Galahad

Hi There,

I am just going into the production of Mobile Sites for my clients but now I am confused about the different approaches to the development of mobile sites on the market.

On the one hand you have WP plugins which are helping you generating content. On the other hand you have solutions on their own (hosted by a company or to be installed on your own server) which are producing single files which you have to upload then on your hosting server.

What are the main differences between this two approaches? Can someone tell me the advantages from one against the other? And also the disadvantages?

Thanks in advance
Gahalad

shoopt

Though HTML 5 is not not very famous at the present time, it is the future of web apps and mobile website development. Both HTML 5 and WP are nice platforms for mobile development.
Check below to know advantages and disadvantages of HTML 5 platforms

The Advantages of Switching Your Website to HTML5

http://mashable.com/2012/07/25/html5...%28Mashable%29

Brandon Tanner

I prefer to use XHTML/CSS for most projects. HTML5 is the bees knees, but it is not 100% supported yet, so if you use it, you should create conditional rules in your code that allow it to degrade gracefully for older devices/browsers that don't support it.

I prefer to stay away from WordPress when possible for 2 reasons... 1) Having to constantly deal with security updates is a pain, and 2) WP sites will normally load a little bit slower than static HTML sites, which can have a negative effect on SEO.

My 2 cents

tprinty2

If I were you I would use what they call and responsive design. This design allows for multiple screen resolutions. It will remove elements and re-arrange them on the screen. But beware as this does not constitute a mobile webpage for seo purposes

Responsive Design Alone Is Not Mobile SEO

The content for mobile should be oprganized differently then for a desktop user.

As far as WP being slow. There are some great plugins that help speed it up. Take a look at the various caching mechanism. If you WP install is slow it will be primarily a function of the database. This is why I run all my own dedicated servers, I don't want to compete for resources with anyone.

Thanks
-Tom

WillR

Wordpress is slow IF coded by people who don't know what they are doing. Sadly that's the majority of Wordpress developers. They code their mobile themes no differently to the way they create themes for desktop PC's. That's where the problem lies. Wordpress can be just as fast as a plain XHTML/CSS site but the person coding it has to know what they are doing.

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HostWind

It may be worth noting which parts of the mobile crowd you are really after.
For example, a site for a local tech shop would likely be visited by people with newer iphone/android devices, as opposed to a fancy restaurant that is likely to target a more 'vintage' crowd, if you will.

Example being, the latter would require higher compatibility for older devices, as the former could be HTML5 for mainly the iPhone or Android phones.

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Jay Moreno

HTML5 will render on many older phones - however many of the feature are likely not supported by these older phones ie audio, video embed tags.

One of our older phones in our test suite is a 2007 First Generation Blackberry 8300 - its browser is horrible it pretty much hates EVERYTHING... however for a 5year old phone it WILL still render your page if you serve it as HTML5 which is good to know.

If the BB8300 does render the pages with jquery or javascript which is often served with responsive designs it will typically crash the browser! LOL This is why we opt for an adaptive design that delivers the most compatible content for the visitor.

Our rule of thumb is:

Responsive Design Usage
For desktop and tablets only

Adaptive Design Usage
For Smartphones deliver HTML5 and optional Jquery
For non smartphones use XHTML MP with no javascript.

An example of an adaptive approach would be say you want to embed Google maps to be displayed on your directions page - our sites will show a google interactive map thats driven by jquery for webkit compatible browsers (ie smartphones) but will show a static map image for non smartphones... its still the same URL it just knows what content to deliver based on our own user agent detections algorithms and logic flows we have in place.(Have been doing this kinda stuff since well before the iphone was even a twinkle in steve jobs eyes - so our logic flow is based on my own experience, and trial and error! Learning the hard way! LOL )

Similar for video we will show HTML5 video embedded for smartphones but show a download link to a 3gp video for non smartphones... we try to deliver the best compatible content for the phone.

This is just the very very tip of the iceberg but hope you understand what i am suggesting - aim to please the broadest range of mobile users bottom line... regardless of mobile device.

As for mobile plugins for WordPress you need to review the final output - there is a huge and i mean HUGE difference in what the current range of plugins and tools do. Some are better than others some are just down right horrible.

Validation
Check the final version of the mobile site on the W3C MobileOK checker - understand the results, whilst you may not get 100% even with a HTML5 driven site you can still get scores upwards of 85%. Many of the alerts, warning or error messages when testing a HTML5 site maybe false positives but you need to understand if they are or not. And can you fix them. Whilst it maybe an older validator don't dismiss it. Contrary to what a lot of people say it does recognize HTML5 tags.


Providing you understand what the information is telling you you have a better chance of your site working on the majority of phones out there.... if its saying one single page is over 1mb... you got serious problems! lol There is zero reason for your page sizes to be that big on a mobile device.

Other things to check are speedtests... whilst google's own online page speed test indicates that you have the right technology or correctly formatted code in place that will deliver your site in the fastest time it doesn't necessarily indicate that it is actually suitable for real world mobile usage. You need to check your actual page speed loading times. Your pages really need to be loading under 5 seconds on a 3G connection at the very maximum... 5 seconds on an ultra fast 4G connection doesn't count! LOL

Please note the following:

Google Page Speed Test
Checks that you have everything in place to deliver your current content as quickly as possible. It does NOT check to see that your site will actually load in under 5 seconds! A high mobile rating is just ONE of the many factors to look at.

Your page loading time (mobitest by akamai)
Doesnt check to see if you have the right technology or coding in place to deliver your site as fast as possible - it checks your actual loading time across a 3G connection. Ideally it needs to be under 3 seconds... and certainly not more than 5 seconds!

Hope that helps get you a better idea of things

Cheers,

Jay

rabbroon

Great information guys, thanks

Robert Brown
Skype: rbinternetmarketing

mydream111

i think wordpress is better and through wordpress you can build a blog, a website, or both.

gamerightnow

If I were you I would use what they call and responsive design. This design allows for multiple screen resolutions. It will remove elements and re-arrange them on the screen. But beware as this does not constitute a mobile webpage for seo purposes.
So i think you'll suggest in work. Good luck.

Funny Game http://gamerightnow.com

Jay Moreno

Just to clarify a responsive design does not remove any elements it just does not display them - what this means is that the elements are still loaded regardless of browser or device viewing the pages... this causes the site to load much slower than a site or theme designed specifically for mobile... checking the html source code and page file size will confirm that... unless it is an adaptive based layout or you are using a theme switcher only then will a developer have non mobile friendly elements completely omitted from the source code...

Responsive design maybe considered in the most lightest terms to be mobile ready but they are typically far from being mobile optimized, additionally since the content is designed specifically for desktop browsers its usually overkill for what mobile users are looking for - there's a significant difference between the two that you need to be aware of. Additionally if a client has an existing website you would basically have to build them a brand new website to make the existing site responsive.

We do use responsive design for desktop and tablets and use an adaptive approach for mobile.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Jay

TBone

HTML5 is the future!

WillR

The present and the future.

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Galahad

Hi Jay,

WOW! Thanks for the really impressive response and this bunch of information. You're really a well of knowledge on this topic. I just want to check out JumpMobi.com to see what you are offering there.

Thanks again
Galahad

laxxzen

yeah im into html 5 also... thanks for the informative response :

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