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Addressing the Mobile Market

by InternetMarketingIQ
3 replies
With so many people using mobile devices, handhelds, netbooks, etc. I'm wondering what approaches successful Internet Marketers are taking to address these visitors.

For example: 5,014 visits used 218 screen resolutions

These stats are from one of my sites for May 2011. There are a lot of mobile device screen resolutions visiting. I typically design for 1024x768 even through about 80% of my traffic uses a higher resolution screen.

But this leads me to wonder how many people am I missing my not investigating how well my content will display for mobile users.

What approaches are being used to address this market. I'm not a programmer but I'm sure there must be some sites who are reading the devices being used and redirecting to an appropriate web display/site based on those devices.

I can only see the mobile market growing, but what is the "sweet spot" for mobile screen resolution?
#addressing #market #mobile
  • Profile picture of the author myob
    Most marketers are indeed unknowingly missing a lot of traffic or losing visitors. In the US alone, the latest reports I've read show nearly 30% internet users are accessing it through mobile devices, and in the UK it's nearly 40%. Other countries such as in Asia may be even higher.

    It's a relatively easy solution to have a mobile-enhanced subdirectory from your domain. The most common layout seems to be
    Code:
    http://www.m.yourdomain.com
    with "m" as the mobile subdiretory. Others use a stand alone .mobi extension. Putting a simple php mobile redirect code on your main page will detect a mobile user and send it to the mobile site or subdirectory.
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  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    There are wordpress plugins that translate your site on the fly to mobile format, the results are not as good as a mobile optimized site but it's a start, the wpTouch plugin is one that works with smart phones.

    There are database sites that apparantly report more details than the useragent stats, wortle database free but not so good, deviceAtlas charges a small fee.

    There are ultimately, different marketing approaches for small screen mobiles, while an iPhone can pretty well be treated like a small computer. Some bill through phone service ads (using Bango & zong) get 30% - 40% conversion rates.

    The useragent firefox plugin allows you to make your browser appear to be a mobile device for testing purposes.

    ready.mobi is a somewhat dated service that tests a site's mobile compatibility, reportedly it may not be up to date in handling smart phones.
    Signature

    “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” Niels Bohr

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  • Profile picture of the author wayne_yeager
    Mobile internet traffic represents 8-9% of internet traffic in the US. [Source = statcounter.com]. Growth is steady, but definitely not a hockey stick.

    At some growth level, it probably makes sense to develop a special site/app for mobile, but I think that bar is getting higher. Smartphones (especially the touch screen ones) now render webpages fairly well. My 2007-2008 Blackberry Pearl used to choke on most sites, but my new iPhone/iPad renders everything beautifully.

    Even so, if you want to do add'l development, there's really just 3 real players to consider: Android, Apple and Blackberry. As far as resolutions:

    iPhone: Mostly 320x480 (iPhone4 is double that, but same aspect ratio)

    Android: mostly 320x480

    Blackberry: All over the map, but in terms of width (which presumably is the most
    important design consideration, most are 240, 320 or 480. Tend to be multiples of 80px.

    Hope that's helpful.
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