Mobile Website Design big business in our local market!

scotth · 27th May 2011, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by William1213

I wouldn't mind, getting into this type of business, can you tell me how you got started or if you have a guide out, I would like to know a little more about this business before I dump a lot of money in.

You dont need to spend much at all to get into the mobile design business...its more an education in designing than offering it local businesses. If you start from the beginning of this thread you will be enlighten for this thread is a guide.

sb · 27th May 2011, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by banditu

So i've sent around 100 emails(one by one) yesterday to pizzas, restaurants, hotels, plumbers, auto shops in some cities in US but all i got was 2 answers.Only 1 interested.Will see if i can get something from it.

Here's the email i've sent:
=============================
Hey,
I was just checking out your website http:xxx on my phone and noticed that it didn’t work all that well on my Blackberry.
There is a quick fix for this that would help you convert more local customers that use iPhones, Blackberries and other phones to visit your site.

I made a short report for your business to show you what I’m talking about. I was just wondering – who would be the best person to e-mail the report to?

Thanks!
Adrian
===========
I've send the email from adrian@my-web-site-that-sells-mobile...es-sowners.com.

How do guys you receive so many responses from 20 emails?
What should i change to get a better response?

Thanks for any ideas.

I was VERY skeptical about the claim of 10 responses from 20 emails or whatever that was. I haven't even had that high of a response from my current clients who love me. Of course I didn't use that same verbiage since I had already emailed my clients before that post. Anything is possible so MAYBE it was a once in a thousand chance but I very much doubt the 50% response rate is going to be typical. I'd love it if were typical and I'll give it a good test run with 500 or more email leads over a few days when I finish taking care of my current clients.

I haven't started marketing to anyone outside of my current clients yet but when I do, I'm not just going to send out a bunch of emails and wait for my phone to ring. I'm going to send out a series of them to the same list over several weeks, educating them about mobile marketing, with an opt out on each email. Your standard Dan Kennedy style of marketing. I suspect that the sales will start to come in over time as they get to know, like and trust you and you've provided them with convincing evidence that they are losing money by not having a mobile optimized site.

I use Autoresponse Plus for my email autoresponder and am not required to get optins because it's on my own server, so I'll just stick all of my leads in there and have an automated follow up sequence. If you use Aweber, you'd have to get optins. Or, if you have a decent client management system, you could do it through that. In any case you need to set up a way to send the right email follow ups to the right leads in the right time sequence.

I may do the same with direct mail or a combination of both. With direct mail, you could use a client management program or the old fashioned way with paper and folders or some type of filing system.

(Sorry to start of my first four paragraphs with, "I".)

In any case, don't just hit them once and forget about them. Send out follow ups and keep sending them until you see where the sales start to drop off. Once sales start dropping off you'll know it's no longer worth it to continue the sequence. It may be after six follow ups or it may be after 12. We'll have to figure that out for ourselves.

You could also get an outside sales rep who has a smartphone to sell them for you. If you sell the mobile sites for $297, give them $150. I think you could get $397 or more depending on the market. If he/she can sell just two a day, you're both making some money. If that works, get a dozen of them.

There are a bunch of ways to go about selling these. Just use direct response marketing techniques that you've learned. If you're new to direct response marketing, you might want to get your hands on some of Dan Kennedy's stuff like Magnetic Marketing or maybe some Guerrilla Marketing from Jay Conrad Levinson.

Good luck!

sb · 27th May 2011, 07:02 PM

Originally Posted by WillR

Interesting...

YouTube - ‪Why are merchants excited about Google Wallet?‬&rlm;

Currently being sued by PayPal for stealing their proprietary information after Google wooed a couple of PayPal's former employees.

It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out.

Quentin · 27th May 2011, 09:24 PM

In the old days and still true today is build a list if you want to make good sales.

If you can't build a list piggy back on some one else's list and this is what I do.

For example the last month I contacted a printer and took him out to lunch. He has a lot of customers. My Treat.

I showed him QR Codes and mobile sites.

Now we are doing these things together.

1. We did a mail out to all his customers about QR Codes and mobile sites.

2. We held a Friday afternoon cocktails where we did a short presentation on QR Codes and Mobile Websites. We will do this again.

3 We did a joint add in the local paper.

This accomplished a few things.

1. He is now funneling me a lot of work.
2. He has got a lot of new jobs using QR Codes
3. We have raised awareness re mobile sites and QR Codes

You see you can go after the ones and twos however if you think more outside the box you can get hundreds and these people will then refer others if you ask them.

Second strategy is with other groups like social clubs etc.

Same sort of thing but they cannot profit off QR Codes so I offer a free mobile site and seminar for them.

Last strategy is that I send out letters to networking groups of which there are lots around. So like BMI, Rotary etc and send a nice presentation about what I do and offer to do free talks.

So this is how I get a lot of my work.

How about contacting some online businesses as Mobile is for them too. Software distributors, hosting companies, sms, and more. Many of these do outsourcing so you have to offer them a good deal.

Hope this gets your mental juices going to help you target lots of clients rather than going after individual clients.

Quentin

Steve Solem · 27th May 2011, 11:57 PM

Originally Posted by Quentin

In the old days and still true today is build a list if you want to make good sales.

