How to quit and start living

Back to the future 2

[farmboy]

I’m glad to be back in the world again. It beats waiting for the notification alert telling me that I exist.

The above is the last line from an article I just read. I'm not sure how to give proper credit to the writer without improperly giving credit here. The article is on one of the top 10 websites so I think others have read the same thing.

(Stand by, AdSense is an important part of my post ...)

It's been 2-1/2 years since my almost dead experience and I'm constantly amazed by people at how the world has changed since.

AdSense publishers seem to have embraced this RESPONSIVE movement wholeheartedly and I'm really wondering if the effort has long-term lasting value?

By the way, my websites now pass the Mobile Quality tests with flying colors.

Any thoughts?

FarmBoy

[nomis5]

AdSense publishers seem to have embraced this RESPONSIVE movement wholeheartedly and I'm really wondering if the effort has long-term lasting value?

The answer to that is not simple. A lot depends on how a non-responsive website looks when viewed on a mobile. Some websites look fine, others are totally incomprehensible or require large amounts of scrolling making them a pain in the neck to view.

Another huge variable is the behaviour of your audience. Some will only click on ads / buy from your site if they are on a desktop or tablet. Many people simply don't buy /click from mobiles however well designed they are.

From my perspective, I have responsive sites but they are not to best standard in the world by any means.The conversion was relatively easy once achieved, the addition of more pages just uses the basic responsive template.

So, why not turn the question round and ask, why not make a site responsive?

[farmboy]

So, why not turn the question round and ask, why not make a site responsive?

That would probably be a good question for anyone who wanted to answer/pursue it.


I'm just constantly amazed at how people use their "smartphone" (I call them Rude Boxes instead of Smartphone)

I wonder what would happen if Google, or another company, created an AdSense-type clone that was for non-mobile users and advertisers.


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

Many people simply don't buy /click from mobiles however well designed they are.

I wonder if a real number/value could be put on that "Many people" amount?

Anyone know?


FarmBoy

[EditorialGuy]

So, why not turn the question round and ask, why not make a site responsive?

1) Because it may not be justified by the potential ROI (in the case of, say, an existing site with thousands of static pages).

2) Because having separate optimized pages for large-screen devices and smartphones may provide a better user experience.

In our case, the opportunity cost of replacing all of our 5,000 or so static pages with responsive pages would be prohibitive (we'd have to let more important things slide), and it makes more sense to have our most popular pages (about 20 percent of the total) hand-edited into mobile versions that don't "dumb down" or otherwise compromise the user experience for the majority of our readers.

[farmboy]

I've decided to try an experiment. And it's just that, an experiment.

I've had a good response with a newer site by placing a print ad every week. I'm going to run a statement in my print ad that reads:

123xy7.suffix is best viewed with a non-mobile computer

or

123xy7.suffix not available on your mobile computer

or something similar. But I won't change anything on the site, just the print ad text, to see what, if anything, changes about the response.

What I will change is to advertise a different site, one I know is not mobile-friendly. We'll see what happens.


FarmBoy

[blend27]

123xy7.suffix not available on your mobile computer

Oh Boy, There is an agricultural tool with a long handle for for every... Don't do it.