For all those who have a connection to websites-designers, developers, owners and marketers, it has become crucial to optimize their websites for mobile users. This is because of the amount of users that access websites through mobile devices.
There are two ways to optimize your websites for mobile devices
1. Implement Responsive Design
2. Create a mobile version of your site
In the posts below, we’ll treat some pros and cons of each option and give examples in which each option will be suitable. The terms used here are not technical, everyone can understand.

[size=14pt]Responsive Design[/size]
This is the designing of a web page to change in width in response to a change in screen size with all the contents remaining the same. For example a page that fills up a 980 pixel desktop screen will automatically fill a smart phone 480 pixel wide with all the contents kept intact.

Pros of Responsive Design
One Site Only: The major advantage of responsive websites is that you get to create one site only. Since the pages on the site will automatically ‘adjust’ to every screen size, there is no need for a mobile version of the site. In the long run, maintenance costs and hosting fees are reduced leading to a higher ROI
Rich Content for Mobile Users: The same content that is offered to desktop use4rs is the same that mobile users get. Hence, the mobile users get to enjoy all the text, colors, images and graphic on the page.

Cons of Responsive Design
Slow load time: Responsive pages contain many CSS rules which will increase the page size. In addition, all the images, text and JavaScript codes intended for desktop users, will also be delivered to mobile users. All these will make the page load slowly.
High Capital: Web designers and developers can attest to the fact that it takes time to design the layout of responsive pages and more time to implement its codes. All these call for math skills, creativity, lots of patience and an increase in the price tag.

Conclusion on Responsive Design
Responsive design should be implemented on websites with little images. Features such as drop-down menus, rollovers, e.t.c should be avoided as they are not used by mobile users and will only slow the page loading.

Responsive design is
GOOD FOR: Simple websites that do not require interaction
Landing pages and about pages for organizations
BAD FOR: Image based sites e.g. online galleries
Interactive sites e.g. E-commerce sites

[size=14pt]Mobile Sites[/size]
A mobile site is another version of an existing website that is designed for mobile phones only. A mobile site usually has fewer features than a full site and has a “m.” or “mobile.” prefix. Good examples include Facebook(m.facebook.com) and Twitter (mobile.twitter.com).

Pros of Mobile Sites
Easy to Navigate: Because they are intended for mobile devices, the pages are the exact width of devices. This rules out horizontal scrolling. Main navigation bars are also placed vertically.
Quick Loading: pages on mobile sites contain less text, images and codes which make them load quickly. This is vital considering the slow speed of mobile devices.

Cons of Mobile Sites
Less Content, Less Appealing: Mobile pages contain less text and images than the desktop version. To achieve fast loading, the beauty of a page has to be sacrificed.
The Issue of Double Content: If a mobile site is not created properly, the links may not be equalized. This may lead to double content- a case where search engines do not recognize the mobile site has a mobile version of its desktop counterpart and think the mobile site is a spam site. The penalty is that the site will be deleted from search results. Bad Market!

Conclusion on Mobile Sites
Create a mobile version of your site if you cannot afford to sacrifice load time. Use it if your original site contains much interactive features.

Mobile sites are
GOOD FOR: Interactive site like e-commerce sites or social networks
BAD FOR: You if you’re avoiding maintenance costs

Nice write up

Khaynet:
Nice write up

Thank you! Glad that you appreciate it.

very insightful post. you sound very experienced. currently working on a site with lots of images, animations and drop down menu, and i am thinking of using responsive layout to cater for differences in screen size of desktops only (between 650px and 1200px). hoping to create a mobile version later (i.e if client request for it). what do you think?

romme2u:
very insightful post. you sound very experienced. currently working on a site with lots of images, animations and drop down menu, and i am thinking of using responsive layout to cater for differences in screen size of desktops only (between 650px and 1200px). hoping to create a mobile version later (i.e if client request for it). what do you think?

Okay... Since you're designing for desktop screens only, and want the site to respond just to desktop differences, you could go responsive.
However, are you sure that the amount of mobile users are negligible? Even if you'll create a mobile version later, those that visit the site now will be served terribly.
So it all depends on the your target audience and the predominant computing device.
If 90% visit the site with a desktop (on a fast internet connection), you have no problem.
If not, just try to create a mobile version simultaneously as UX is very important.
My two cents...

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