If you can't build a list piggy back on some one else's list and this is what I do.

For example the last month I contacted a printer and took him out to lunch. He has a lot of customers. My Treat.

I showed him QR Codes and mobile sites.

Now we are doing these things together.

1. We did a mail out to all his customers about QR Codes and mobile sites.

2. We held a Friday afternoon cocktails where we did a short presentation on QR Codes and Mobile Websites. We will do this again.

3 We did a joint add in the local paper.

This accomplished a few things.

1. He is now funneling me a lot of work.
2. He has got a lot of new jobs using QR Codes
3. We have raised awareness re mobile sites and QR Codes

You see you can go after the ones and twos however if you think more outside the box you can get hundreds and these people will then refer others if you ask them.
Quentin

Hey, that's my favorite strategy there Quentin and thanks for sharing that here with everyone.

Non-competing businesses that share an ideal type of customer like this are all around and a joint venture with these folks can be super powerful. Great stuff!

Xebekn · 28th May 2011, 06:59 AM

Well, I figured if you PM'd me I would be able to reply back but it still won't let me. No worries, I just had some questions on your mobile script but I imagine your ad covers it all. I'll look into it further today. Thanks!

Quentin · 28th May 2011, 07:21 AM

You can email me from the site.

Q

krzysiek · 28th May 2011, 09:01 AM

Originally Posted by sb

Currently being sued by PayPal for stealing their proprietary information after Google wooed a couple of PayPal's former employees.

It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out.

Yes, it will be interesting indeed. I probably won't follow it too much, guess I will hear about it when the result has been determined - but I for one (and probably many others like me) want to see PayPal go down, at least in one form or another.

Right now they are not treating their sellers (of products moreso than services) properly, especially for the money they're making. So for them to finally see some real competition is nothing but a good thing. I hope Google can win this one, I don't know who has more money (we know that how much money they spend probably has a strong correlation with who will win the case) but I do hope it goes in Google's favour.

Local · 28th May 2011, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by krzysiek

Hi Gerry,

1) You keep the same/existing domain, but you add a sub-domain to it, such as www.m.yoursite.com

2) When a user go to your www.yoursite.com (normal PC version) on their mobile, the script will re-direct them to your mobile website at www.m.yoursite.com

3) I would say that the original site *does* benefit from SEO. If someone is on their mobile and does a search and the main site appears first, they will click it and before they know it are re-directed to the mobile version. So yes, I do think it is good. However, this is assuming that Google does not currently (I don't think they do) put emphasis on which sites are mobile-ready? But in either case, I think it will be good to have the main site pumped up with good SEO.

How does having a the same subdomain "m" on, for example a hostgator biz package where the domains are add on domains, so once you create the first "m" subdomain for one domain, there can only be one "m" folder.

I'm sure that will make sense to many of you.

:-)

Evie

MKBridge · 28th May 2011, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by TraceK

I'm Trace I'm a local business owner and I have a great way to get you rmore customers from all the mobile phone users in your area and checking to see if you're open to getting more business.

If they're interested, they always ask for the price and at this point I am mostly losing them.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks

How about giving a deal for the first few, build up a portfolio and reviews, then increase the price. MK

scotth · 28th May 2011, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by Local

How does having a the same subdomain "m" on, for example a hostgator biz package where the domains are add on domains, so once you create the first "m" subdomain for one domain, there can only be one "m" folder.

I'm sure that will make sense to many of you.

:-)

Evie

Not sure what your saying...anytime I create a mobile version for a client I put it on their domain as subdomain m. I will never have to create another m. subdomain for the same domain again.

Izesta · 28th May 2011, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by rugman

I was going to start a new post on this but figured I would put it here. Realtors - I thought they would be a great place to sell sites to. I did some research and there are some places on the web that target realtors and give them sites REALLY cheap. Like $47 set up and 10 bucks a month. Whats with that?

Rugman, the mortgage business is my day job. I can tell you that marketing (of any & all kinds) is HEAVY as far as realtors go. Tons of competition.

There are a boatload of marketing sites that cater specifically to realtors.

That $10/month is probably $10 per property per month.

Izesta · 29th May 2011, 12:00 AM

Originally Posted by ukescuba

hi guys - i figured this was a good time as any to showcase some of my mobile sites that i have created...

this is one of the older mobile sites i created that's still live lmpoker.mobi

i built it using joomla about 4yrs ago, its one of the first to utilize the flexibility of joomla as a dynamic cms and port it over to a mobile device, everything can be updated via joomla by the client

its actually featured on the mobiReady - dotMobi compliance & mobileOK checker site there is a screenshot of it in the slideshow header, as it was amongst one of the first sites to get a full 5/5 rating when it was designed specifically for feature phones - back then the iphone was just a twinkle in steve jobs' eye! lol

this site oakridgebellows.com was developed specifically for smartphones ie android, iphone, blackberry

it gives you an idea what i do when designing specifically for smartphone layouts - it also has video and gallery and the mobile detection option to redirect

if you look at the mobile version of oakridge bellows in a regular browser it will most likely not render properly and look weird as its not meant for that.

hopefully others will share their mobile sites - willr?

hth

jay

oakridgebellows.com looks very nice !!!

