Do You Think It's Really Time To Make Our Websites Mobile Friendly?

Hi Darren

For offline businesses with a serious online presence the time is now to have a mobile optimised website version. I am working on this for myself at the moment.

I do not believe people are quite ready to make purchases with their mobiles as a matter of course just yet. The security of mobiles is not good enough in peoples minds. IMHO

Give it a year and it might change

kenj

Yes, you should have a mobile friendly version of your site.

It's very easy to redirect mobile browsers to a mobile friendly site.

People are buying via mobile but it depends on what you are selling. I'm not going to read an ebook on my blackberry but I will watch movies and listen to music.

Also, people may not always buy from their phone but they are surfing... if you have a mobile friendly site they may return to your site at home and make the purchase then. If your site is not mobile friendly they will move on until they find a site that is... and that webmaster is going to get the sale.

Why would you ever want to neglect or ignore any form of traffic or potential customers?

Mobile is not the future, it is now.

A whooping 17% of the traffic on one of my sites comes from mobiles. Actually...the samsung, iphone and a PDA(whatever that is).

You would be surprized at how many actually do purchase on a phone. Usually last minute tickets and accessories for the phone.

I bet ring tones would be a good one for all you CPA dudes/dudettes out there.

yep, i say the time is nearing. with all the new platforms out there, surfing the web on the desktop is going to slowly fade away.

This is something that I would do if I knew how.

You can not ignore mobile phones any more considering that
60% (I believe) or more now use smart phones that allow them
to look for what the need on the web.

There are entire sites now dedicated to those wanting to download
music, games, or apps to their phones.

Hope there is more that come post on here that have more knowledge about this subject.

Thanks for asking this question.

Jess

Having a mobile optimized site will do nothing but good things for you. There are a lot more people with phones out there than computers and almost every phone has access to a great web browser.

Funny, I have been thinking about this same topic.

I have a Blackberry, and surf websites all the time, and it is a pain for non-mobile optimized sites.

Any resources to share on how to optimize a html site?

Limit use of tables? What CSS doesn't work on smartphones?

Hmmm..... I sense a WSO here from somebody...


Mike D.

Better now than later...Its inevitable that our sites will in time need to be mobile friendly, so if you have the money to do this i cant say it would be a bad move tbh.

Hey everyone,

Like I have mentioned in other posts here on warrior forum, it is nice to see members showing interest in the mobile market. For anyone utilizing a wordpress theme on their websites the Wordpress Mobile Pack is a great addition as well as WPtap. To see WPtap in action just visit the mini electronic cigarette link in my sig and when on the pc version of the site just scroll all the way to the bottom of the site and click on the "on" button and it will take you to the mobile version of the site.

If any members here need any assistance with mobile feel free to drop me a line and maybe I can be of some sort of assistance.

Many users access internet via the wifi built in... so browsing can be faster and convinient.

But who will be the advertisers? My 2cents
1. mobile users listen to music, watch movie, or reading news by their phone, when they have no access to PC AND have nothing to do, say in passenger mode, so I guess short entertainment material fit in here. Infomercial , as long as it really good, can really catch user's attention (cuz user has nothing to do at the moment)
2. Mobiles phone usually comes with lots of utility , say camera, voice record etc, and lots of software utility ====> so interaction with internet community is expected.
3. Mobile phone give the conviniency that notebook/PC don't have, as someone mentioned above, last minute ticket purchase
4. Mobile phone comes with GPS, so location based service has revenue potential, say resturant seat booking, tourist guiding etc.

Lots of existing and new advertisers will come on mobiles world, so IMer will has lots of opportunities here

There is a whole new set of projects for offline IMers to do. Go to all you clients who you sold websites too and make them an offer for a mobile friendly site.

