WillR

I am on a Blackberry plan so all my data is unlimited since I just use the Blackberry Internet. The standard Blackberry browser is a little slower than something like Opera mini but at least I don't ever have to worry about going over my cap. And I usually use my mobile the most when I'm at home on wifi where speed isn't much of an issue.

I agree. I finally had my first play around with an iPad this week and I think most normal websites display just fine on an iPad. The only time mobile sites would be of an advantage is when an iPad user is out on the road using mobile Internet. But I don't think we should be targeting iPad users with our mobile sites. I don't see a massive advantage to that.

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TWalker

"YAWN"

I appreciate the fact that you want to be the "resident expert" on mobile sites so you can sell your WSO and this is why you spent so much time in Quentins thread but someday you will have to find something positive in someone elses work or your plan just won't work.

Just a bit of advice as I want everyone to succeed.

WillR

Last time I checked no one 'owns' this thread. I am trying to help those people getting into mobile website design and I'll continue to do so. Too many times I see people try to teach other people when they are not even up to speed with things themselves - it happens too often in this industry and there has already been bad advice given in this very thread - only some small bits but bad advice none the less. If I see it I will try and point it out and help others get around it. If I just ignore it then I am not doing this forum justice, am I?

I am not someone who sugarcoats stuff because there is no point. If I see something and I think it is wrong or could be done better then I will give my opinion. If we all sat around and played happy days like you want to then no one would learn a thing on this forum. It's very easy to sit there and massage each others ego - that's what most people do and at the end of the day, it helps no one. But each to their own.

As for a WSO, I am only putting a template together because people have asked for it - a week ago I had no plans on doing so whatsoever. Someone asked so I told them my plans. I couldn't care less if anyone touches it. If you think I badly need a WSO to make some money you are sadly mistaken. I make the real money by actually DOING what some people in this thread are just TALKING about.

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Quentin

Hey TW this is not my thread but Scott's.

Not to worry as we are just all trying to help one another.

The way Will presents things sometimes does seem a little strange but remember he is an Aussie and you know we are a weird mob.

I think however it is good to get other points of view and while I disagee on some of the comments it is great food for thought and good for research.

I learnt a lot about validation while checking out what he said but also learnt that very few people worry about it from high corporate to small business. Gee if you check out most of the big sites none of them validate.

Its all about compramise and what you are willing to do get your customer site the best you can. I have over 200 mobile site customers now and if they were not happy or someone was not getting access to their site they would let me know pretty quick.

Living in Thailand we do not have the best coverage so if it loads quickly here it will load quickly anywhere. I test all my sites on an android, blackberry and iPhone so I am confident they will cover 90% of the market.

Quentin

sparky2010

Great stuff. Keep it up : )

Luke Bishop

Hi guys, just experimenting with css/css3...bit of an issue.

Okay so I have created some nav bars and set them to width:90%;

But they are hard up to the left side of the page, I tried to align them but I cannot get it right... can anyone help me?

If you look at the code i have played around with it that much, originaly the nav bars were hover links then I changed them to curved so i understand the code is a bit messed up.

I just want to see where I've gone wrong

Jay Moreno

@quentin

that acer looks pretty good i have been actually been holding out for Android 3.0 to be released on a good sized tablet.

i am pc guy through and through although i do have a mac and a lot of apple stuff, my pc and samsung android get more use than anything else - i actually got the ipad because my 6yr old son has special needs something called angelman syndrome, he is not able to speak or communicate verbally with us well he is also non mobile, but we had been told that there was some really good communication apps only available for ipad.

Up until then i really didnt know what all the fuss what about, we have had a number of PC based communication devices but they where simply too bulky for us to use when we go out in public - but once we got the ipad though i actually really like it i find it extremely useful - obviously from a teaching resource for my son but for practicality too some of the apps are just outstanding and can only hope they port them over to the android which typically they do.