Quentin · 29th May 2011, 02:33 AM

Had a look at oakridgebellows.com and looks great however the images on my HTC wildfire do not fir so creates a scroll sideways.

Maybe you could optimize your graphics with a simple image id to auto size to make the experience better.

A couple of lines of code and it would be perfect.

Here is one of my customers you can try out

Vale Display Solutions

Quentin

Jay Moreno · 29th May 2011, 09:26 AM

thanks guys for the feedback - trying out some new things as we speak!

Nail Yener · 29th May 2011, 10:33 AM

Ok, this is funny:

I was doing my research to contact business owners for mobile sites as usual and I came across a website with the following popup notice:

---
iPhone and iPad Users
Please use two-finger scrolling where necessary to control this web site.
---

Not an ideal biz owner to contact, right?

Originally Posted by Local

How does having a the same subdomain "m" on, for example a hostgator biz package where the domains are add on domains, so once you create the first "m" subdomain for one domain, there can only be one "m" folder.

Evie

When you create a m. subdomain for one of the domains on your hosting account, you can give whatever folder name you want to it. So, you can have dozens of m. subdomains for different domains in one account.

Visual example will be best I guess:

website.com - main domain
website1.com - addon domain
website2.com - addon domain

m.website.com - folder: m_website
m.website1.com - folder: m_website1
m.website2.com - folder: m_website2

james96 · 29th May 2011, 11:29 AM

From my experience, I don't think you need a script to have a complete awesome mobile version of a site ready. How many of you have worked with GoMobi? Use it and your mobile website will be ready in the next 10 minutes. A good alternative to this is MobisiteGalore.

Truly, this service is easy to sell to offline business owners. Who is not aware of high rate of Smartphone usage and the business opprtunities it comes with? Not even the offline business owners.

Since both providers mentioned above allow you a trial for free, select some hotels and restaurants in your area that already owns desktop websites, design the mobile versions of them and go ahead to present to the actual business owners with your own Smartphone. You will surely get good results.

You cannot be using email marketing for this kind of service if you are not ready for frustration. You need personal contact to get a positive nod.

sb · 29th May 2011, 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by Local

How does having a the same subdomain "m" on, for example a hostgator biz package where the domains are add on domains, so once you create the first "m" subdomain for one domain, there can only be one "m" folder.

I'm sure that will make sense to many of you.

:-)

Evie

Hey Evie,

You can have as many "m" subdomains as you have domains. Doesn't matter that you have all the domains on HostGator or any other hosting company. Each domain can have as many subdomains as you want.

Hope that makes sense.

Unless there's something I don't understand about the HostGator biz package. I use a different hosting company so maybe I'm incorrect.

Quentin · 29th May 2011, 07:32 PM

Hi James

I guess you also set up their business website on blogger or homestead as well. Because this is basically doing.

Anyhow gomobi etc are good services but why would you pay a company to send them all your traffic. Its is just bad advice.

Easy is not always better.

Personally as a consultant I want my customers to get all the credit for all their sites. By using these services you are giving gomobi or whatever you use all the credit.

Quentin

Jay Moreno · 29th May 2011, 09:51 PM

@james96

I have personally tested both gomobi and mobilesitegalore and even setup a white label version of mobisitegalore for someone - personally I dont like either of them, mobisitegalore designs are just dreadful and amateurish, the output of gomobi is slightly better...

if i HAD to choose from the two i would go with gomobi - however gomobi isnt without its problems it has some terrible design errors that lead to a bad user experience, i know last time i looked at the gallery feature it was dreadful, they also have some overly small icon buttons too...

its not difficult to set up your own mobile sites, its cheaper and quicker and the results are far more pleasing not to mention you host them and have far better control of them...

just my 2cents... but everyone to there own whatever works for them

SirThomas · 29th May 2011, 10:16 PM

Guys, have you ever had a "potential" customer's web guy try to copy the code from a "demo" site you prepared for the prospect?

Is there a way to cloak the demo site (cover the code, redirect etc), so they can not rip your design? Just curious... :-)

Thomas

Quentin · 29th May 2011, 10:44 PM

Yep I have had a couple do this however there is not much you can do except possibly do it in graphics instead. Just take snapshots of the website and make a graphical representation and load that.

In the end I contacted those customers that did because I saw the new mobile site and just outed them for my own pleasure.

It has been less than 2% so all in all not worth wasting any time over.

Quentin

SirThomas · 29th May 2011, 11:33 PM

I agree, not worth wasting time. I was just thinking about the ways to redirect or cloak, so they don't see the actual code, but if it hardly ever happens....

Taking snapshots might be a way to avoid the issue altogether. Thanks Quentin for your response.

Thomas

Luke Bishop · 30th May 2011, 02:28 AM

I'm doing this atm, I can pump these out in no time.

pm me if you would like the psd template.

sitefurnace · 30th May 2011, 02:59 AM

Jay can you expand on your method please.

Do you just create a mobile formatted site or a normal web page as well.

What is the benefit of hosting on your server to them. You have toaccess there existing server to upload the redirection script so whynot upload their site then. How do out justify them hosting it with you.

