Invest in a Mobile Website? by Michael Pryor

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Mobile devices present an exciting yet challenging opportunity to the internet marketer. Over the last 2 years, mobile devices have outpaced just about every other electronic gadget on the market. Currently, over 84% of US adults have mobile phones, and the smart phone segment of this market is experiencing double-digit growth. The shipments of smart phones are expected to exceed those of PCs in 2012. According to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, over 1 billion dollars in amazon.com revenue was spent on smart phones over the last 12 months. It is obvious that restaurants, stores, coffee shops, movie theaters, and banks are greatly impacted by how they address the mobile website markets. However, many business-to-business companies may not believe that creating a mobile-friendly website should be a priority. Should a business-to-business company invest in a mobile website? First question: can mobile devices view your existing website? Most mobile devices are able to view at least part of your website, and perhaps with some difficulty, the entire site. Flash, JavaScript, and CSS can cause many mobile-user problems. Some websites require endless scrolling sideways and up and down for the user to find even basic information on the page. A highly-skilled user may be able to overcome all these obstacles, but a mobile device still has a small screen, may run slower, and has a keypad that is not averagesized-thumbs-friendly. A mobile website makes all of your content easy to read and navigate for all users, not just the smart phone geeks whose very lives depend on their data plan. Second question: how many visitors are coming to your site now via a mobile device and what are they doing when they get there? Google analytics tracks such events. My client base is almost 100% business-to-business, and many in manufacturing, yet there are some consistent trends emerging. Presently, about 1.5 to 2.5% of all traffic coming to these websites is from mobile devices. This is not a significant percentage, but this rate of growth is significant. In most cases, the percent of mobile traffic has tripled over the last year. In terms of engagement, the mobile user neither views as many pages nor stays as long as the average viewer, but in nearly every one of my client's cases, I see that a mobile user has submitted a "Contact Us" or email form, and sometimes even purchased something. Third question: what should your mobile website look like? Mobile websites tend to be scaled down, simple, and very easy to navigate. The sites use fewer graphics, simpler text, and very straightforward navigation. Mobile websites are actually built with

different languages than HTML so that they are simpler and faster for the mobile browser to decipher. Most businesses should consider starting out with just a few pages, since mobile users typically just want basic information. You can always give mobile users the choice to go back to your desktop website if they really need to get a lot of info. The pages chosen for a mobile website should accommodate the greatest needs of anyone using a mobile device to view the site. For example, would a client use his phone to find information on a component while on the road? Maybe someone en route to your plant just needs quick directions. Each business has to figure out what information their mobile user would most need and make sure it's a part of the Mobile Web. One final consideration is whether your competitors have mobile sites. Being amongst the first to launch a mobile website can provide SEO advantages for local searches, as Google may give priority to mobile websites. For Pay Per Click, Google allows you to set up campaigns just for mobile devices. The cost per-click rates are, in most cases, going to be significantly less than your conventional PPC campaigns. Overall, companies need to assess the trends of their consumers and decide whether a mobile site will better cater to clients. Ask anyone who has navigated both a mobile and regular website from their phone which is better. The full website can be a headache, especially if there is a mobile site to browse. Will your clients be searching you from a mobile device, and if so, who is easier to browse than you?

Stephen Petersen is president of SP Business Solutions and is a search engine optimization specialist. SP Business Solutions has a license to market as WSI. WSI does internet marketing including building custom websites, search engine optimization, pay per click management services, social media optimization and website hosting and maintenance.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stephen_Petersen

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