Preparing for the Mobile Trend

Is Your Website Mobile-Ready?

Did you know that users of mobile devices (smart phones, iPads, iTouchs, Blackberrys, etc.) are quickly becoming the biggest segment of web users? In Japan, the majority of Internet page views are now from mobile devices, and a surprisingly small percentage is from PCs. Here in the US, computer users still dominate, but the mobile web-browsing trend is likely to move across the Pacific soon.

Among my own clients, for example, Rocky Mountain Inventory, is already getting 7% of its visitors from mobile devices—and that company serves a b-to-b market. I have a realtor client in a relatively small Texas city that is getting 18% of her visitors from mobile devices. Two other client companies that serve primarily consumers, one in Texas and one in Colorado, are getting more than 10% of their visitors from mobile devices.

You might be surprised at how many of your website’s visitors view your site on a small mobile screen.

So, is it important to have a website optimized for mobile devices? And, if so, how do you create a mobile-friendly site?

Not every business needs a site optimized for mobile devices. At least not now. Many businesses that operate solely within a local marketplace do, however. That is partly because of the way that people use these devices.

The most popular way to search on a smart phone is to click on the Maps feature and search on the basis of location. People less frequently use the web browser. It’s just easier to use Google’s Maps when you are looking for a business that is nearby.

Because websites load slowly on mobile devices, many Maps users will not click through to a website. So, it is important to have a complete Google Places listing, which links to your “pushpin” on the map. That way, all of the most important information can be seen without linking to your site. You can even have a “click to call” feature on your listing, to make contacting you easy and convenient.

But if you can imagine someone standing on a street corner or sitting in a café and wondering, “Where can I find [insert your product or service]?”, then a website optimized for mobile browsing could be valuable to your business. Restaurants, retailers, personal and professional services are at the top of the most popular mobile searches. But, in time, I expect that even b-to-b companies will get a significant amount of their web traffic from searches on mobile devices. Mobile devices are here to stay!

A relatively new technology that allows your site’s servers to automatically detect a visit from a mobile device has made mobile-friendly versions of websites especially viable and valuable.

How do you create a website optimized for mobile searches?

There are two characteristics of mobile devices that must be accommodated in a mobile-friendly website:

1. The screens are small—often tiny.

2. Websites load slowly—especially in comparison to today’s high-speed Internet connections.

To accommodate the small screens, images should be reduced in size. No one wants to have to scroll to find text on a website because an image fills the screen. Reducing the size of images also helps the website load more quickly, of course.

Navigation should also be simplified. Mobile device users are especially prone to visit only one web page of a site. So, with an attention span that short, you need to make sure that they can easily find the information they are looking for.

You may find that some pages of your site are simply not important to mobile users, and they can be eliminated. For example, visitors using mobile devices may have no interest in company history, staff profiles, etc. On the other hand, it is important to make sure that a “contact us” link is prominently displayed on the mobile home page.

Some businesses have created simplified websites with a home page made up almost exclusively of links to interior pages that are text-only. Most experts suggest, however, that the mobile version include a link to the full version, so that visitors have the option to see the more visually-appealing site instead.

It is possible, however, to create a visually-appealing site that is also mobile-friendly. To do that, it is helpful to understand the kinds of devices that your visitors use, what the typical screen size is, and the capabilities of their browser for displaying different kinds of website formatting. If you are interested in creating a mobile version of your website, give me a call at 720-341-6336 or 210-392-5649 (in San Antonio).