Currently at the price tough i dont think you can beat the original ipad have seen it for $375!

i doubt we will get the ipad2 - perhaps for other family members but I know personally in the not too distant future I will be adding an android tablet too

and your right most sites do work well as i mentioned before i see little point at this moment to design specifically for tablets unless its a web app that your putting together.

@luke

not had coffee yet and just waking up but try swapping your li {float: center} for something like this:

li {
margin-left: 10px;
margin-right: 10px;
width: auto;
}

what you should get now is your li tag starting and ending 10px from each edge of the browser

cheers

jay

Luke Bishop

hey man it works! I tried to replace the float:center and it didnt work... so I tried putting it inside the;

Thanks again

Quentin

I think the old Ipads will get cheap as the 2 gets released.

The thing I like about android is that this is less likely to happen.

Anyhow very happy so far with the A500

Quentin

scotth

Thanks Quentin,

I would love for you to send me that file. Thanks for taking care of that!

ScottH

Based in Costa Rica Living my life on my terms a expat lifestyle and traveling the world at will. Time Freedom is True Freedom!

scotth

I use tables..I just like to create one table below the header and put the other links within the table..I would show where I would have 4 different tables with links to the other pages..but my clients liked it just the one table at the top.

Based in Costa Rica Living my life on my terms a expat lifestyle and traveling the world at will. Time Freedom is True Freedom!

Steven Carl Kelly

I'm paying $30 per month for unlimited 4G data. When I code mobile sites, however, I pay strict attention to bandwidth because I know a lot of people are on severely limited data plans or may be paying overages... so I don't load anything that doesn't need to be loaded until it needs to be loaded (and it helps to re-use graphical resources whenever possible -- instead of 5 different graphical buttons that look exactly the same except for the text, overlay text on 5 instances of the same blank button graphic).

Jay Moreno

i know tables arent recommended in mobile best practices and certain older feature phones simply wont render tables, i personally tend to not use tables period for anything if i can help it

as you have already seen the smart browsers tend to handle simple tables fine, but it can be unpredictable, if you are going to use tables i would say try and avoid complex nested tables ie tables within a table

there are some good css tutorials out there its not that difficult to pickup and it gives you a lot more styling options too!

hth

jay

octaneinv

Good call Jay!

Never use tables in your mobile designs, and try real hard to avoid them in your "desktop" designs too - they're outdated and a PITA to use!

Check out: Bad Tags | HTML Dog

And then: Page Layout | HTML Dog to learn the "new" and proper way!

Jay Moreno

@sck whos your provider that sounds a good deal!

am with AT&T only because my business lines etc are through them and i also had the iphone before it became available on verizon - their DSL sucked so i got rid of it in favor of tethering it actually worked out a lot cheaper

@octaneinv - i could have done with these pages about 5+ years ago lol

octaneinv

Haha, you're telling me!

Actually that HTML DOG site is a killer resource for anyone trying to build/design/develop. I'm in no way affiliated, but they've got my full endorsement (as if that holds much weight :rolleyes

skjenner

Hello everyone I am new to the Warrior Forum. I just wanted to say Thank You to Quentin for his awesome WSO and to Scott for this thread.

I purchased Quentin's WSO a couple weeks ago, went thru it step by step and built several simple mobile sites of local businesses for practice. After I built the practice sites I loaded them up on my Iphone and hit the road cold calling on businesses one afternoon last week. I visited about 25 businesses that day and had 3 owners very interested and scheduled follow up appointments for this week.

I just finished my first follow up appointment this afternoon and I'm happy to say I made my first mobile web site sale for $650.00.

It would have been easy for me to put off going "door to door" by telling myself things like "I don't have my sales script down" or "I need more practice" or .... But one of the lessons I learned from this forum is to just get out there and do it. Which is what I did, and it worked.

Now I have to actually get the site built and I have a good start on it. While making the sale, the owner of the restaurant asked me if I could add an "Online Order" page so his customers could order delivery or take out from the mobile web site and have the site email the orders to the restaurants email address. I told him Sure I can do that!

