What do you suggest to build Mobile Sites? (18)
Hi,
I'm (newbie) interested by Mobile Advertising and I did some research to learn how to build Ads, Landing Pages and Sites for mobiles and tablets. All I found looks complicated or outdated or it comes with monthly plan. I'm not interested by sites that offer templates and monthly plan as I prefer to have my stuff hosted on my VPS and we never know when these sites will closed and I don't want to lost my work.
So, what would you suggest? I know Photoshop very well (I'm a graphic designer) and I have basic knowledge of Dreamweaver but I don't do coding.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
I suggest this:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...Actually-Works
Thanks w3061 but I have seen this post. I did some research before I asked for suggestions. 
I'm looking for an easier solution, something that works like Dreamweaver. There are many on the web like DudaMobile, GoMobi etc. but they all come with a monthly plan and hosting.
I have seen other solution on the WarriorForum if it as as good as what I bought in the past on this forum... that will be just crap!
So, if someone else has other suggestions, it will be welcomed!
You're probably going to want to either a) learn how to code and then use dreamweaver or b) hire a developer
Have you looked at Adobe Muse? I've found it very simple to use without having to code, and it has presets for mobile pages.
@digilypse: I will check Adobe Muse. I don't thought to this even if I'm a graphic designer. I work with their suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop...) but I stopped to check their new software, it is as if they released a new one every 3 months!
My only concern with these softwares is that I wonder if the files are not too heavy and if they will show quickly?
Muse's mobile files aren't dreadful size-wise (I just generated a mobile site quickly to check) although I'm afraid the best option is still (IMO) either hand-coding or hiring someone to hand-code.
However, to get started on testing, Muse is probably OK, and it's certainly the best non-coding option I'm aware of.
If you want to optimise a bit from there, I'd start by making the CSS you need inline and ditching the rest, and for goodness sake, get rid of all the Javascript that Muse tries to load in the footer.
One thing to watch with Muse, however, is the file size of images. Check every image it outputs, and optimise file sizes in Photoshop before uploading. Muse LOVES its 200kb PNGs, and those will kill your mobile landing times stone dead.
Yep and Muse for some odd reason wants to make shapes/divs with shadows, sometimes just ones with rounded edges and borders, into PNG images. But you can achieve it all with CSS... so watch for it doing such things. Sometimes its better to make a square edged shape and then tweak the CSS manually afterward.
Also, I noticed Muse tended to get mobile pages centering using Javascript rather than responsive design CSS, so pulling all the javascript broke the lander. All tends toward hand coding for perfection unfortunately.
Check out froont.com for responsive stuff via drag and drop!
@nusolutionz - Right, will check that out ASAP. Thanks for the tip! How's the code it produces?
@caurmen
Finally, I did as w3061 suggested (http://stmforum.com/forum/showth...Actually-Works) and it was easier than I thought. Very well explained.
That is fine for Landing Page but I'm still looking for a solution to do mobile websites. When you will have time, let us know what you think of froont.com suggested by nusolutionz.
Cool, I'm glad it worked out for you!
What additional info would you need for a website as opposed to a landing page? I can put it on the to-do list for a more advanced tutorial...
(Also, if you're doing something that's less loading-time-critical like a full site as opposed to an LP, something like Muse becomes a more viable option again.)
Hi caurmen,
I'm looking for a mobile site builder to do websites quickly. I want to approach business and offer them to adapt their website to mobile or build a new one. I see a lot like: gomobi.info, mobdis.com, mofuse.com etc. but all of these come with a monthly plan and hosting and I don't need hosting and I don't want to pay monthly for each website.
However, I like the features like "Find Us" (with Google Maps), shopping cart, image gallery, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter buttons etc. and all are drag & drop options so you can build a site very quickly.
As I learned how to do Landing Pages this last weekend, I didn't have time to check Muse but maybe it is the best solution?.. I will have a look this week but, now that you know what I want to do, let me know if you have a better solution.
Thanks!
Ah, right - sounds like a good plan!
I don't know of any good off-the-shelf options to do that, but it sounds like a workflow you could put together pretty quickly with an outsourcer. What I'd probably do in your situation is have an outsourcer develop a few templates, then drop in code on a per-site basis.
This also sounds like a perfect opportunity to use Wordpress - you could use Wordpress plugins for a lot of the heavy lifting, and if you use a managed Wordpress host all your backend's taken care of.
@prospect
I used to work with offline clients and have been through many of the mobile options. I had the same issue with not wanting to pay a monthly fee for a mobile site. That idea made it really hard to sell them, and beat up the margins. I ran a decent number of sites on brick&mobile for awhile but it was monthly so I ditched it.
I ended up doing what caurmen suggested, using wordpress. I would create a m. subdomain for their mobile site and install a redirect script on their main site pointing to the m. site. I had a pretty decent goto theme that worked good for most clients, here. This theme had most everything that a mobile site would need (including google maps) and I could get a new one up in under an hour typically.
Hope this helps you some.
@tmcalvin
Your suggestion looks to be very close to what I'm looking for, I will examine it closely. Do I have to buy a regular license ($30) or the extended license ($1500)?
I thought about using WordPress templates but I read somewhere that the sites were long to load. Have you had this problem?
Thanks a lot.
prospect, glad I could help. I would get the extended license if you plan on using this for multiple clients. If you think about how much time you'd save by having something ready to go vs searching for a custom solution and learning how to make each one work then you could make the money back pretty quickly. I don't know what you're charging for something like that. I was doing something in the $500 range or as value added for larger packages. It made sense to give it as a bonus since there's so little setup required.
As far as the wordpress speed concerns, I wouldn't worry about it with something like that. You're going to be looking at a little longer load times (negligible when dealing with client sites) vs static sites but you would with most any database driven CMS. I think the speed issues stressed around here are more for getting landers etc to load before visitors close them and waste a click. You'll still want to make sure to take measures to speed up your wordpress though, compressing images, minify/caching plugins etc. My stuff loaded up acceptably fast for client sites. You can apply much of the advice for mobile sites around the forums. There is typically a plugin that handles most any function, be selective though, you still want to have minimum plugins.
You DEFINITELY want to be using a caching plugin for Wordpress. Personally I like Hypercache - it's simple and fast. Most people recommend W3 Total Cache, but it's a lot more complex to implement.
As tmcalvin says, though - do that and it won't really be an issue. Wordpress speed might be a problem if you were doing PPV direct to it or something, but for regular Web usage it's fine.
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