'What Type of Mobile Website is Best?' - An Insight from the Web Developers

‍Mobile is not a trend, nor is it the future. It is the present and it's here to stay. Who do you know that does not have a smartphone? That should be indication enough that the web has broken out of its computer shaped box.

The bottom line is, to gain significant traffic to your website, you need efficient, searchable, accessible and multi-platform content.

How to "go mobile" though? What is the best strategy for you? There are a few options. You can have:

1. A one size fits all website
2. A separate mobile website
3. A responsive website or adaptive website

The table (adapted from the one shown here) shows how these options rank according to a few characteristics.

The one size fits all approach appears to score the highest but this is actually quite misleading because not all the points are equal. A good user experience is paramount, otherwise, your visitors will get frustrated and leave.

Your website will not convert well on the mobile if it does not have an optimum user experience.

So if you get significant traffic to your website from mobiles, then the one size fits all approach is not recommended, even though it scores high on many of the other criteria.

Besides that, there is no clear winner. What type to go with really needs to be considered on a case by case basis depending on your unique requirements.