More and more people are using mobile devices to access the internet.  With the advent of the Blackberry, iPhone and iPod touch, surfing the web on the go has become better and easier.  As technology improves and prices of these devices become even more affordable, there is no doubt that more people will be search the mobile web for information.  The mobile web is extremely beneficial to search for store hours, price comparisons and other information that is needed when on the go.   

I personally have noticed that when searching from a Blackberry or other phones that are internet ready,  some websites do not even show up.  Searching from an iPhone is a little better, but websites that are flash are still not compatible.  You would make sure that your website can be accessed from any device.

A mobile website does not have to be a complete website with all of your information available.  Create your mobile website to include the most relevant information for the traveling user.  Here are a couple of examples of some mobile sites, giving only the info that someone on the go might need.

Movietickets.com offers information and online ticket sales for the latest movies.  Their mobile site allows users to explore show times, get news and buy tickets.  This is great for someone who is out and about and only needs the basic info.  What time is the movie?  Where is it playing? And, how can I get tickets so that I don’t have to stand in line?  You can get all of that from their mobile website.  Mobile.movietickets.com

Over the past weekend, I had to pick up some friends at one airport and my wife at another.  Unfortunately for me, their plans were landing at the same time.  Like most people, I was checking their flight status from home waiting to see which flight was delayed and who was going to land first.  When the time came that I had to pick them up, I grabbed my iPhone.  Waiting in the cell phone area, I was able to access AirTran’s iPhone ready website.  This version was exactly what I needed.  The options were limited so I didn’t have to do a lot of searching.  They incorporated only the most important features of their website.  It made my mobile searching experience easy.  Below is a side by side comparison of the mobile website compared to their main website.

The important thing to remember when creating your mobile site to is incorporate the information that will benefit your user the most.  For some sites, just having the phone number and an address will be sufficient, while others might need multiple store locations, and increased functionality.

There is no doubt that the number of mobile users is increasing, so you will want to make sure that your website is functional, no matter where they are searching from.

The main benefit of a good site map is that the search engines can traverse a site in a timely and logical manner and so the user can figure out where they are. A sitemap is a page with a list of links to all the most important documents on the site and is linked to from every page. However, it’s always surprising to see how many websites are unable to implement a decent sitemap correctly. How hard can it possibly be?

Generally, a sitemap should have no more than 100 links and contain some really keyword targeted anchor text. You see, any more than about 100 links could serve in decreasing the importance of some of the more important page links on the site. Sitemaps are also effective in aiding in the crawlability of the site for the search engines. Anything a webmaster can do to facilitate the crawling process for a search engine, the better.

So, what else goes into an effective sitemap? Ensure that the general design is consistent with the rest of the site and include a brief description of the page underneath its link for the top level pages. A good sitemap is also beneficial in giving the search engines an extra place to find a text link to an important page if some links on the site are created using un-friendly SEO technology, such as Flash or JavaScript.

There is a lot of work that goes into implementing an effective sitemap. Once you think you have it ready to upload to the site, be sure it makes sense to the user and that, of course, all of the links are functional. It is imperative that if a webmaster wants any chance of a search engine indexing the entire site, a well designed sitemap is a critical first step.

When it comes to a solid design for your website, a grid can come in handy. Just as a house needs a sturdy foundation, a work of art or design requires the same. The website picture plane, or the monitor size and resolution, is your first consideration when building your foundation. Below are some statistics regarding user resolutions according to the W3Schools web statistics and trends from January 2009.

The average user has a resolution of 1024×768 or higher so it is a good idea to base your grid on this information. A good number to start with is 960 wide x 500 high. The reason your size should be slightly smaller than 1024×768 is that you need to take into consideration browser toolbars at the top of the page, the right scrollbar, and the horizontal fold of the page. This width will give you an even number to divide the space into columns of 12 (60px each) or 16 (40px each) with 20 pixel gutters and 10px side margins.

12 Column Grid

16 Column Grid

You can repeat a similar process horizontally if desired. You can now use this grid as a guide when placing objects and text on the page. This solid structure will help ensure a solid design.

For more information on grids visit 960 Grid System.