Since internet access on mobile devices will outnumber internet access on desktop computers by mid 2013, it is a no-brainer that your small business should have a mobile website. But how does that happen?
While there are many websites out there trying to sell you easy options for building your own mobile website, it still takes a bit of skill with coding to make it work for you. Oh, it might show up on your mobile phone, but is it really working for your in terms of marketing?
It is best to learn a bit more about how a website becomes mobile friendly and how it is optimized to be found when people are searching for your type of service or product.
What I am trying to discuss here is not the proper content to put on a mobile website, that is another article. The point here is that you can optimize your current website in at least these three ways to make sure it even shows up on mobile devices.
1. Make sure your site is functional on a mobile device
Right now you can probably pull up your website on your mobile phone by typing in the URL. But isn’t it tiny? And don’t you despise having to scroll right to left, and making each little section larger so you can read it? You are not the only one. And if your competitor has a mobile website designed for mobile devises, then you may loose.
However, there are some things your webmaster can do to make more of your content visible. We all know by now that Flash is not visible on iPhones. If you have Flash content on your website, your programmer can make sure a static image shows up in those instances.
2. Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to let the web browser know to show differently on a mobile device.
Your webmaster/programmer can create style sheets that will allow your website to be seen more easily on mobile devices. And an added benefit is that your mobile site will rank better. Search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) are in the business to give users the best experience, which means the best search results. Again, if you don’t have a mobile optimized site and your competitor does, then you will not rank as high on those search engines.
3. Build a mobile website
Give your customers the best experience they can have by offering a mobile website. This is a condensed version of your larger website designed specifically for mobile. It contains all your most important information that users might be searching for from their phones. Things like location, phone number, menus, specials, etc. It is usually housed on its own sub domain, which with some special code on your website, will show when found on a mobile device.
Take a look at how your website views on your mobile phone. Do you have to scroll to see content? Do you have Flash navigation which makes your site unusable on iPhones? It might be time to talk to a mobile website developer. If your webmaster does not have this experience, find someone who does.
Please share this article with your business friends so that you can all have a great year!