So imagine this for a minute; you click on a Twitter link or a Facebook post on your mobile device and what shows up makes you sigh. A full desktop formatted page comes up. You want to read the content and even pinch the screen to enlarge the page. But then it enlarges on a part of the page not even close to the article and rather than reposition it, you simply go back to your feed and move on.
photo credit: jiraisurfer via photopin cc
Websites began as desktop only spaces, but with the advent of smartphones, there became a need to have mobile versions of websites. Some of these mobile only sites are on completely separate directories and sometimes their content must be managed separately. Other mobile sites are really scaled down versions of the desktop site with the text enlarged because the desktop site is narrow enough to fit on a mobile screen. Neither of these options help much with optimization or they end up making the desktop site look funky or they’re code heavy with javascript and make the sites take a while to load.
With responsive design, the site is able to adjust itself to the device it is being read on by calling out to a different style sheet which in turn draws the site accordingly. The elements get rearranged, content moves and becomes readable on a mobile device. All of this is done without redirecting to a new directory, being heavy on scripting to redraw the site and it allows the site load super fast on the device. A responsive site also ensures that all of the hard work done to optimize the site wont be wasted if a search engine sees too many redirects or extra code to make a site mobile friendly.
So why is this important for engagement? Think of the story from above. Not only did the author miss out on the read, the person who posted the link might have a few frustrated followers. We can’t always post out content we know is mobile ready, that would be insane to check all of the time, but we should at least be aware of it.
In the social and mobile world, it’s detrimental to a business to not have a site that is responsive to mobile. Here are a couple of ways to keep this in mind when content is created, shared or websites built.
- Create a mobile friendly site that works. It’s no longer enough to just have a website and then a separate one on a different directory. The site needs to have fresh content and one way to make that happen is to have it pull content from the main site. WordPress has many themes that will be responsive enough to mobile, but the absolute best way is to create a responsive site from scratch.
- Make sure the site is using a content management system. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and others make it easy to add content and they also work well with responsive designed sites.
- Keep in mind that content is likely going to be shared and also viewed on mobile devices, so find ways to get your message across quickly. (I’m sure this post doesn’t adhere to that, but you know how it is)
What are some stories you have about content on mobile devices? What other opinions or ideas you have about mobile ready sites?
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Very good post, Jeff! Sometimes I find it difficult to comment on my mobile device. That's something important to think about when you choose your mobile theme – to easy enable comments.
Hi Anna,
That is a very good point about commenting. I do find that myself. One more thing to consider for engagement.
Thanks for commenting!
It is all going Mobile…it is the future of how people will utilize the internet. I pound that message on a daily basis. Great job and even though I work at it, I will rechecking sites today. Thanks for the reminder.
Hi Gerry,
You know, if we all take a few minutes to consider how our content will look on mobile and how easy it will be to share, maybe it will make a difference.
I know mobile consideration is already a few years old, but maybe things have gotten lazy? Who knows.
Great post Jeff. All of our web builds for the last 4 months have been responsive, we do not even price them without the feature any longer! Your post is spot on with where it is headed as I type from my iPad, now if we can just find to time to convert our own….
Hey Randy,
I'm glad you're ahead of the curve on responsive sites. I think we have been on the path for a while, but it's still cluttered with so many different ideas, some clear voices need to start to rise above the noise.
Thanks for your comment!
Great points here Jeff, while I often work on a desktop I always have my phone with me and I expect content delivered to me in a way that is easy to read and navigate. If not… see you later.
Thanks David.
I'm glad I'm not the only one to punch out of a site not optimized for mobile. It's pretty annoying and there really is no reason for it anymore.
great read on responsive website design.. insightful
With more and more WordPress themes becoming responsive there is really no excuse to ignore the "mobile readers" anymore. In my experience installing a plugin to turn the site mobile is only the second-best solution. The plugins are fairly heavy and slow down the whole site.
As someone who reads on his phone a lot I want to share a plea to all: Please STOP overlay pop-ups! There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to read a post because the pop-up hides the whole screen!