Better for mobile SEO: Responsive Design or a mobile-specific site?

SEO strategists are often concerned about the impact of a mobile-specific site on a company’s search results. Google tells us that the best SEO strategy is to create good content and to deliver it in the way that is most user friendly.

For existing sites, it’s much easier to develop a mobile version of the site for handheld devices. It’s also easier to present the site optimized for those users. You want to try to host it on the same domain (www) whenever possible.

For new sites it’s best to develop them as responsive. You should still try to optimize the content for mobile users, and it’s also important to ensure you are not serving large (desktop) images over 3G, for instance, as that will harm your SEO for sure.

In short, an optimized user experience is more important than the technology used to present that experience. The best mobile solution is the one that helps you achieve your business objectives.