Even start "local" mobile directories. DallasMobileMenu.com

George Wright

Hi Everyone:

I just wanted to jump in and lend a hand here. My name is Silho and I am an 11 year mobile marketing exec. I've worked with small mom and pop businesses and dozens of large Fortune 500 companies. You are all correct and the time to make your web sites mobile friendly is now. The WP Mobile Pack (and a few other mobile plugins) is the fastest way to mobilize your web site. Most smart phones can easily ready html and scaled down php wap sites with no problems so getting someone to make a mobile version of your site for you is really a matter of knowing how to scale everything back to 1995 style web sites (not a special language). I can tell you why most people here in the the WF are having problems with mobile marketing and what to do as an entrepreneur to avoid those same problems.

In the US (because our market has not matured in the mobile space like our counterparts in the Eastern Hemisphere) mobile web sites should not be used to try to make money. If you happen to have a great number of users/readers/subscribers and you see the value in making an extension of your Internet web site (going mobile) then you should do it; and place ads on it. If you have time sensitive information (stocks, news, traffic) or location specific information (weather, news, traffic, movies, events, etc) or entertainment based information (news, games, apps) then it makes sense to go mobile. Make money sites should only go mobile if you can offer a tip-of-the-day kind of thing in a small bite sized chunks. Use this to strengthen your brand with your customers. You cant sell to your customers every single time you reach out to them. It's the fastest way to alienate your list and burn them it out. And selling biz opps on a mobile phone does not fill a time sensitive or location based need so it will not sell.

I think everyone's problem with the mobile space is that they want to make money right away, do not take the time to learn what mobile marketing is about. You cannot simply take your web based offer and slap it on a mobile site/mobile banner and expect the cash register ring. Many times going mobile is about extending your brand, showing your customers the value of being everywhere they are, and reaching your customers in different ways so that you strenghen your brand. If you have a large enough database that sees the value in visiting your mobile site then join an advertising network and get some ads on your site. But dont expect your list to pull out their credit cards and buy a $97 ebook while on their cell phone. Its not going to happen.

SMS is the best way to go and the fastest way to make money in the mobile space. I'll share some more information on how to get started with mobile marketing in about a week. I have a very, very, very simple but highly effective and profitable system that has made me some pretty good money with mobile marketing and I can share the same information with everyone here.

If you have any questions please dont hesitate to ask.

There are several that already use my website with a PDA so that tells me something at least ....lol

While I do not access the internet with any mobile device I am sure millions do and at some point in time it will probably be required in order to keep making certain sales...

James

I can see that selling is very hard on a mobile since the purchase process is so cluttered on the small screen. But, to someone's point above, getting your brand out there and collecting email addresses might be a good solution for your mobile site.

I think that Mobile browsing is a trend of the future that is here now, and it would be wise to get prepared for it.

Another trend not to overlook is that of smaller format screens, such as netbooks. I'm using a netbook to write this (an Asus Eee C that I just love) and have found that some sites are not that usable on its smaller screen format - including a few of my own! As netbooks were among the most popular computers sold in 2009 it makes sense to include them too in your marketing strategy.

Bill

The world is very mobile. To be sure not to miss the train in terms of marketing I believe we should make our websites mobile freindly in order to reach out to more potential customers.

YES! I just wrote a blog post on this on Link Vines (and it's SO easy to mobilize a WP site, takes about 5 minutes so what can it hurt)? More and more people are surfing via the web and buying. I think it's best to stay ahead of the curve rather than miss potential readers and buyers because you are waiting for it to be the hottest thing going.

Last year when I was buying .mobi domains, I could get just about every name I searched for. This year I was searching for some .mobi domains and could not find one that I needed or wanted. I know you don't need a .mobi domain, but for me, having a .mobi domain gives me a slight edge over competitors in the local market as an add-on to my .coms and .ca domain names. It also sounds nice on a radio advertisement, which is nice, as it makes my domain name stand out from the plethora of .coms that are now being promoted locally.

