Who else is sick of trying to access a website from a Blackberry, Android or iPhone only to be unable to view the site properly, due to the site not being mobile-friendly? Ugh! It is very annoying when that happens and it is happening way too often!  It amazes me how many companies are missing the mark when it comes to mobile. Considering the fact that the number of Smartphone users continues to grow, more and more people will be utilizing their devices to access the internet. Companies ought to create a mobile friendly version of their website in order to serve their customers better. It is beyond frustrating for someone trying to find basic information such as your store hours, phone number, current promotions or directions, to not be able to get this information because you do not have a mobile-friendly version of your website.

A mobile website should be simplistic in nature and certainly does not need to be like your full website. The cost to design a mobile website is also relatively inexpensive.

The mobile website should contain basic information that people want or need to see. As an example, here is our mobile website, compared to our full website.  As you can see, we have skinned the mobile site to have a similar color scheme to our regular site. We have then included just a few pages: Home, About Us, Contact us and Services. In addition, we have made our full website available from the mobile site, as well as included links to our Social Media channels.

There are no excuses. Too many people are forgoing their laptops and PC’s and simply using their Smartphone’s instead. You must have a mobile friendly version of your website immediately if not sooner. Go mobile or go home!

 

You have stepped up to the plate and made the (smart) decision to create a mobile friendly version of your website. That is great news, especially because the number of mobile users continues to rise and you ought to ensure that your website can accommodate this growing market segment. So, now all you have left to do is design the mobile site and you’re done, right? WRONG!  Just when you think you have all of your bases are covered, you don’t. There are a few important factors to consider before building out your mobile site.

For starters, there are many different smartphones available for people to choose from. You might be asking yourself, what exactly is a smartphone? According to Wikipedia, “a smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone. Smartphones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated within a mobile phone.” Examples of the most commonly used smartphones are:  iPhone, Blackberry, Android, etc. Now you might be asking yourself, does it really matter which device a visitor uses to access my website? Won’t having a mobile version make for a positive user experience for every smartphone user? The answer is probably not, reason being, not all smartphones will render the same. This is why it’s hugely important to identify which devices your visitors are using to view your website. Having this knowledge will afford you the ability to tailor to the vast majority of your mobile audience. For example, when creating mobile websites for clients, our Design and Development teams utilize simulator testing, which will actually “simulate” how the site will render on each device. In addition, they will create custom versions to support the most popular devices accessing your site, as well as install JavaScript, which will detect which device is being used, then display the appropriate version.

Now, you might be asking yourself, how do I figure out which devices my visitors are using? This information can be easily found in your analytics program. If you utilize Google Analytics, click on Visitors (on the left navigation) then click on Mobile and finally, Mobile Devices. The results may astound you! Remember: having a mobile site is only half the battle; it should be optimized properly for your mobile audience, whatever that audience might be.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes his company’s plan to release a revamped operating system (OS) for smartphones, Windows Phone 7, will propel them into the race for smartphone OS market share and the advertising treasure the leader will enjoy.  Apple and Google have seen their OS and the devices running on them rapidly erode long time cell phone leader Nokia’s dominate position.  Nokia has finally taken their blinders off and has recently released a new version, Sybian 3, of their OS.  One would have to go all the way back to 2006 to find Nokia’s last smartphone success, the N95, since that time, Apple’s iPhone, released in 2007, has been gaining ground as has Google’s Android released in 2008.

In my previous blog on this topic, Mobile Search and Mobile Advertising, I provided charts outlining the leader board for the smartphone OS and mobile advertising spending with projections.  I noted the absence of Mircrosoft and that they would act quickly to get into the race.  Microsoft has taken a two prong approach to gaining on the leaders. The first is with their innovating new OS, the second is with their legal muscle as exhibited by their patent lawsuit against Motorola.  The stakes are extremely high for all the players in this space, as is the reward.  Will a rash of legal maneuvering and the negative press of a patent lawsuit against an open source backed OS be effective in product promotion for Microsoft?  I’m not sure the legal approach is going to help Microsoft’s image or convince the public to purchase a device, nor is it going to assimilate developers and we all know that the applications which run on top of the OS are the steroid for these entrants in the race.

In the graph below take a quick look at how the OS race has been playing out during the first three quarters of this year; it clearly shows a steady player, one that rewards developers via low cost of entry due to being open source and few restrictions, Android and Google.

I like the fact that “Do no evil” is the corporate motto and have trusted the search engine giant for years.  They continue to innovate and refine their services, an important attribute an application developer considers when picking a development platform, since they rely on a steady stream of income from their applications.  Google’s AdWords is the dominate search engine marketing vehicle, and I believe they will continue to refine it to allow all size businesses equal access to the mobile advertising market.  Keep your eye out for more articles on this dynamic, fast growth industry news. We will.