Responsive or Mobile site

[stressconsul 10]

Do other business owners know of any quick fixes to convert a website to a responsive website or a mobile website without having to re-create the whole site or change webhoster. I have had my site with the same webhoster for going on twenty years and am so used to maintaining it myself - I am reluctant to change and I have not liked the look of the sites that professional web designers have suggested.

[steveroberts 10]

What do you mean by 'responsive'? My gut instinct is you will have to start from scratch.

 

If SEO is important to you, it may well be worth the investment as Google is now ranking mobile compatible sites above those that are not mobile friendly.

[Love2print 10]

I take it this is your website? http://www.stressmanagementtrainingbiz.com/RMaggieMcCarthy.html

 

If so my suggestion us to get a new site designed it looks very dated to start with. Also lots of text and not enough images. Not sure by what you mean by more responsive?

[stressconsul 10]

As I understand it in responsive design, the device does the work and automatically adjusts according to a device’s screen size and orientation, whereas a mobile site is a copy of your website where the server does the work of delivering an optimized page that’s easier to navigate on smaller devices. However, I am far from expert - hence posting a question here. It is clear that in the longer term sites that are not responsive are going to lose their rankings in Google. I am just speculating that there must be millions of business whose sites need an upgrade of this kind and yet there is no obvious place to go - except a new site from scratch. Even my webhoster, Yahoo, hardly a small operator, has no useful suggestions. To be clear I am just asking about this specific feature, not for advice about my website, which serves me very well.

[Nickscape 10]

Responsive seems to be the route people are now taking rather than having separate sites. It's also easier to manage as it's basically one site which adjusts itself to fit the screen on whatever device it is being viewed on. You can also do things like change the menu & hide certain sections if loading on a mobile so it doesn't get too cluttered. Somebody should be able to build you a more modern optimised site to replace your current site for not too much.

 

People seem to be reporting around a 10% drop in mobile traffic since the change, I'd check your analytics to see what % of people are viewing from phones, if this % is low then this isn't such as issue.

[vaughanb 10]

I went for a second simplified site rather than a responsive one. I found it much easier to handle but it does mean any amends have to be done twice. I do however use Adobe Muse which can handle three sites (desktop, tablet and phone) all in one which makes it far easier than using something like Dreamweaver or Wordpress where you would have to handle each site type individually.

 

Try asking in the tech part of the forum. There will be people on here with far more knowledge than me (which doesn't take much!). I know there are a few web people on here.

[stressconsul 10]

I take it this is your website? [u

If so my suggestion us to get a new site designed it looks very dated to start with. Also lots of text and not enough images. Not sure by what you mean by more responsive?

 

Thank you for your input. However I am not asking for advice about my website so I would be grateful if you would delete the link.

 

---------- Post added 07-08-2015 at 15:16 ----------

 

Responsive seems to be the route people are now taking rather than having separate sites. It's also easier to manage as it's basically one site which adjusts itself to fit the screen on whatever device it is being viewed on. You can also do things like change the menu & hide certain sections if loading on a mobile so it doesn't get too cluttered. Somebody should be able to build you a more modern optimised site to replace your current site for not too much.

 

People seem to be reporting around a 10% drop in mobile traffic since the change, I'd check your analytics to see what % of people are viewing from phones, if this % is low then this isn't such as issue.

 

Thanks for the information. I have definitely lost some business since the change - most people are viewing from mobile devices now - even oldies like me. I wonder if it is possible to build your own responsive site - its not that I mind paying a web designer - its just that they seem not able to understand my target market which does not like too many bells and whistles.

Edited August 7, 2015 by stressconsul
link irrelevant

[Love2print 10]

Yes you could build your own from scratch if you want to learn how to code. However I suggest WordPress. You might as well start from scratch because the amount of code that would need changing is going to be extensive, much easier to start again. WordPress has many plugins and themes too so a good choice if you want to build and maintain a site yourself.

[stressconsul 10]

Thanks for all your help people - I will be following up some suggestions.

[TJC1 10]

Do other business owners know of any quick fixes to convert a website to a responsive website or a mobile website without having to re-create the whole site or change webhoster. I have had my site with the same webhoster for going on twenty years and am so used to maintaining it myself - I am reluctant to change and I have not liked the look of the sites that professional web designers have suggested.

 

Use a mobile responsive template. Copy and paste text. You wont have to change hosting. A little bit of development is needed for functionality.

 

If you like html there are plenty about. Or wordpress is good. Would you like to see?

Edited August 9, 2015 by TJC1
.....

[John 11]

However I am not asking for advice about my website.

 

I personally think it is very important that you get a code overview of the current site because the way it is put together is very, very bad but to you it may look perfectly normal. There is a risk that you continue to make this mistake if you do not know what is wrong beyond that it is currently not responsive.

 

Sure customers* doesn't care whats under the bonnet but one thing certain the current site is an unmanageable mess.

 

* with the exception of blind people because the site layout is in random order thanks to position:absolute everywhere.

 

It should not take someone who is experienced more than a day to put this together looking exactly how it is currently. Only done properly and responsive using Wordpress. You can keep the same hosting as long as they provide database access such as MySQL and PHP.

 

If you want to save cost then go here: https://wordpress.com/ Click create website. Give a URL like stress-management-evaulation.wordpress.com and have a play at building the site. Pages + Menus are what you are after. Make a decision on whether this is the way forward or not.

 

If you like what you can do with Wordpress then hire someone to install word press on your current domain. It can take anywhere between 5 minutes and a couple of hours depending on what is already installed / setup on your hosting / web server.

 

REMEMBER to delete the content of whatever you created in the evaluation and never publish the evaluation version to search engines. Best still, try and not use the original site contents in the evaluation.