I hope I didn't bite off more than I can handle. Does anyone out there have any advise for me on how I can pull this off? Thanks!

Jay Moreno

@skjenner - are you up charging them for the mcommerce, how extensive is their menu?

i will be honest i think its beyond the scope of a beginner - but it depends on how robust the system needs to be.

If they keep it simple you could just do a simple form to process the order, you wouldn't take payments but instead the restaurant owner receives the order (and an optional text notification) and simply calls the customer back to confirm order and take payment over the phone... saying that it maybe easier just to call the order in! lol

perhaps adding paypal buttons may work but i am yet to experiment with it, there is a specific development guide for mobile and mobile payments external from paypals app which is hidden away in their developer documentation for some reason? but i havent had chance to play with it yet so cant pass comment on it - although screen shots look cool

PS my two biggest pet hates i have about web development of any kind is forms and commerce! lol
hth

jay

TWalker

Oh yea you are right it was Scotts. But you know what I'm sayin. Some people blow their own trumpet a bit much without giving anyone else their due acknowledgement.

You have done some fine work and I like to see everyone get credit for their work. In fact Will gave me a great of info early on and I thanked him like I do everyone who contributes.

The reason I pay more attention to your work is you don't come across as: its all about me, me, me its all about me.

Keep it up...and thanks.

sherm50599

You might want to check out our tools at Engage.ly for local, social marketing notifications. It might be a way to get local marketing leads.

Warrior AllStars

Hey Scott, just dropping a note to say Im looking forward to working with you in the next week. I know Im wearing a mask you dont recognize me... dont blow my cover though... when the moss grows on the east side of the bamboo tree and the ferret is dry from its many swims in the river.... Then the eagle will land on a mountain on high and spread his wings facing the sun... in that moment, when you have been overcast by the shadow of the eagles wing...you will understand the truth that I am totally not making sense of here at all... but thats the secret.

Many moons to you my friend!

Make a Donation - Facebook Page - The Blog
About the WSO

Luke Bishop

lol @ warrior

IslandAffiliate

Ok finally finished reading this. Quentin I cant seem to get to your webste to check out your videos or your course, says you have reached your bandwith. Where can I get this WSO everyone is talking about. Thanks

Carpet Cleaning Marietta
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kona

There is an error on your pages...bandwidth exceeded! Just thought you would like to know.
Mike

Mike Hays

Quentin

Sorry about the bandwidth as I have just had a huge number of visits to the site which is a good thing but chewed up the bandwidth overnight.

I just doubled it so it wont happen again.

As for tables I agree tables withing tables is not such a good idea however I have tested with normal tables on all major phones and seems not to be any problem. From my stats which are quite comprehensive now old phones do not factor. Less than 3%.

Remember we are targeting smartphones in our marketing.

As for the site for the Restaurant you can easily add a form and make the customers phone number a compulsory field and the owner can the confirm.

Quentin

scotth

There are many moons to go!

Based in Costa Rica Living my life on my terms a expat lifestyle and traveling the world at will. Time Freedom is True Freedom!

scotth

Since started doing mobile web design for my local market I have establish a nice work from home business and loving it! I was reading the Wise Web Ladies info on doing webinars for local businesses and how she is getting several new clients in one 60 min webinar. I am in the process of setting up my first webinar here in my local city..teaching how to mobilize your site and how to build a digital list...I will fill the seats by email marketing. Looking to really scale this out.

Based in Costa Rica Living my life on my terms a expat lifestyle and traveling the world at will. Time Freedom is True Freedom!

skjenner

No mcommerce. We don't need to take payments. Just need a basic form to email the data to the business owner, but I think the menu items will take about 3 pages. Is there some kind of shopping cart script I could use to gather and send the data without utilizing the payment feature?

Thanks,

Steve

WillR

Yes, definitely steer clear of tables in your designs if you can help it. There really is no need to use them nowadays and they only add a bunch of unnecessary coding to your html files.

