I haven't seen anything on how people are handling the mobile versions of their websites? (Maybe I missed something in the SEO discussions though.) Are you using a service (which one?)? Do you handle it in house with you/your web designer? Who's doing what for the mobile presentation of their site?
Mobile version of your website?
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DataMedics
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I use a paid Wordpress theme from Elegant Themes, along with their Divi builder plugin, that automatically creates a mobile version of each page dynamically. And with each item that I add I can select whether or not I want it to appear for mobile users. Basically, it's right in the theme's code to serve up a different way to mobile users and even based on screen resolution.
I did read something recently posted by google regarding their preference that you actually host a separate mobile site at m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile/ or domain.com/m/ but I can't really see the purpose of needing to go through all the work of creating a totally separate site for mobile users when you site can already serve up a mobile-friendly version at the same URL.
I did read something recently posted by google regarding their preference that you actually host a separate mobile site at m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile/ or domain.com/m/ but I can't really see the purpose of needing to go through all the work of creating a totally separate site for mobile users when you site can already serve up a mobile-friendly version at the same URL.
goldmercury
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+1 for paid wordpress theme - I use them forest premium themes. Look for ones that are responsive.
Since my site is hand whittled HTML I've worked with a few services like Mobilifyit (much to be desired) and goMobi (much better but haven't spent enough time there yet) to review their mobile versions. I was a bit curious what others are using?
Slaters Kustum Machines
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As the others, we're using a responsive WordPress theme.
Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe
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I hand-coded my website for laptop/desktop, and I have a friend who is freaky good with handcoding websites. I sent him over my folder and a few MSPaint images of how I want it to format for mobile... and he put in some neat-o code (or magic) to do that....
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Most Wordpress themes are responsive now and will adjust to the size of the screen.
In fact, its encouraged to design for mobile FIRST and desktop second since more people are using their phones to look things up these days.
If someone is searching for your keyword and they are on mobile, you'll be ranked below mobile optimized sites too.
In fact, its encouraged to design for mobile FIRST and desktop second since more people are using their phones to look things up these days.
If someone is searching for your keyword and they are on mobile, you'll be ranked below mobile optimized sites too.
fencepost
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"Progressive enhancement" - design for what you want it to look like on mobile, then address how it should look as the available real estate increases (mostly horizontally). You can actually see it on a lot of websites just by dragging your browser window narrow.
JustinNickerson
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As the others, we're using a responsive WordPress theme.
Your PCMD
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+1 for self coding websites. -1 for WP, or as I like to call, the lazy mans website. No offense to anyone here. Many should know how I feel about WP and the like. I just prefer to code my own site/s. As far as for mobile, my site uses bootstrap and was designed specifically for mobile first, then computers second.
fencepost
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For a site that's going to be actively updated and maintained (and have someone supporting it and doing upgrades) WordPress makes sense. I would never want to do a WP site that didn't also have an associated agreement to do hosting and updates because that's just begging for the site to be hacked.
As I have gotten older and more paranoid I'm more inclined to static or generator-based sites.
As I have gotten older and more paranoid I'm more inclined to static or generator-based sites.
sapphirescales
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That is, unless the website needs frequent updating. There reaches a point where even the best web designer can't edit pages as quickly manually as they can with a CMS like Wordpress. My website has thousands of products on it. Thinking of editing all the links and everything manually when I want to add/remove a product sends shivers down my spine. It would be a full time job just maintaining the website.
For client websites, Wordpress is to my go-to CMS if they want an online store or the ability to frequently do updates to the site. If it's minor updates (such as changing the weekly special on the homepage for example) then I might choose to manually code it. I usually recommend manually coding websites if they are static in nature with less than 10 pages.
For example, I just did a website for a small tea shop in town. The site was very basic with a total of 8 pages and will only be updated when they add or remove a product from their menu (which only happens once a year or so). Their previous web designer had a complicated Wordpress website that was constantly having problems. They brought me in to "clean it up." It was a lost cause. I convinced them to have me manually code a new website that looked identical. They protested, saying that they needed a contact form. I asked them how many people had filled out the contact form the last year? 0...that's right - ZERO. The #1 page visitors visited was the menu page, followed closely by the location & hours page. Their website was basically just a business card. No need to over-complicate it. Their site now loads in less than 1.5 seconds vs. 10+ seconds before and they're very happy.
DataMedics
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That's fine if you're building a really small site with only a few pages. Your site (http://yourpcmd.net), for example, has 20 pages indexed in google. Easy enough to accomplish in straight HTML with no need for a CMS like Wordpress.
My site(https://www.data-medics.com), on the other hand, has 3,350 pages indexed in Google currently with more being added almost every day. It includes a store, a blog, static pages, a forum, software affiliate download pages, search features, contact forms, pricing calculating tools, etc. etc. etc. And all of the content (aside from forum posts) was generated by just two of us.
Good luck building something like that manually in HTML. It's certainly possible but would take an ungodly amount of time I don't have to waste on it. Not when I can drop $40 on a Wordpress plugin to almost instantly add a feature I want to add with no coding required.
