Future-proof your mobile presence
We often get asked about the best way of making your website mobile-friendly. With mobile and tablet usage increasing year after year, it’s important to have a website that accommodates these users and provides efficient navigation to quickly find the information they’re looking for. There are three main ways of ensuring your website is mobile-friendly: native apps, mobile websites, and responsive websites. Each option serves it’s own purpose and hopefully this article educates you on how to future-proof your mobile presence.
Native Apps
For starters, a native app should not be confused with a website. A native app is a custom application that is build for a specific device, and the app will only be usable on that platform. For example, if you build a native iPhone app and submit it to Apple’s app store, it will only be accessible to iPhone users. If you wanted your app to be available for Android users, you would have to rebuild the app (using a different programming language) and submit it to Google’s app store. Since apps are more than just websites and need to be created for each device, they tend to cost significantly more than just a mobile website.
The benefits to a native app are that you have access to all the hardware and features available on that device. This could include the camera, GPS, accelerometer, and any other tools that improve the features of your app.
In a nutshell, you should only build a native app if you require a specific function. Let’s say you wanted an app that took photos using the camera on the device, geo-tagged where they were taken, and shared the photos using other apps on the device such as Facebook and Twitter. You would need a native app. But if your main goal is to efficiently provide information to your users (similar to your current website), then all you need is a mobile website or responsive website, so keep reading!
Mobile Websites
A mobile website is no different than a normal website, except it is specially formatted to fit small screens. While a traditional website is typically focused on aesthetics and creating an engaging experience for your users, a mobile website is focused more on the information you provide. On a mobile site, users don’t care about large photos and interactivity. They are only there for the content and have a shorter attention span.
If you have a current website and would like to make a mobile-friendly version, you would essentially create a completely new website that is formatted for mobile. You would then add a piece of code at the top of your current website that detects whether your visitors are using a mobile device, and redirect them to your mobile site. One common mistake most mobile websites make is not providing an option for the user to click back to the main website - so they become stuck on your mobile site, which may not have all the content they’re looking for.
Mobile websites are generally inexpensive to develop because of their simplicity. The downside, however, is that you now have two separate websites to maintain - your main website and your mobile website. For example, if you wanted to update content or add a new page to your site, you would have to do so on both websites. There are ways to manage both your sites from from a single location but it depends on the requirements of your site and whether you’re using a content management system.
Responsive Websites
It is widely regarded in the web community that responsive websites are the holy grail of being mobile-friendly. In a nutshell, a responsive website is one that “adapts” to your users depending on the size of their screen. It means that you have a single website that detects our users screen size, and formats the page to remove any excess elements (like large photos and video) and lays the content out in a single column that’s easy to read on a mobile device.
The greatest benefit to a responsive website is that it can adapt to ANY screen size and not just mobile. With the proliferation of tablet devices such as the iPad, a responsive website provides a better experience for all devices and screen sizes - whereas a mobile website is gearing specifically for small screen and not necessarily mid-size screens like tablets. In a nutshell, a responsive website is the best way to future-proof your online presence. As technology evolves, your customers will access your website from a wider range of devices and screen sizes and a responsive website is the best solution.
The technology behind responsive websites is still very new and most companies are slow to adapt. The reason is that building a responsive website means updating your current website and this can be a tedious process depending on the size and features of your current site. The ideal way to make your website responsive is to rebuild your current website from the ground up. This may seem overkill especially if your current website is serving it’s purpose, but having a responsive website built from the ground up with mobile-users in mind will pay significant dividends in the future.
Hopefully this provides some high-level education on the options that are available, but every’s needs are different. Contact us and we’ll help make the right decision based on your current website and long-term goals.