Yes, exactly. Don't load all your pages on the homepage. Every page should be its own page and should be as small as possible. Rule of thumb, only ever use graphics when absolutely necessary.

I think some people get talked into using graphics because their clients want them. But we are the experts here. It is our job to tell the clients what we think will give them the best performance. Educate them and hopefully they will see the light.

Congratulations on your first sale - that's awesome!

In regards to the online ordering system, once again, you need to be the expert here and advise your customer of the best solution.

Just because a customer wants something does not mean I will always give it to them. If I think there is a better way of doing things then I will tell them right away and show them the reasons why I think my way is the best way to go.

More often than not the customer will actually respect you a lot more for standing up and challenging things that you don't think will give them the best bang for their buck.

I would never rely on an email ordering system. Email is just too unreliable these days. Even if only 1 or 2 email orders out of every 100 end up not coming through then that is still 2 customers who will probably never visit that website or restaurant again. It's simply not worth it.

I would remind your customer that a mobile site is designed for people who are accessing their site using a mobile phone. This tells you ONE important thing about that customer. More than likely they are on a mobile phone and have the ability to make a phone call. Simply add a 'Click to Call' link and customers will easily be able to make their orders.

One other option you can use that I use with a lot of my sites is to have a call back feature where a customer can enter their mobile phone number and the business is then sent an email asking them to call that customer right back. This probably isn't the best option for a restaurant, as it's not always instant, but it does work well for other local service providers.

Once again though that feature does rely on email and emails do sometimes tend to get lost.

As soon as you mention to the restaurant the fact that email cannot be relied upon 100% and sometimes orders may go missing, I am sure they will see the light and decided to stick with regular phone orders.

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WillR

I thought you were an Aussie as well? Aussie living in Thailand perhaps?

You're exactly right though - not about us Aussies being a weird mob. But one of the best ways for people to learn more about a topic is to challenge their current thinking. That's why I love to do it. That, and the way it riles some people up.

As I said, I could sit here and agree with everything being said but it doesn't help anyone. If out of all my talk about validation only a couple of people have gone and used the validator and found a couple of critical errors on their mobile sites then my job here is done.

I'm not trying to pretend I haven't learnt anything from this thread myself, because I have - and I'm definitely not claiming to be an expert. And just because I don't publicly announce that I agree with what someone has said or like what someone has done does not mean I am against everything.

But I will always speak what's on my mind and challenge anything I don't agree with. Some people don't like that but those are not the sorts of people I am trying to help.

Anyway, back to the more important stuff...

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scotth

I have used zonicordering.com for two pizza clients here in san francisco that wanted a ordering system in place..they both are very happy and zonic has white label.

Based in Costa Rica Living my life on my terms a expat lifestyle and traveling the world at will. Time Freedom is True Freedom!

MKBridge

I have asked this question in another thread but still looking for an answer. Can I have a "text" button that links to a new message opening up? With the phone number of my client is filled in and the user can send him a text? If so, how do I link this? thanks Kathi

Quentin

There are lots of different mobile browsers out there, so I doubt that this is standardised.

I tried it on my HTC android and it worked. Obviously change the number.

If anyone has an iphone or other smartphone maybe you could test and get back to us.

<a href="sms:447787000000">SMS</a>

Quentin

WillR

I had thought about implementing this same feature on my mobile sites however I know it is not supported by Blackberry devices, which is still a large chunk of the market, so I decided against it. I just tried it again and yes, my Blackberry says "The protocol specified is not supported by the handheld."

As Quentin said it does work on some devices like iPhones however if something doesn't work on Blackberries then I would still be a little wary about using it. If you do want to use it then the way I would get around it is by using a link like this:

<a href="sms:123456789" rel="nofollow">Click to Text: 123 456 789</a>

That way those people who have phones that do not support that command can still clearly see the mobile number they are to SMS. I think that's the best you can do.