Holy crap! $37 for hosting one page of HTML - THATS CRAZY. I don't think anyone here in the UK would pay that. I might try though!

profitgenerator · 30th May 2011, 03:53 AM

Originally Posted by allegrity

Take the time to read through the whole thread...you will figure out everything you need to know. You also might want to check out Quentin's or Will's mobile website WSOs.

Anyone know what the difference is in Quentin and Will's WSO's? They are both about building mobile websites, right? Are they the same method or??

Jay Moreno · 30th May 2011, 08:47 AM

@sitefurnance

i use my own custom version of iwebkit

depending on clients needs i use three different approaches

1) i will use my own custom mobile template and plugin for joomla and make the site dynamic
2) i will customize iwekbit to suit my needs to make like iPhone App formatted website
3) i will create a secondary site built specifically for mobile devices

the third option is by far the easiest...

most of my clients are already hosting with me... since i did their main websites... i have 2 very reliable VPS and also offer free 12 months webhosting for their mobile site and their main website...

i have found in most cases new mobile clients end up having new main web sites built too!

i charge upwards of $250 to $1000's for mobile sites and upwards of $2500 for regular sites - i only charge annually for regular websites...

whos charging $37 for hosting? if you really wanted that extra $37 i would just merge it into the initial cost... and say FREE hosting for 1st 12 months... and then charge them $37 after the first 12 months...

scotth · 30th May 2011, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by profitgenerator

Anyone know what the difference is in Quentin and Will's WSO's? They are both about building mobile websites, right? Are they the same method or??

Quentin and Willr are two different types of mobile website design WSO's. Quentins is script used in a HTML editor..Wiilr is templates that you can change to desire type of business.

Quentin · 30th May 2011, 09:25 AM

Hi Moxil

It is based on experience nothing else.

I set it up for a few accounts a while ago and looked at a couple of pages and it looked fine but then the customers came back and said they wanted it removed because a lot of the pages were mucking up.

Now me personally I love WP Touch as I mainly have a lof of blogging sites so it works great.

I think with all the auto converters if you build for them as well as for the main site they are great. I actually I use WPTouch for some big customers but as a CMS for the mobile site. No one ever sees the wordpress site.

The other thing is it is quite hard to see them and show clients which was hard to sell them on the concept.

Quentin

marcdonovan · 30th May 2011, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by Quentin

Here is one of my customers you can try out

Vale Display Solutions

Quentin

This site is not phone compliant and has a ton of errors.

MobiReady Report... processing your page

I do these in notepad and they are pretty simple. Not sure why people pay for a script. Maybe I will make my own script. Is anyone interested in another WSO to do this, but to do it so it passes the test?

MobiReady Report... processing your page

Jay Moreno · 30th May 2011, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by marcdonovan

This site is not phone compliant and has a ton of errors.

MobiReady Report... processing your page

I do these in notepad and they are pretty simple. Not sure why people pay for a script. Maybe I will make my own script. Is anyone interested in another WSO to do this, but to do it so it passes the test?

MobiReady Report... processing your page

the mobiready report can be considered outdated in a way - it will give you false positives... the report is based on your site being rendered properly on what we call feature phones... not smart phones like the iphone, android, etc...

look at the rotating header when you first go to the site you will see screenshots of sites that got a 100% mobirating report - one of the screenshots up there is a green looking one its a poker site... i did that in joomla about 5 years ago! lol

Gale10 · 30th May 2011, 09:51 AM

I know how to build the mobile sites thanks to WillRs WSO and I have built one for a friend of mine, in return for a testimonial.

I have been looking for businesses in my area, but here in the UK loads and loads of businesses only have a page on a site where there are lots of business, like yelp.co.uk and touchlocal.com. There are a great deal less sites that are fredblogsbuilders dot whatever.

I don't think that businesses that are too cheap to pay for a standard website, and use yelp or touchlocal, will buy a mobile website. Any thoughts?

Anyhow I have a list now of local businesses that have their own websites that get less than 50% when their websites are entered into W3C, so hopefully these are the guys that I should be targetting.

I am hoping this is what I am supposed to be doing; it seems to be they are the most likely people to buy a mobile website. Or just the ones that need them!

Is my criteria too strict? Should I target the business owners with no website of their own?

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Ruth

Jay Moreno · 30th May 2011, 09:59 AM

@gale,

take a look at your local newspaper... see whos advertising... typically they are paying a good chunk of cash to be there...

1) if they dont have a website listed period they need one....
2) if they have a site listed see if it redirects to a mobile site - if not sell them the benefits of a mobile site with QR codes/tracking for them to place on their print adverts
3) if they have a site listed and it directs to mobile sell them QR code tracking if they arent already using them...

People who are spending money on marketing/advertising like this for me anyway seem more receptive to this kinda of stuff... ie mobile marketing

dont forget you can also offer them SMS marketing too in addition to mobile sites and qr code tracking

HTH

jay

Quentin · 30th May 2011, 10:01 AM

Marc do you think my customer cares whether it validates or not.

His customers can see it great on their mobile phones and he got quite a nice order the other day from it.

Its all about sales not validation.

Gee Youtube only got a 4 with almost the same errors as mine with all their html 5 and programmers..

But go for validation if you think it will help you get customers.

