Mobile Friendly Websites
Once you have decided to develop a mobile friendly website, there are a number of factors you need to consider before getting started.
Channel can guide you through this process, offering advice based on knowledge and experience of developing sites for other clients.
You have two options:
- Build a new website specifically for mobile phones
- Modify your existing website to be compatible across both mobile and computer platforms
There may be valid reasons for choosing either of these options, although modifying your existing website will be the more cost effective choice.
Content managed systems such as Joomla can be used to build a website with a responsive layout that allows the site to respond to the size of the screen on which it is being viewed and re-size itself accordingly.
Building a new website specifically for mobile phones is also best done using a responsive layout as developing sites for iPhone and Android platforms individually is more complicated and therefore more expensive.
Iphones are the most straightforward, as they are a fixed platform with fixed phone sizes. The Android platform, on the other hand, is used on numerous phones, each of which will be a different size and dimension. The solution is to focus on the most widespread phones as this is where most of your visitors will come from. This means iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and HTC.
Things to consider on your mobile optimised website:
Connection speeds – optimise your website to allow for mobile users accessing the internet at a range of speeds
Text – visitors are less inclined to type much when on a mobile, so the fewer forms the better
Phone numbers – use numercial characters and not an image so visitors can click on the number to make a call
Keep navigation simple – make it easy for visitors to move around your site quickly
Link to main website – some users will want to visit your main website. Make it easy for them
Checkout – if you’re website includes online shopping, make it quick and easy to use with minimal clicks and data entry
