragraphs, layout can be fully controlled.
This will get clients on the phone faster than ever and that's what the business want.

Responsive Design: tooo much information available to read, no straight call to action , not focused on important information, broken layout

What do you want from the mobile website users?
To read the content of the website and get bored probably of too much information, content not aligned up correctly, not sure how to proceed etc
OR have them call the business to ask more information, talk to a real person who can respond LIVE to their needs?

Stand alone mobile website is the way to go, at least for all the businesses I designed.
Google recommend it as per Jay's screenshot above so give it a thought.

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