I am now over 200 mobile sites and booked out 2 months in advance so it really doesn't matter to much to me. They look good and the clients and customers like them.

Basically all the fails have to do with size and tables and I am working on fixing some of them but most are not a problem.

Quentin

epodowski · 30th May 2011, 10:30 AM

Thank you Scotth and Quentin. I was doing some research for redesigning our web site when I came across this thread. If people take the time to read the posts, this thread will put anyone in the moble web site design business.

I am going to continue reading....Thank you again!

Gale10 · 30th May 2011, 11:00 AM

ukescuba,

Thanks for your advice. I don't know much about QR codes but I will look at people who are paying for advertising - that is a good tip, thanks!

It's all part of the adventure........

Thanks,

Ruth

Steve Solem · 30th May 2011, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by profitgenerator

Anyone know what the difference is in Quentin and Will's WSO's? They are both about building mobile websites, right? Are they the same method or??

I bought Quentin's a few months ago before buying Will's just last week and while there are some similarities between the two, they each have enough unique, good advice in them I'm glad I have them both.

Molad · 30th May 2011, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by Steve Solem

I bought Quentin's a few months ago before buying Will's just last week and while there are some similarities between the two, they each have enough unique, good advice in them I'm glad I have them both.

Yes I agree with Steve. They have similarities but there is a lot of information that si unique to each WSO that it's worth it getting both.

If you no zilch about mobile websites, these two WSO's will give a lot to get started.

profitgenerator · 30th May 2011, 01:39 PM

Scott, Steve & Molad...thank you for your input. I appreciate all the help I can get...yes I am new to this and trying to learn as much as possible as fast as possible. I did get Will's WSO a couple days ago. Don't have Quentin's 'yet'. This thread has been a great help too. I don't understand it all yet, but hopefully I'll get there soon.

Molad · 30th May 2011, 01:46 PM

I'm going to ask a somewhat stupid question!.

Is there anyone here that started selling mobile websites and has made success of it since this thread started. Why do I care? I need some inspiration... I guess

I know Allegrity has been grinding away at this for a while with no sales, but is there anyone that has had success especially as a newbie to IM?

profitgenerator · 30th May 2011, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by Molad

I'm going to ask a somewhat stupid question!.

Is there anyone here that started selling mobile websites and has made success of it since this thread started. Why do I care? I need some inspiration... I guess

I know Allegrity has been grinding away at this for a while with no sales, but is there anyone that has had success especially as a newbie to IM?

Perhaps because today is a holiday here in the US, many of the people that participate in this thread are away from their computers.

Hopefully, those that are making money will chime in later.

Hingefalls · 30th May 2011, 03:48 PM

Don't send anything out without getting the prospective client to agree he wants to see what you have to offer. Otherwise you are spinning your wheels.

fernandoescobar · 30th May 2011, 03:57 PM

Someone earlier asked about getting clients...

If you are just starting out with this offering, I would suggest going back to you current clients and actually creating a 'mobile' version of the site that you created for them, if possible. Once they see it and once you educate them on how it could benefit them, they will be much closer to actually writing you a check. It does not always work but I had really good success at first.

Also, don't be greedy. If I've already got them as a client, I use this as n upgrade and charge them anywhere from a few hundred dollars all the way up to $750. Use your best judgment.

It's all about educating your customers as to why they need to make this an important part of their marketing efforts.

Cheers,

Gale10 · 30th May 2011, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by Molad

I'm going to ask a somewhat stupid question!.

Is there anyone here that started selling mobile websites and has made success of it since this thread started. Why do I care? I need some inspiration... I guess

I know Allegrity has been grinding away at this for a while with no sales, but is there anyone that has had success especially as a newbie to IM?

Hi,

I am going to phone for appts on Wednesday; I will update to let you know how easy it is to get appts. I am a newbie at this, I have only built one mobile website and that was for a friend in return for a testimonial.

Best wishes,

Ruth

zoro · 30th May 2011, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Gale10

I know how to build the mobile sites thanks to WillRs WSO and I have built one for a friend of mine, in return for a testimonial.

I have been looking for businesses in my area, but here in the UK loads and loads of businesses only have a page on a site where there are lots of business, like yelp.co.uk and touchlocal.com. There are a great deal less sites that are fredblogsbuilders dot whatever.

I don't think that businesses that are too cheap to pay for a standard website, and use yelp or touchlocal, will buy a mobile website. Any thoughts?

Anyhow I have a list now of local businesses that have their own websites that get less than 50% when their websites are entered into W3C, so hopefully these are the guys that I should be targetting.

I am hoping this is what I am supposed to be doing; it seems to be they are the most likely people to buy a mobile website. Or just the ones that need them!

Is my criteria too strict? Should I target the business owners with no website of their own?

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Ruth

Ruth, if you bought Will's mobile website course you will see that Will has supplied a list of the best type of businesses to target.

Luke Bishop · 30th May 2011, 08:22 PM

Hey guys,

I've come across a few weebly mobile websites, they look really cheesy and 95% of the time the screen dimensions are off.
I was thinking, should i bother targeting these local biz and let them know I can do a better job?

