Mobile Site - Responsive Versus User Friendly Versus Google Mobile Friendly 
Author: Michael LudwigRecently we have been advised that one of our sites www.domesticcleanersinlondon.com is not mobile friendly, and we are using Wesbite X 11 Pro and have a site written on it.
(I also have a site www.ukhomecleaners.co.uk and www.ukhomecleanrs.co.uk/mobile - but did not realise how to get people to the mobile folder).
"Fix mobile usability issues found on http://www.domesticcleanersinlondon.co.uk/To: webmaster of http://www.domesticcleanersinlondon.co.uk/"
"Google systems have tested 19 pages from your site and found that 100% of them have critical mobile usability errors. The errors on these 19 pages severely affect how mobile users are able to experience your website. These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users".
So to make the site user friendly we then decided that we need a way of getting users to the mobile directory and created a mobile subdirectory, within our domain and then needed a way of getting customers to the mobile directory.
Mobile Site
Essentially as per our discussions there are 2 elements to getting the site mobile ready (which is different to mobile responsive).
Our sites need a mobile template which essentially only have limited information, and are required so people viewing the site ask for more information, therefore only key information needs to be shown such as How to Contact us, Headline Rates, Dates, Late Availability, What you get and things like that.
Some tempting images and CTA’s as opposed to 150 images of this that and the other.
Getting the user to a mobile site
Stage 1 is to ensure that people visiting the website get to a mobile site.
Make a copy of your existing sites folder so for instance copy domesticcleanersinlondon so you have that one and then domesticcleanersinlondon (mobile)
So what you need to do is to create a directory within the Control Panel of your “actual site”. So go to domesticcleanersinlondon.co.uk control panel and create a subfolder mobile or m
Stage 2 is to add some code to the Header of the index, (of the actual site) or simply add a script by adding an HTML placeholder to the CSS template
<script type="text/javascript"> if (screen.width <= 699) { document.location = "mobile-site-url"; } </script>
Ensuring that where bold above you enter the actual site http://mobile.domesticcleanersinlondon.co.uk (or m if that's what you chose)
Stage 3 then is to upload the current and actual site to the normal place
Stage 4 then is to open the mobile site in X5, and select the correct mobile template you wish to use (in the first instance the mobile site will have every page that exists – so the first time you need to check what pages you wish and how they fit and how they work etc etc and then cut down the pages that you want.
Stage 5 upload the mobile site – ensuring that in X5 – where it says where to upload, ensure that you put the mobile folder you created (m or mobile) – depending on the host this may differ, so if unsure do seek advice
Then if you go (on your PC, or laptop) to the URL www.domesticcleanersinlondon.co.uk you will see nothing has changed, look in the source and ensure that your correct information is there like this :
Then on your mobile phone go to the “ordinary URL” it should then take you to
http://mobile.domesticcleanersinlondon.co.uk
Note of course in this example we have not yet amended it to a correct and proper template but just seclected any old template to see if it works – so we do know 100% that we can use the redirect to mobile to work, there is an issue that we are trying to figure how to use it with out the http:// and just as an internal transfer.
Oliver will need to then use his design skills by taking the full site(s) and reducing the content to (it will fit automatically) what I mean is reducing volume of content – so you have the full information as above – Contact, Cost, Benefits, Book etc etc and some images – that way when Martin makes changes, NOT every change needs to be carried across – just the important ones such as dates, and offers and rates.
Once Oliver has done this, using the mobile friendly tool, he will need to check if google then see’s the mobile site correctly – save if it does not, he may need to write the mobile site(s) using wordpress – but the technical redirect aspect still would work.
Author
This is as above the user code we are using.
Do we take the http:// out and just have it directed to our directory in the root?
The problem that we have of course is that we can get the site to look "user friendly" but it is of course not mobile friendly, or at least not according to Google - so this is what it looks to the user.
Thus we have resolved the issue of
(1) Directing the user to the user friendly mobile directory/domain
(2) Having the user "view a user friendly mobile version"
But according to the Google Mobile Friendly Testing tool, the site is still, not "Google Mobile Friendly.