Call me a "lazy man" all you'd like, but it'd take a whole team of developers to manually accomplish what we've done with just two people thanks to WordPress and phpBB.
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Your PCMD
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@sapphirescales & @DataMedics I said no offense 
The reason why I enjoy coding sites is the satisfaction of knowing that this line of code, be it php, html or SQL can completely change the out come of the design. I am in control one pixel at a time. I don't know, I just enjoy it so much. Granted, it can get tedious at times, but its fantastic to know that what I see in my head I can create with code. The biggest site I did was about 800 pages. I once coded my own forum and even released it - MyForum. But that was years ago. And currently, I am coding a ticketing system in php and SQL.
I know I call WP the lazy mans site. But I do use it on occasions for clients for eCommerce. For clients that want a design but with limited editing, I use Couch CMS. It lets me create the design easier than WP. I've tried coding a theme for WP but there's just too many modules you have to code for whereas Couch requires a couple lines of code in an off the shelf template or hand coded.
My favorite WP theme is Avada. My favorite Bootstrap theme is the plain ones from Start Bootstrap. I would never build (hand code) a site for a client for any site over 50 pages so that's why I do use WP sometimes but mostly Couch. It's not that I couldn't build a huge site without either of those, it's the time involved and can you imagine the cost to a client?
The reason why I enjoy coding sites is the satisfaction of knowing that this line of code, be it php, html or SQL can completely change the out come of the design. I am in control one pixel at a time. I don't know, I just enjoy it so much. Granted, it can get tedious at times, but its fantastic to know that what I see in my head I can create with code. The biggest site I did was about 800 pages. I once coded my own forum and even released it - MyForum. But that was years ago. And currently, I am coding a ticketing system in php and SQL.
I know I call WP the lazy mans site. But I do use it on occasions for clients for eCommerce. For clients that want a design but with limited editing, I use Couch CMS. It lets me create the design easier than WP. I've tried coding a theme for WP but there's just too many modules you have to code for whereas Couch requires a couple lines of code in an off the shelf template or hand coded.
My favorite WP theme is Avada. My favorite Bootstrap theme is the plain ones from Start Bootstrap. I would never build (hand code) a site for a client for any site over 50 pages so that's why I do use WP sometimes but mostly Couch. It's not that I couldn't build a huge site without either of those, it's the time involved and can you imagine the cost to a client?
Me too! I've been a bit lazy lately however. I'm still working on my "version 2" which is basically a new theme but I am adding improvements into it. My current version is just getting bug fixes. Main thing in the new version is a new item tracking system. Basically a master item like a specific product (ie: Samsung 870 Evo 250GB NVME) and tagging with category, brand, model number, etc. Then each quote or order will have their own version with description "Samsung 250GB NVMe SSD" and cost/price. Also added two factor authentication. I need to quit being lazy and wrap up the major stuff so I can move my current data into it and switch over.
ComputerRepairTech
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Edit: in response to the subject about editing multiple files by choosing to do things without a content management script.
I don't use content management scripts for most of my sites aside from blogs. There are 2 primary ways I do this.
1. Php includes so that lets say I have a section of ads I just do a php include of a file with the code for the ads there and then I can modify all the pages ads in a section by modifying that one included file.
2. This: http://www.abacre.com/afr/ I do not know if there is a good alternative to this but advance find and replace software can be a serious time saver.
I don't use content management scripts for most of my sites aside from blogs. There are 2 primary ways I do this.
1. Php includes so that lets say I have a section of ads I just do a php include of a file with the code for the ads there and then I can modify all the pages ads in a section by modifying that one included file.
2. This: http://www.abacre.com/afr/ I do not know if there is a good alternative to this but advance find and replace software can be a serious time saver.
OK guys..... The topic is the mobile version of your site. How are you handling that? Hand coding? Using a service or plug-in? What? I've moved my site into WP and it handles the mobile details. I used goMobi in the past on my hand whittled HTML site and it did very well.
All my sites HTML/CSS are built on Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a front end framework. Their main goal is mobile first. Mobile first means it's designed for mobile devices (which are more restrictive) then expanded on for larger devices.
I mainly use paid Bootstrap based templates. Bootstrap is responsive.
So using Bootstrap in most cases there is no additional work needed. Everything will scale down to the window size.
I would wager that many Wordpress themes are based on Bootstrap or another responsive framework to scale to mobile.
Thus for me I don't have to do anything to provide a mobile version of my sites since Bootstrap takes care of that.
I've been to sites that have distinct separate mobile theme or site. Some of those have some really crappy mobile versions. I usually end up viewing the desktop version on my phone.
I mainly use paid Bootstrap based templates. Bootstrap is responsive.
So using Bootstrap in most cases there is no additional work needed. Everything will scale down to the window size.
I would wager that many Wordpress themes are based on Bootstrap or another responsive framework to scale to mobile.
Thus for me I don't have to do anything to provide a mobile version of my sites since Bootstrap takes care of that.
I've been to sites that have distinct separate mobile theme or site. Some of those have some really crappy mobile versions. I usually end up viewing the desktop version on my phone.
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