The Mobile Web is about to become your best marketing friend or your worst marketing nightmare. Which is entirely up to you. On this page, we’re going to give you some information to help you decide which it will be for you.
What is the Mobile Web?
Get the facts on what the Mobile Web is and some statistics on it’s growth and future prospects.
Why you need a Mobile Website
Who is using them now and what businesses have a special need to be part of the Mobile Web
Do you need a special Mobile Website?
Can you just run a Mobile Website in a directory on your current website? Like http://yoursite.com/mobile? Yes, you could, but is a wise idea?
Options to Mobilize your website
Just as there was more than one way to build your current website, there is more than one way to mobilize it.
You have the opportunity to get onto the Mobile Web on the ground floor. Don’t miss this golden opportunity!
What is the Mobile Web?
The Mobile Web is the same as the Web that you access from your desktop or laptop computer with one important difference – the Mobile Web is accessed using mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets.
For several years, growth of the Mobile Web was hampered by the limited capabilities of available handsets and the technical limitations of the networks they ran on.
The past few years has seen the rapid deployment of high-speed networks and more sophisticated handsets. 3G and 4G networks are being rapidly deployed worldwide.
And Smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry and phones based on Google’s Android operating system are changing the way people access the Internet.
The Apple iPad and various flavors of tablet computers have expanded the picture.
Advanced technologies, such as the Opera Mini browser – available for a large variety of simpler devices and are bringing the Mobile Web to more and more users.
Here are a few statistics on current and projected Mobile Web use:
- 5.8 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by 2013. No other media channel offers anything like this reach.
- Smartphone sales will be 29 percent of all cell phones by 2014. This means a richer Mobile Web experience for mobile users and an opportunity for those marketing on the Mobile Web.
- 3G and even faster 4G networks are being rapidly deployed worldwide.
- 60 percent of the world’s population is now covered by a next-generation High Speed Packet Access mobile network (3G).
- By 2011 analysts expect data to be bigger than voice. Mobile Internet users will be sending and receiving more data in one month than in the whole of 2008.
- No matter the state of the global economy, mobile services revenue will continue to increase (ABI Research).
Why you need a mobile website
You’ve seen the statistics. But do they apply to your business in your city?
The answer is yes. The Mobile Web, even more than the desktop web, permeates virtually every corner of the globe – and that includes your corner.
There’s simply no way a business can safely ignore the Mobile Web.
In the past, customers would use the yellow pages at home to look for a business that would take care of their immediate need. That was the beauty of the yellow pages. If I wanted a pizza, a plumber or a pet store right now, I can probably find one quickly.
Somewhere along the way, the yellow pages was replaced by the Internet and Google Local Search. Now I can not only find who delivers pizza, I can order it online. I can find a pet store and view a map of their location. If you ask someone under the age of 40 (and many over that age) for their phone book these days, they probably have no idea where it is. The phone company still delivers them – and businesses pay for ads based on the number of books in circulation – but most of the books that are delivered are never looked at.
The next step is the Mobile Web. Again, Google plays a large part. More and more, when a customer is on the move, looking for that pizza, plumbing part or pet store, they use their mobile device to look it up. In one step they can find it, map it and initiate a phone call.
Being found on the Mobile Web and having a mobilized website that is efficient and provides the important information will be crucial to your business success in the coming years.
Restaurants, salons, realtors, spas, travel destinations, attractions, movie theaters, etc. are especially in need of a solid presence on the Mobile Web.
Do you need a special Mobile Website?
Answering the question “Do I need a special Mobile Website?” is really quite simple.
Have a look at your website on a mobile device and see how it looks. Even if your website was carefully designed and programmed, it will very likely look pretty bad on a mobile handset.
Even smart phones that display a website exactly like it appears in a desktop browser have several issues that should be dealt with. Scrolling around on a website is problem enough in a desktop browser, but now you must scroll around a miniaturized version, pick the area you want and enlarge it to a readable size.
There’s a better way.
A Mobile Website that is optimized for use on a handheld device presents essential information in a streamlined and easy-to-use format specially designed for the small screens on phone handsets.
Having a version of your website that is specially designed in this way provides two immediate benefits:
- Those visiting your website using a desktop browser have access to all of the information and graphics that their larger screen can display comfortably.
- Those visiting your website using a handset can be redirected to a special Mobile Website that gives them the essential information about your business that their screen can handle comfortably.
The redirection can be handled by software so desktop/laptop visitors don’t even know there is a special mobile site, but mobile users get their special version automatically.
There are special domains (.mobi) that designate websites designed for mobile browsers. There are also common subdomains used for mobile sites – a common one would be m.yoursite.com, where the “m” designates your Mobile Website.
But these solutions require you to maintain two versions of your website. Even if you use includes to handle the text, there are potential issues with images, navigation and slower loading times.
The most elegant solution I know of for most small local businesses is to build (or rebuild) your website on the WordPress platform. Then, a simple plugin, like the WP Touch Mobile Web Plugin will present a mobile version of your main website in an easy-to-navigate format. There are now several options for mobilizing WordPress-powered content.
Maintain one website and get the impact of two – a full-blown traditional website and a custom mobile website.
And all of it wrapped in the easy to deploy, update and maintain WordPress platform that can also work wonders for your Search Engine presence.
Your Mobile Website Options
What options do you have to get your Mobile Website up and running – that is, bringing you business?
Let’s outline a few ways you can move forward to establishing your business’s presence on the Mobile Web.
If you use WordPress for your business website, you can:
- Use a plugin that automatically presents a mobile optimized version of your website to visitors using a mobile device. (BEST MOBILE SOLUTION – Find out why)
- Run a parallel WordPress installation on a separate domain that utilizes a special mobile theme to present your content in a way mobile devices can easily handle.
- You can create and maintain a separate website on a “.mobi” domain or an “m.yourdomain.com” subdomain.
If you aren’t currently using WordPress to power your business website, you need to ask us why you could rank higher in the search engines and have a more flexible and powerful website by using WordPress.
Learn more about WPtouch Pro here.
Get WP Touch free version here.
Get WP Touch for WordPress installed here.
