prchase

Hey Warriors,

Just curious who here uses responsive design in combination with WordPress? I personally love it, it's great to not have to create a .m site for clients anymore and just create one website.

What is your experience with it, both positive and negative?

Internetoholic

More and more frameworks for Wordpress are responsive now.
Check MeetGavernWP it's my favourite now.

Find me here

GR Marketing

Yes there is, it's called Bangkok Press and its awesome.

You can get it here:

Bangkok Press

It does cost but the end result is awesome.

Check it out on a couple of niche sites I'm building using it:

Aquarium Fish Care World
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Resize your browser and you'll bear witness to just how responsive it really is!

WillR

I'm not a fan of it. It doesn't achieve what I want a mobile website to achieve.

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kwamster

Nice looking sites. I also checked them out on my iphone and they looked pretty good on that platform as well.

It seems like the responsive site designs are much better looking then a lot of the mobile site designs that you see being offered on various WSO'S.

Just out of curiosity, how are you driving traffic to your new niche sites?

Jay Moreno

Responsive design maybe mobile ready but they are far from being mobile optimized... there's a huge difference between the two in terms of end user experience, speed and performance due to file size.

Be aware of the pros and cons of both before implementing a mobile strategy!

Personally i would always go with a mobile optimized site over responsive

shoopt

I have built a few mobile websites using wordpress and personally I don't like it, as per me HTML5 is a better platform. The performance of HTML5 built websites is better than those built using wordpress.

I am Daniel Jones, working in a Mobile Application Development Company as a Mobile App Developer. I enjoys exploring apps on iOS, blackberry, android and other mobile platforms.

Social Guy

The last couple of months my clients are more into responsive because they want a complete website. It is easier for them because when they post something they only have to do this once and the like the fact that their site is on one domain..

IMHO a mobile site is ideal if someone doesn't want to create a new (complete) website but wants to deliver a good experience for the mobile user..

iaeo

I love responsive design, but I personally don't do it in WordPress. Building a site from scratch using the Foundation or Bootstrap framework is the way to go for me. I do browse ThemeForest a lot for inspiration though.

As for building a separate mobile site (m.example.com), I think it's a totally valid way to go, if not as elegant a solution. The benefit is in the micro-optimization, they download/parse less code, and that can be relevant for mobile users (especially on limited data plans). That said, a few hundred lines of text usually isn't that big of a deal, and you're probably better off going responsive.

Javascript/jQuery | Java (Android) | PHP | HTML5 | CSS3 | Ruby on Rails
Want a website, native Android app, or web app? Talk to me.
http://lastingwebdesign.com

Jay Moreno

depends if the developers knows how to make wordpress mobile friendly or not... not all mobile themes/frameworks/plugins are built with the that type of understanding...

smartdept

Good advice here.

I have a different take on the separate mobile website angle which I developed my product around. Perhaps a responsive site could do this, but it might get complicated...

Our mobile websites are separate sites that an existing site owner can redirect to. But they are different in that they all have a landing page as the front page and a Menu button to access the business's other information. The landing page is instantly changeable. We offer layout templates for this page, that a user can click to change their landing page and try a different, yet focused, marketing approach. Example: Mobile coupons, or Special Deals w/ a countdown timer... All of their page content remains the same, yet the face of the mobile website and marketing strategy can change with a few clicks.

The result is very cool. Plus, each of our mobile websites comes with its own Text Message Marketing List. So, they can send text blasts, and then rapidly change their front page to accomodate that text blast, providing a place where the visitor can ACT. It's wonderful synergy.

Anyway, that's the direction I'm going in. Cheers,

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Jay Moreno

thats what we do with an adaptive approach but everything stays on the same URL

SJJPFTW

Personally I don't like responsive sites. I think a mobile site needs to be more appy than sitey because thats what people expect on their phones if that makes sense.

It does have its applications (constantly updates blogs etc) however for the standard SME site I think its better to have a dedicated mobile site and a redirect setup.

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TequilaShot

I would say that each has their up and down:

Responsive is not as optimized or user friendly as mobile optimized but will update automatically as you update the regular site so I would say will be a good fit for niche / content sites.

Mobile optimized will certainly be my choice for any local business as the most important parts are tap to call, address, map and directions and that would be better achieved with a mobile optimized site.

iaeo

I entirely agree that mobile sites should be more appy, but I don't think that's any more difficult to achieve with responsive; that's exactly what I do.
Basically, I have 2 separate versions of the site (or more if there's a way to optimize the experience for tablets) that are shown based on the media query. That way, it's all one site (no alternate URLs or subdomains) but you still get a fully optimized experience no matter what device you're on.

Javascript/jQuery | Java (Android) | PHP | HTML5 | CSS3 | Ruby on Rails
Want a website, native Android app, or web app? Talk to me.
http://lastingwebdesign.com

TequilaShot

This theme looks like a copycat of Canvas from Woo themes...

kwamster

Are you referring to just mobile WP sites or are you also referring to their desktop counterparts as well?

JohnE

Building a mobile version of a website from scratch (or via the use of templates) is better in terms of both looks and performance.

With a little PHP coding, content can be pulled directly from the main site allowing the pages on the mobile site to update automatically.

lint631

I think you have a good point here. Using a responsive design for a blog is helpful because you don't need to update your site for every post.

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Jay Moreno

What you need to do is create an adaptive design that serves a different HTML/CSS structure based on user agent... kinda like what WP Touch does...

This way its mobile optimized and uses the same content...

Thats what we do

dmbrennan

From an SEO perspective, the m.whatever.com sites I have designed using WillR's software has been rewarding in the search results.

I'm getting 1'st position for the regular .com site and in most cases, the m. listing in the 2'nd position, truly remarkable... 2 separate sites with unique content and designed for both search engines and consumers looking for quick and basic business information with "Tap to Call" functionality.