Just say i was given the go ahead, would uploading the new site be a pain? How does it it usualy work, is it under "weebly's" server or the business?

asnorth · 31st May 2011, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by Luke Bishop

Hey guys,

I've across a few weebly mobile websites, they look really cheesy and 95% of the time the screen dimensions are off.
I was thinking, should bother targeting these local biz and let them know I can do a better job?

Just say i was given the go ahead, would uploading the new site be a pain? How does it it usualy work, is it under "weebly's" server or the business?

From what I can see weebly only host the pages you create with them they don't give you additional server space (unless it's different for the paid/upgraded version) so you would have to host the mobile site seperately. Maybe use that as an opportunity to upgrade their main site also?
I like the template you created for the fitness website above, looks really nice well done.

Tony

philboy uk · 31st May 2011, 01:29 AM

I would appreciate any advice on adding a search function to a mobile website. I ask this in anticipation of talking with estate agents, as their mobile websites normally display price ranges.

WillR · 31st May 2011, 01:31 AM

Originally Posted by ukescuba

@gale,

take a look at your local newspaper... see whos advertising... typically they are paying a good chunk of cash to be there...

1) if they dont have a website listed period they need one....
2) if they have a site listed see if it redirects to a mobile site - if not sell them the benefits of a mobile site with QR codes/tracking for them to place on their print adverts
3) if they have a site listed and it directs to mobile sell them QR code tracking if they arent already using them...

People who are spending money on marketing/advertising like this for me anyway seem more receptive to this kinda of stuff... ie mobile marketing

dont forget you can also offer them SMS marketing too in addition to mobile sites and qr code tracking

HTH

jay

It's a good tip and one everyone should take note of. Anyone who is spending money on advertising their website has an even greater reason to pay attention to how well their website looks and acts on a mobile device. After-all, you wouldn't advertise your phone number if you're phone was broken, would you?

Considering that 1 in 5 local searches is now mobile that means 20% of the traffic to a site is coming from a mobile device. That's huge and will only keep growing. If a business is spending good money on attracting those customers to their website then they could easily be throwing away 20% of their advertising budget on people who can't access their website properly.

Check out the yellow pages, Google Adwords, paid business directories, etc. Selling a service like this to someone who already 'gets' online advertising can make the job a whole lot easier for you.

asnorth · 31st May 2011, 02:39 AM

Originally Posted by WillR

Considering that 1 in 5 local searches is now mobile that means 20% of the traffic to a site is coming from a mobile device. That's huge and will only keep growing. If a business is spending good money on attracting those customers to their website then they could easily be throwing away 20% of their advertising budget on people who can't access their website properly.

Will, that is a great way of looking at it and a big selling point.

27th May 2011, 09:24 PM	#1054
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: In the old days and still true today is build a list if you want to make good sales. If you can't build a list piggy back on some one else's list and this is what I do. For example the last month I contacted a printer and took him out to lunch. He has a lot of customers. My Treat. I showed him QR Codes and mobile sites. Now we are doing these things together. 1. We did a mail out to all his customers about QR Codes and mobile sites. 2. We held a Friday afternoon cocktails where we did a short presentation on QR Codes and Mobile Websites. We will do this again. 3 We did a joint add in the local paper. This accomplished a few things. 1. He is now funneling me a lot of work. 2. He has got a lot of new jobs using QR Codes 3. We have raised awareness re mobile sites and QR Codes You see you can go after the ones and twos however if you think more outside the box you can get hundreds and these people will then refer others if you ask them. Second strategy is with other groups like social clubs etc. Same sort of thing but they cannot profit off QR Codes so I offer a free mobile site and seminar for them. Last strategy is that I send out letters to networking groups of which there are lots around. So like BMI, Rotary etc and send a nice presentation about what I do and offer to do free talks. So this is how I get a lot of my work. How about contacting some online businesses as Mobile is for them too. Software distributors, hosting companies, sms, and more. Many of these do outsourcing so you have to offer them a good deal. Hope this gets your mental juices going to help you target lots of clients rather than going after individual clients. Quentin
	DIY Product Creation Online Business Training on How To Create Products to sell online Plus Lots More.

28th May 2011, 06:59 AM	#1056
Xebekn HyperActive Warrior Join Date: 2011 Posts: 102 Thanks: 7 Thanked 6 Times in 5 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Well, I figured if you PM'd me I would be able to reply back but it still won't let me. No worries, I just had some questions on your mobile script but I imagine your ad covers it all. I'll look into it further today. Thanks!

28th May 2011, 07:21 AM	#1057
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: You can email me from the site. Q
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29th May 2011, 02:33 AM	#1064
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Had a look at oakridgebellows.com and looks great however the images on my HTC wildfire do not fir so creates a scroll sideways. Maybe you could optimize your graphics with a simple image id to auto size to make the experience better. A couple of lines of code and it would be perfect. Here is one of my customers you can try out Vale Display Solutions Quentin
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29th May 2011, 09:26 AM	#1065
Jay Moreno Mobile+WP = JumpMobi.com War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: San Antonio, Tx Posts: 1,270 Thanks: 301 Thanked 449 Times in 309 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: thanks guys for the feedback - trying out some new things as we speak!