I have used http://mobisitegalore.com to create .mobi sites. It is a great tool, for me, at least. Sure speeds up the creation of a mobile enhanced website. The only thing I don't like about it is that it is hosted on that site, so if something were to happen to the parent site, your mobi site would be out of commission.

Taking into account the statistics on mobile phones sales and their abilities as for understanding XHTML/CSS/JS, WEB obviously tends to be mobile. And mobile phones isn't a point. The point is that more and more various devices have access to the Internet. What about bookreaders, netbooks, gamepads, TV sets with access to the Internet? Would you ignore all these potential users of your website? Of course not!

As for how to make your site mobile friendly, you may refer to this service - MobilizeToday.com. They offer mobile friendly coding optimized for touchscreen devices such as iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre, Windows Phone etc. If your website doesn't contain flash and has table-less XHTML, they may optimize your website for about $50 per page type.

Antony Swans

Regarding MOBI domains: they're great to have and if Nokia (they're the biggest proponent of this) is able to get this passed mobile phones will default to .MOBI instead of the current .COM. My advice - go get a few of your top site's MOBI domains.
(I've been in the domain space 10+ years and own many thousands of domains)

On to the main topic...
I truly believe that everyone who has a busy, profitable, or important site should make it mobile friendly. If it's not the whole site, at least provide the important features for mobile users.

This is a helpful discussion - are there any free mobile wordpress themes that are well - attractive? Just a little color across the top with some small images -

Any suggestions?

I think it's time for the mobile OEMs to make their devices web-friendly.

Some really interesting points and point-of-views here. I will like to add a few:

1. The discussion seems to be veering towards making your current site mobile-friendly. While this is technically possible in most cases, your current site will do a pretty bad job of impressing the client because it is built for the desktop browser and contains long copy, big graphics and all that).

The mobile version of your site has to be compact with small graphics (only include them when really necessary, not as eye-candy). The copy has to be direct and to the point. No elaborate convincing there. Just tell them what you have to offer and what is the BIG benefit of getting it from you.

2. Since those people are on a phone, including a touch-to-call or click-to-call will be very effective and natural. However this is more suitable for the brick-and-mortar business and not for the typical IM crowd.

3. The sites that market local services and last minute supplies seem to benefit the most from a mobile site. Do you need that plumber just now? Car broken on the road and you are looking for the best place to get it fixed? You get the idea.

4. If you are in the B2B space, you should put up a site that reinforces your regular site and may be sign-up people who searched for you while they were in a meeting, for further follow-up later.

You should consider making a site specifically for the mobile audience and redirecting your main site visitors to this version of they are accessing it from a mobile phone.

I'm just guessing but I would think it depends on your products. I don't know if IM products are going to be hot on mobile, but music, tech stuff like flash drives, amazon.com products, even clothes ... yeah ... go mobile.

Another good Wordpress plugin for mobilizing your blog is WPTouch. I was using the Mobile Pack referred above for a long time but have moved to WP Touch for the better looks.

You'll definitely be ahead of the curve if you start making your websites mobile-friendly (especially for offline businesses who stand to benefit from this the most). What you really need to do now (since the trend is very obviously moving towards touchscreen phones with Android and iPhone gobbling up a huge chunk of the market) is to make sure that your websites are touch optimized, and this means having large legible buttons and links that users can "click" on with their fingers.

An interesting way to decide whether you need a mobile website now is to see your Analytics and see how many visitors are using a mobile device to access your site.

If the percentage is like 2% and above, you should start thinking about it. At above 5%, you should get it now.

Yes its help us very well so we are also trying to do our all website mobile friendly so we can get some more visitors.
thanks mate.

Absolutely. I can't remember the stats off hand, but I was reading how many people surf the web on their mobile phone now. It was staggering.

When it is so easy to do with platforms such as wordpress (just need to install a plugin), why not?

I think that shopping from mobile devices is only going to get bigger - and it is already huge.

If you are thinking of creating your own mobile website or converting your existing site to mobile compatibility, you might look at this mobile web design checklist.