Making the Most of Your Mobile Website

In the ever-changing digital world, yesterday's fringe activities have become today's mainstream. More and more people now rely exclusively on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices to browse the web, shop online, and stay in touch - and this opens up a unique marketing opportunity for online businesses. However, a mobile website differs in crucial ways from a standard one. For retailers looking to take the next step in online marketing, bearing a few key points in mind will help your mobile site put its best foot forward.

Automatically detect mobile devices.
Among other things, website design should strive to make things easy for viewers. There is no point to creating a separate mobile site if users must hunt for a link or remember a particular URL in order to see it. Configure your main website to detect visitors on mobile devices, and automatically redirect them to your mobile site. Alternately, make your primary websiteresponsive so that it displays optimally on any kind of device, regardless of screen size. Both approaches lead to the same result: a clearly translated and fully functional mobile site to assure the best experience possible for your mobile clientele.

Five Ways Mobile Web Design Should Differ From 'Traditional' Online Platforms

It's safe to say that the age of mobile web browsing is well and truly upon us. While we may not have chips installed in our heads (yet), modern mobile devices are making the Internet more of an integral part of daily experience for many people - whether checking out train times, reading online news articles or shopping for birthday presents. Then they arrive at your site - it's slow to load, difficult to use and the pictures can't be seen without a magnifying glass. Will they stay and check it out, or will they bounce over to a competitor's site that downloads in half the time and is easy to navigate on their handheld device?

If the answer is the latter, what can you do to enhance your site for use on a mobile device such as a smart phone or iPad and keep your customers on your site? Here are five quick tips to help you help your visitors.

Mobile Enabled Websites - Why Businesses Need Them

Even now there a lot of businesses who do not have a web site to promote their services, products and expertise!

So now with advent of the mobile generation they are even further behind the times.

We see them everywhere; people walking down the street, on the train, on the bus and heaven knows where else.

Yes you've guessed it; they are using their mobile phone or Smartphone.

As soon as the mobile rings or makes a sound to say there is a message, the majority of us open our mobile phone to see who it is or what the message is.

There are more mobile phone users than there are people who use Google and Facebook put together and over 80% of the population in the UK have a mobile or Smartphone; this includes iPhone and iPad.

Over half of Smartphone users search for services in their local area whether it's a restaurant, a takeaway or a service, these searches will in most cases result in a sale of some sort.

Getting Your Web Site Mobile Ready

I am a Judgment Broker that writes a lot. This article is my opinion about how one might be able to save money, checking or changing their web site to make it more friendly to mobile devices.

Like most businesses, our company has a web site, that has been around for many years, long before cell phones and wireless portable computing devices became web-enabled.

Like many businesses, we are always busy and on a budget, so we searched on the web for terms like "how to make your web site mobile friendly".

We read general tips and advice, used web site checkers, and browsed prices for consulting and service companies, that for a hefty fee, promised to make web sites mobile friendly.

One option we read about, was to move our web site to WordPress and use plug-ins, however that seemed to be rather drastic. To me, WordPress seems to work better for a blog, than for a general purpose web site.

We found a lot of generic recommendations; for example, to avoid Flash, simplify, and to use CMS and CSS. However, what do Cascading Style Sheets and Content Management Systems (both having merits) have to do with mobile device readiness?

We found several warnings, that if one did not change their web site, they will lose business. Long term, that is always true. Change always comes, so we should embrace it.

Making software work everywhere depends more on simplicity and standards, than on complexity. Even if mobile devices were not taking off like a sky-rocket, one must occasionally update their site.

After much reading, web "window shopping", and testing, and before spending big money revising our site, we decided to look at our site first with an iPod Touch. We just wanted to see how much work would be required, and we were very surprised.

Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?

The way people use the Internet is changing rapidly. According to an annual report on Internet access conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 45% of UK adults use their mobile phone to access the web, compared to just 31% last year, and 23% in 2009.

The research also revealed that in the 12 month period an estimated six million people had accessed the Internet via their mobile for the first time. This incredibly rapid shift in online behaviour can undoubtedly be traced to access to faster connections and larger, clearer screens, thanks to the widespread availability of smart phones such as iPhones and Blackberries.

But despite these advances in mobile technology, the onus remains on webmasters to ensure that their site is user-friendly when accessed from a mobile phone. With almost half of all consumers going online while out and about, and with that proportion likely to grow each year, can you afford for your page not to display properly on mobiles?

Tailoring your site for mobile phone users

Ideally, you would have two very similar but unique sites on the same domain, and provide web users with the option to use either one that is designed specifically for desktop/ laptop computers, or one which is tailored for the mobile Internet.

Pages for use on modern phones can be coded in much the same way as normal, using XHTML but with a mobile profile. The most important thing is to ensure that your web design team are familiar with the differences in usability and layout between mobile Internet use and 'conventional' use.

In terms of web copy, it may be tempting to simply port across your existing content using cut and paste, but this may be a mistake. Web users have notoriously short attention spans and the smaller the screen, the less time they are likely to want to spend reading through paragraphs and paragraphs of content. Best to keep it simple with an un-crowded page layout, and short snappy content.

Finally, when creating your content for mobile users, remember to make use of features that make mobile phones different from desktop computers. Like what? Well, how about the ability to make a phone call? If someone's trying to find a service quickly while on the move, think how convenient it would be for them to be able to simply click the number on the mobile version of your site to be put through to your customer services department. It's little touches like that which can really make your website mobile-friendly.