Do You Need a Mobile Site?

More and more traffic to websites is attributed to mobile devices: iPhones, Android phones, iPads, netbooks and the like. But there’s a vast difference between viewing a website on your computer and viewing that same site on your smartphone–primarily screen size. So do you need a mobile version of your website?

In this mobile age, the safe bet is to have a mobile version of your site. Delivering great content is about meeting your customers where they are, and today’s web users are growing to expect a mobile presence.

Fortunately your web design shop can help you deliver on this expectation. This is especially true if you are using a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress or Drupal. Both these and other CMSs offer plug-ins to translate your site into a mobile browser specific experience with a minimum of work.

If your new site isn’t using a CMS or you are having one custom-developed, you should ask your web designer shop about developing a style sheet (CSS) specifically for mobile devices. Another approach is to develop a separate site just for mobile devices. Google is an excellent example of this practice, with mobile sites for search and Gmail among others.

Mobile sites and mobile-specific CSS work by detecting what browser and device a visitor is using and redirecting them from the normal site to the mobile version. Either method ensures that your site visitors get an experience that’s optimized for the browser and device they are using, and make it easy for them to find what they need.