29th May 2011, 11:29 AM	#1067
james96 Active Warrior Join Date: 2011 Posts: 32 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: From my experience, I don't think you need a script to have a complete awesome mobile version of a site ready. How many of you have worked with GoMobi? Use it and your mobile website will be ready in the next 10 minutes. A good alternative to this is MobisiteGalore. Truly, this service is easy to sell to offline business owners. Who is not aware of high rate of Smartphone usage and the business opprtunities it comes with? Not even the offline business owners. Since both providers mentioned above allow you a trial for free, select some hotels and restaurants in your area that already owns desktop websites, design the mobile versions of them and go ahead to present to the actual business owners with your own Smartphone. You will surely get good results. You cannot be using email marketing for this kind of service if you are not ready for frustration. You need personal contact to get a positive nod.

29th May 2011, 07:32 PM	#1069
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Hi James I guess you also set up their business website on blogger or homestead as well. Because this is basically doing. Anyhow gomobi etc are good services but why would you pay a company to send them all your traffic. Its is just bad advice. Easy is not always better. Personally as a consultant I want my customers to get all the credit for all their sites. By using these services you are giving gomobi or whatever you use all the credit. Quentin
	DIY Product Creation Online Business Training on How To Create Products to sell online Plus Lots More.

29th May 2011, 09:51 PM	#1070
Jay Moreno Mobile+WP = JumpMobi.com War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: San Antonio, Tx Posts: 1,270 Thanks: 301 Thanked 449 Times in 309 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: @james96 I have personally tested both gomobi and mobilesitegalore and even setup a white label version of mobisitegalore for someone - personally I dont like either of them, mobisitegalore designs are just dreadful and amateurish, the output of gomobi is slightly better... if i HAD to choose from the two i would go with gomobi - however gomobi isnt without its problems it has some terrible design errors that lead to a bad user experience, i know last time i looked at the gallery feature it was dreadful, they also have some overly small icon buttons too... its not difficult to set up your own mobile sites, its cheaper and quicker and the results are far more pleasing not to mention you host them and have far better control of them... just my 2cents... but everyone to there own whatever works for them

29th May 2011, 10:16 PM	#1071
SirThomas Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 1,007 Thanks: 251 Thanked 228 Times in 179 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Guys, have you ever had a "potential" customer's web guy try to copy the code from a "demo" site you prepared for the prospect? Is there a way to cloak the demo site (cover the code, redirect etc), so they can not rip your design? Just curious... :-) Thomas

29th May 2011, 10:44 PM	#1072
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Yep I have had a couple do this however there is not much you can do except possibly do it in graphics instead. Just take snapshots of the website and make a graphical representation and load that. In the end I contacted those customers that did because I saw the new mobile site and just outed them for my own pleasure. It has been less than 2% so all in all not worth wasting any time over. Quentin
	DIY Product Creation Online Business Training on How To Create Products to sell online Plus Lots More.

29th May 2011, 11:33 PM	#1073
SirThomas Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 1,007 Thanks: 251 Thanked 228 Times in 179 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: I agree, not worth wasting time. I was just thinking about the ways to redirect or cloak, so they don't see the actual code, but if it hardly ever happens.... Taking snapshots might be a way to avoid the issue altogether. Thanks Quentin for your response. Thomas

30th May 2011, 02:28 AM	#1074
Luke Bishop Focus on the objective Join Date: 2011 Location: Australia Posts: 184 Thanks: 31 Thanked 32 Times in 26 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: I'm doing this atm, I can pump these out in no time. pm me if you would like the psd template.

30th May 2011, 02:59 AM	#1075
sitefurnace HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: UK Posts: 231 Thanks: 4 Thanked 36 Times in 23 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Jay can you expand on your method please. Do you just create a mobile formatted site or a normal web page as well. What is the benefit of hosting on your server to them. You have toaccess there existing server to upload the redirection script so whynot upload their site then. How do out justify them hosting it with you. Holy crap! $37 for hosting one page of HTML - THATS CRAZY. I don't think anyone here in the UK would pay that. I might try though!

30th May 2011, 08:47 AM	#1077
Jay Moreno Mobile+WP = JumpMobi.com War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: San Antonio, Tx Posts: 1,270 Thanks: 301 Thanked 449 Times in 309 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: @sitefurnance i use my own custom version of iwebkit depending on clients needs i use three different approaches 1) i will use my own custom mobile template and plugin for joomla and make the site dynamic 2) i will customize iwekbit to suit my needs to make like iPhone App formatted website 3) i will create a secondary site built specifically for mobile devices the third option is by far the easiest... most of my clients are already hosting with me... since i did their main websites... i have 2 very reliable VPS and also offer free 12 months webhosting for their mobile site and their main website... i have found in most cases new mobile clients end up having new main web sites built too! i charge upwards of $250 to $1000's for mobile sites and upwards of $2500 for regular sites - i only charge annually for regular websites... whos charging $37 for hosting? if you really wanted that extra $37 i would just merge it into the initial cost... and say FREE hosting for 1st 12 months... and then charge them $37 after the first 12 months...

