Mobile Friendly Versus Responsive Website Design

Make sure you fully evaluate your options before buying a new website.
Make sure you fully evaluate your options before buying a new website.

As more and more clients try to understand what it takes to please Google and smartphone users there are some items that should be carefully reviewed by all website owners before they put down a deposit on a new website.

First, there is a difference between a mobile-friendly website and a responsive website.

Second, my personal preference is a responsive website.

The difference is…

Mobile friendly – typically means that the site content is being rendered for a smartphone. DudaMobile sites are a good example of this as as Wix websites. A separate website is created for the mobile audience. What is problematic is that if your webmaster does not add content updates to your mobile site or forgets to click refresh the site at DudaMobile, your mobile content may not reflect the changes to your regular website.

Responsive website – this is the preferential way to build your new website. Here a stylesheet takes one set of content and renders that same content in different ways for the device’s screen width. The only potential issue for using this approach is that you do not have content control for mobile only as you do with a mobile friendly site. That being said, more often than not, readers do want to see your full content not a stripped down mobile version that may lack the depth of content and information that your desktop site contains.