@deairby I’m putting together mobile sites for my clients and prospects in my local area. 

I have set a script that if the site is accessed from a mobile device it directs the user to the mobile friendly site with the option to go to the regular site by clicking a link. 

As for my own site, I need to get it finished so I can make my own mobile site…2011 has been the year of the client and I’ve not worked on my own stuff too much, so it’s time I did more for my business properties I suppose. 

@carolinechen-whatley good point, Caroline. Someone posted that non-mobile sites may become obsolete. What do you think about that?

@matmaynor @deairby

Mat, great post! Couldn’t agree more.

Dea, we have built some mobile sites that add content automatically on the mobile site when the main site is updated. There are several methods to accomplish this, but the most common is using RSS feeds.

@matmaynor @deairbyYes i agree also with Matt I think it’s very important to have mobile friendly website. Having been running my own web design/ devlopment studio there is more and more demand for mobile friendly websites. There are various techniques as Mat mentioned but if you are about to design your wbsite from scratch I would recommend to ask your designer/developer to use responsive design. It’s a fairly new concept in web design and basically it means that layout of your website is changing according to users screens. There are few good examples of website design/developed using this technique here http://designmodo.com/responsive-design-examples. It is much easier to implemented that to websites which are build and design from scratch then to already existing sites. However as Mat already mentioned you could create simple version of your existing website on sub domain such as mobile.mydomain.com and mobile version will load when user will open your site on mobile device. I will be happy to answer more questions about responsive design and mobile websites if anybody is interested just let me know I simply don’t want to get in to many technical details here

@fsdegrees I’m glad that you advocate the responsive web concept. It’s one that I’ve been vaguely aware of over the past couple of years, but ignored until it became identified & seemingly focused on. Right now I’m 2/3 way through the book “Responsive Web Design” from A Book Apart & the thought is brought out that instead of the rule of separation that has been, the rule of building in such a way as to include whatever platform people build on. You no longer have just mobile to consider but all the various tablet sized view ports – so how many websites will you build to meet each of those needs?

I’m interested in technical details  as far as best practices go & am still figuring out the “how to”. If there’s not a thread/place here to ask & learn, are you ok with a PM?

Thanks! Christy

@designbykiltzAnytime Christy I will be happy to share my knowledge.

Hi, this is a great thread, one thing I would add is be careful when using plugins for wordpress, actually I would highly recommend you never build a site using wordpress, using this platform will increase the load time on mobile phones, this is due to the fact that wordpress loads and runs a lot of processes in the background!
Ase all know the mobile generation is all about the now, they will not wait for a site to load if it takes too long.

@carolinechen-whatley you asked… I often wonder if the need for a separate mobile site will be needed for much longer.

Mobile sites are needed more than ever, it is a fact that over 50% of all local searches are being performed using a mobile device and if you don’t have a mobile site your site will not show up in the mobile search engine, thus you are missing out on the chance to market to half of your potential clients.

Also there is a difference between a mobile optimized version of your site and a mobile site, never use a mobile optimized version, you are just wasting your money!

My company started offering Mobile Apps to our customers and it has been a big hit, a mobile app is like a super charged mobile website, the possibilities for clients to market with a mobile app is amazing, but we still recommend that our clients also have a mobile website and a main site (at least for now)

@deairby  Thank you for the kind words, Everyday I wait for your comments and suggestions also.

It’s great to see that small businesses are considering the importance of a mobile friendly online presence. It concerns me that so many people are still talking about a separate mobile site from their standard site. When you use a strategy like this, you split your efforts and usually have to maintain two different content management systems which usually leads to a disconnect somewhere a long the way.

Our recommendation is that companies build websites using HTML5 and responsive design. By doing this, you are able to maintain 1 website that looks great across all devices and screen sizes utilizing 1 content management system to prevent disconnects in your strategy. Of course using this strategy means that you have to think about the content users on mobile devices are consuming versus those on desktops or laptops. This allows for clearer strategies that are better thought out.

The other option as mentioned by @rlmosca is to build an app. This can be cost prohibitive for a small business though. Where as a website that is built using responsive design and HTML5 can have an app look and feel without the higher cost.

  @deairby The link that Jakub had to SmashingMagazine is a good, introductory place to start as it does a good job of explaining the concept. Also, A Book Apart has a very good, short book on Responsive design – available in hard copy or various ebook formats. Ethan Marcotte does a good job of bridging the gap between those of us who’ve been “pixel fanatics” for years & even makes the math happen easily.

I’m in the learning process of responsive design myself & have found the best way is to “reverse engineer” a design that is already responsive. If you work with Wordpress, the 2011 theme is responsive – I’ve done several child themes off of that one, learning more each time.

And, pick the brains of those who are doing it I sent a couple questions off to Jakub, @fsdegrees, & he was kind enough to answer. And, while I’m still in the early stages, I’m willing to share what I’ve learned, just PM your questions to me.

@carolinechen-whatley – The include tags & CSS in responsive design is “standard”, but instead of using set “measurements” – pixels, points, etc, your design is based on %’s – a fluid grid, and in the case of text, ems. Your images can be scaled down to fit the smaller view ports, & with using CSS media queries [basically: if the viewport is smaller than "xx", use the following css], you can specify a modified layout for multiple view ports.

You’re absolutely right in the call for separate designs disappearing. In the book I mentioned previously on Responsive Design by A Book Apart, Ethan brings that point out very clearly. Here’s a quote from the book –

But I do think fragmenting our content across different “device-optimized” experiences is a losing proposition, or at least an unsustainable one. As the past few years have shown us, we simply can’t compete with the pace of technology. Are we really going to create a custom experience for every new browser or device that appears?

And if not, what’s the alternative?

His answer – Responsive Design

@designbykiltz @seancookceo-salyrisstudios great information, thanks