I do the same thing with all my click to call links. They look like this:

<a href="tel:123456789" rel="nofollow">Click to Call: 123 456 789</a>

That way those small minority of people who have phones that do not support click to call, they can still read the number and call it manually. Some people just use links that say 'Click to Call' so anyone who can't use that feature is unable to see the phone number. Not a great idea in my opinion.

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Jay Moreno

rather than not offer it at all because a certain smartphone browser doesnt use it just create an if statement to determine whether or not to show it...

ie if blackberry dont show click to sms if everything else show...

statistics show the blackberry is far from leading the mobile smartphone popularity race - doesnt seem logical to exclude useful features like that because certain devices dont support it...

hth

jay

MKBridge

Thanks so much Quentin & WillR. I will try this when I get back to my office. I'm out drumming up business.

WillR

I agree not to exclude it altogether.

You can go down the route of using if statements as well however the downside to that is you need to know all of the browsers/devices that do not support the feature and when (probably a lot more likely than 'if') that feature does eventually get supported by those devices/browsers you would need to go back in and update all that code.

So when doing sites for clients where you want the sites to run into as little problems in the future I would just use the link for all devices but make sure the phone number is visible in that link text.

Damn Blackberries. It could be the Blackberry browser I'm not sure. I use the standard Blackberry browser not Opera mini. I would think Opera mini would support that function. Who knows...

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Jay Moreno

apparently you can use click to sms on the blackberry??? from the horses mouth...

Content types supported by the BlackBerry Browser - Feature and Technical Overview - BlackBerry Browser - 6.0

not sure it didnt work for you will? what version is your browser? according to this doc it should have... it seems kinda strange to omit something as useful as this feature is from a modern browser - just looking on the net it is supposed to be standardized or at least that was the plan...

hth

jay

WillR

Jay,

Yeah it seemed a little strange to me. I wouldn't have a clue what version browser it is nor how to even find that sort of thing out?! It's a Bold 9700 though so it's only just over a year old but I gave up on updating the software because it only ever seem to give me more problems when I did so.

I thought it odd that it was not supported. There you go.

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octaneinv

The 9700 uses RIM's own browser, but the newer ones (Torch, etc) use a webkit browser, like the browser on the iphone and android.

The 9700 received a ton of criticism for it's awful browser.

Code to webkit - it's where they're all going. That's my philosophy. You can't make anything 100% compatible, but the vast majority are using webkit or compatible browser.

Jay Moreno

yeah am down with webkit too - you can actually do some really cool stuff with it but dont let your client look at the mobi site with a regular browser it can look pretty crappy as most desktop browsers dont support it!

LocalSEOEntrepreneur

Scott/Quentin,

Thank you both for all the information you have shared in this thread! It's amazing.

I started researching mobile marketing/local SEO about a week ago and have since bought a bunch of programs and tutorials but none even compare to what has been presented here on this thread. I found the thread late last night and like many spent the last many hours reading every post. Scott, your drive and ambition is remarkable. Thank you for sharing your story.

Going forward I hope to contribute to everyone on this forum as well. I just bought Q's WSO and will start making calls next week with the goal to close the first one by next Friday. I've read enough, researched enough. It's go time.

Thank you to you all for the great support and information!

scotth

That is Awesome you found this be helpful in your offline venture! From all the excellent contributions made here from many Warriors here...shout out to Quentin and WillR and so many others here that are to many to mention. I hope you all support Willr when he comes out with his WSO of templates I am sure it will be of Great Value.

Take Action and Profit!

ScottH

Based in Costa Rica Living my life on my terms a expat lifestyle and traveling the world at will. Time Freedom is True Freedom!

dericks3

Hi Guys
I bought this through Scotts link a couple weeks ago.
And actually have no interest in learning to build mobile sites myself.
I have a Filipino build all my websites and give him feedback on what looks good to me.
My primary goal is to concentrate on marketing these mobile sites and manage my workers.
That being said I assume the best way for my design guy to learn is read the tutorials.
The question is will that be enough for him to deliver quality mobile sites to me?
I ask this because there seems to be alot of posts on here with technical questions(which I skim over).