So we ask - how are Incomedia going to resolve these issues:
Issues with future SEO and lack of mobile friendly site.
Issue – The sites are not mobile friendly and as such will/are being penalised in Google search results for mobile/tablet users.
Why is this an issue?
Other than just dropping our ranking on mobile searches this will likely have a multiplier effect as the sites will receive less clicks all round, so even searches on desktops/laptops will be affected in the long term.
So even if we could meet the criteria to make one page mobile friendly, the following pages still would not be. As the home page would be indexed by Google as it currently stands, individuals might not click on it to be redirected anyway as it will be penalised in the rankings as it is still portrayed as not mobile friendly in the eyes of Google.
Example (it seems easier to explain in a real life scenario):
Steve is looking for cleaners; Steve searches Google on his mobile for cleaners and gets a list of results. Although the mobile redirect is mobile friendly, the home page that is associated to it is not meaning that it will still get penalised in Steve’s search results and as such not displayed, meaning he will not end up at the mobile page anyway.
Solutions:
After working through the issues Google has provided us – I can partially solve some of them BUT not all of them and it seems to be a case of all or nothing. Testing a single page with numerous solutions meant that I could eliminate some aspects but due to the limitations with X5 some things are just not possible such as content auto scaling to page width and pixels available. Some of the solutions would also mean completely redesigning every page and using techniques which would not be aesthetically pleasing to desktop/laptop viewing.
Question for X5 Forums (unfinished at time of sending)
It is widely reported that following the release of various mobile development tools by Google and with Google releasing their mobile friendly website check, that websites that are not mobile friendly will be penalised in Google searches performed on mobiles and tablets.
Has anyone figured out how to make a website tick all of their checks or if there is a template available that does so?
Refering to 1 and 2 above we can as i mention create a user friendly version of the site with X5 (ok, we need to tweak it quite a bit) and we can get mobile users to the user friendly site - but the real question is
(3) When is Website X5 going to actually be mobile responsive, and allow standard templates be google mobile friendly so it passes all the SEO and Webmaster Tools standards.
Is this in a Beta Version in the future, and will this be in a future proper release of X5 - if so when.
Or has any user got around this, as from reading posts - specifically the link in the earlier part of this post, i cannot see.
So please if someone can advise how to get the site mobile responsive, it would be appreciated, save me having to move to wordpress where our www.cleanit.co.uk site is mobile responsive without the mobile directory or domain.
m!chael
I just came across the Google mobility issues message last week but there seems little I can do to solve this. Thank you for your clear appraisal of the issues here with X5. Hopefully some of the "power users" of X5 can chime in with some suggestions to help us all?
I STRONGLY agree. I have got about 20 Google messages about my sites NOT being mobile friendly from Google Webmaster tools. Is Incomedia planning to release a RWD software? OR have I to redesign all of my pages with other SW? Hey Incomedia, i spent a lot of money buying your v8, v10 and v11 SW....
INCOMEDIA PLEASE WAKE UP. IT IS 2015 !!!
Author
Touche!!
We are having to put all our sites now to Wordpress - www.mikeysoft.info and www.michaelludwig.co.uk are the first 2 in development (notice in the latter URL the old content is in the just us sections)
m!chael
No Google penalty for duplicated content if make 2 sites, one for desktop and 1 for mobile?
Thanks
I receivedan email fromgoogleyesterday...
"Startingfrom April 21,Google Searchwill considerthe optimizationfor mobile devicesin the indexofyour site's ranking.Checkthatyour sitesare ready forthis changeusingthe tool fortheoptimization testthe mobileon the pagesof your site."
Waiting,thatincomediaurgentlyissue anupdate.
This is bad news for X5 developments. Google is being promoted with this change on national news as we speak, not great :-(
Dear Michael, UNGUREANU and Adrian,
Please visit following post where you will find more informations about it:
https://helpcenter.websitex5.com/post/116552#3
Many thanks!
Has anyone discovered another software that answers the mobile friendly issue? I like Incomedia X5 but if it's developers are too slow or incapable to develop an update what choice is there but to look elsewhere?