Thanks
Doug

WillR

Doug,

It really depends how competent the worker is and also how creative they are. You can give two people the exact same set of instructions and you will always get two different results. The only way to know for sure is to test him out. You might want to test a couple of people at the same time to find that person who is going to fit well with your business.

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jimevee

Ok, First I'm a total newbie here(this is my first post) to Warriors Forum but I love the information. I've been doing bankcard processing for the last 5 years and I'm really interested in the mobile sites and sms messenging for my current clients and as a way to get my foot in the door to new business. I dont have any experience building websites but from what I gather it's fairly easy to build a mobile site as compared to a regular site. So my question is how hard would it be for newbie to learn this? ( BTW, I'm not a total tech dummy and I'm a quick learner) Would you recommend I start off outsourcing until I learned it? If so what would be the going rates to have someone do this for me so that I can resell? Also I have some ideas for some of you who are currently doing mobile sites to make some extra revenue by referring your customers to me for merchant accounts...i.e...Mr. customer I can build your mobile site for $350 and 30/mo however my partner does bankcard processing and if you switch your merchant account as well I can do the site for $200 and $20/mo...in which case I'd reimburse your the $150 and give you a percentage of the merchant account residual. Have many other ideas as well in which can be mutually beneficial and help you close more sales. If anyone here is interested in doing a partnership like that please PM me. In the meantime I look forward to hearing you advice and look forward to participating here on the Warrior boards.

Quentin

Me personally I like to learn the system before I outsource so I know what is a fair price.

Are you just talking bankcard or Visa, Mastercard etc.

Quentin

Nail Yener

I started emailing businesses as well and the starting point of my email is that their website doesn't show up properly on a mobile device. The two responses that I got up to now are as follows:

"Install Flash on your phone." :confused:

and

"Thank you for your input, we will get our Tech Support to look into it."

I guess some of my emails will only help their webmasters make some extra money out of something they've never thought of, thanks to me. Maybe I need to change my starting point, but I will continue until I get my first client. Cold-calling or door-to-door visiting will not work in my city, therefore I am targeting other countries.

Scott, I am assuming that you will not use such large images in the final design, right?

And one final word about a discussion that doesn't belong on this thread:

I really don't understand how some warriors cannot see the pure and valuable advice given by WillR. You might not like the way he talks, but what he says is actually the most important parts of the mobile web design.

If you see mobile web design as a fast money maker, and you will move on to the next best idea once you get bored from this, then you really needn't worry about mobile design practices, do's and don'ts etc. But if you want to go further in the mobile design arena, then you will have to know and apply the basics (which is ignored by many who contributed to this thread) to create quality work.

Nail

WillR

It is obviously harder when not able to meet with the clients face to face but it is not impossible. Just keep going and you will get to that first sale.

From the sounds of things they are straight away assuming that the problem is with their CURRENT website. The reality is the problem is not with their current website and can't just be 'fixed' by their webmaster. You need to make this distinction very clear. It is not something that needs to be 'fixed' rather something that needs to be 'added'.

The problem is they do not have an additional website that is optimized specifically for mobile viewers. And when you tell them that over the next 1-2 years more people will be visiting their website from a mobile device than a normal PC, this should be enough to alarm them. Having a simple report you can send them with all the statistics should also help.

The main point here is you do NOT want to try and SELL them a mobile website. These people are being sold to by offline Internet Marketers like you and I every day of the week. You want to educate them so they come to the logical decision by themselves - this is a lot more powerful. Give them all the statistics and let them come to the conclusion they need that mobile site.

If you have the time then try putting together some samples sites for specific businesses so you can show them exactly what it will look like. If they can see a great looking mobile site and the price is right, why would they even bother going to their own webmaster?

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Nail Yener

Will,

After reading your suggestions, I realized where I was doing wrong and I am working on a new email now. I will update this thread about how it goes. Thanks!