30th May 2011, 09:25 AM	#1079
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Hi Moxil It is based on experience nothing else. I set it up for a few accounts a while ago and looked at a couple of pages and it looked fine but then the customers came back and said they wanted it removed because a lot of the pages were mucking up. Now me personally I love WP Touch as I mainly have a lof of blogging sites so it works great. I think with all the auto converters if you build for them as well as for the main site they are great. I actually I use WPTouch for some big customers but as a CMS for the mobile site. No one ever sees the wordpress site. The other thing is it is quite hard to see them and show clients which was hard to sell them on the concept. Quentin
	DIY Product Creation Online Business Training on How To Create Products to sell online Plus Lots More.

30th May 2011, 09:51 AM	#1082
Gale10 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 175 Thanks: 243 Thanked 31 Times in 28 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: I know how to build the mobile sites thanks to WillRs WSO and I have built one for a friend of mine, in return for a testimonial. I have been looking for businesses in my area, but here in the UK loads and loads of businesses only have a page on a site where there are lots of business, like yelp.co.uk and touchlocal.com. There are a great deal less sites that are fredblogsbuilders dot whatever. I don't think that businesses that are too cheap to pay for a standard website, and use yelp or touchlocal, will buy a mobile website. Any thoughts? Anyhow I have a list now of local businesses that have their own websites that get less than 50% when their websites are entered into W3C, so hopefully these are the guys that I should be targetting. I am hoping this is what I am supposed to be doing; it seems to be they are the most likely people to buy a mobile website. Or just the ones that need them! Is my criteria too strict? Should I target the business owners with no website of their own? Any thoughts? Thanks Ruth
	Want well-written articles from a native English speaking writer? Want them written quickly with the minimum of fuss? Want one revision free? YES

30th May 2011, 09:59 AM	#1083
Jay Moreno Mobile+WP = JumpMobi.com War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: San Antonio, Tx Posts: 1,270 Thanks: 301 Thanked 449 Times in 309 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: @gale, take a look at your local newspaper... see whos advertising... typically they are paying a good chunk of cash to be there... 1) if they dont have a website listed period they need one.... 2) if they have a site listed see if it redirects to a mobile site - if not sell them the benefits of a mobile site with QR codes/tracking for them to place on their print adverts 3) if they have a site listed and it directs to mobile sell them QR code tracking if they arent already using them... People who are spending money on marketing/advertising like this for me anyway seem more receptive to this kinda of stuff... ie mobile marketing dont forget you can also offer them SMS marketing too in addition to mobile sites and qr code tracking HTH jay

30th May 2011, 10:01 AM	#1084
Quentin Web Marketing For Profit War Room Member Join Date: 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,895 Thanks: 8 Thanked 1,162 Times in 528 Posts Blog Entries: 10	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Marc do you think my customer cares whether it validates or not. His customers can see it great on their mobile phones and he got quite a nice order the other day from it. Its all about sales not validation. Gee Youtube only got a 4 with almost the same errors as mine with all their html 5 and programmers.. But go for validation if you think it will help you get customers. I am now over 200 mobile sites and booked out 2 months in advance so it really doesn't matter to much to me. They look good and the clients and customers like them. Basically all the fails have to do with size and tables and I am working on fixing some of them but most are not a problem. Quentin
	DIY Product Creation Online Business Training on How To Create Products to sell online Plus Lots More.

30th May 2011, 10:30 AM	#1085
epodowski Warrior Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Lutherville, Maryland Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Thank you Scotth and Quentin. I was doing some research for redesigning our web site when I came across this thread. If people take the time to read the posts, this thread will put anyone in the moble web site design business. I am going to continue reading....Thank you again!
	Thank you, Ed Podowski, Chief Client Solutions Specialist digiGENICS, LLC

30th May 2011, 11:00 AM	#1086
Gale10 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 175 Thanks: 243 Thanked 31 Times in 28 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: ukescuba, Thanks for your advice. I don't know much about QR codes but I will look at people who are paying for advertising - that is a good tip, thanks! It's all part of the adventure........ Thanks, Ruth
	Want well-written articles from a native English speaking writer? Want them written quickly with the minimum of fuss? Want one revision free? YES

30th May 2011, 01:39 PM	#1089
profitgenerator HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: , , USA. Posts: 184 Thanks: 12 Thanked 59 Times in 43 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Scott, Steve & Molad...thank you for your input. I appreciate all the help I can get...yes I am new to this and trying to learn as much as possible as fast as possible. I did get Will's WSO a couple days ago. Don't have Quentin's 'yet'. This thread has been a great help too. I don't understand it all yet, but hopefully I'll get there soon.

30th May 2011, 01:46 PM	#1090
Molad HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2011 Location: Greater Toronto Area Posts: 142 Thanks: 21 Thanked 9 Times in 9 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: I'm going to ask a somewhat stupid question!. Is there anyone here that started selling mobile websites and has made success of it since this thread started. Why do I care? I need some inspiration... I guess I know Allegrity has been grinding away at this for a while with no sales, but is there anyone that has had success especially as a newbie to IM?
	Last edited on 30th May 2011 at 01:47 PM. Reason: SP

30th May 2011, 03:48 PM	#1092
Hingefalls Boyd War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 9 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Don't send anything out without getting the prospective client to agree he wants to see what you have to offer. Otherwise you are spinning your wheels.

30th May 2011, 03:57 PM	#1093
fernandoescobar Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Southwest Idaho Posts: 53 Thanks: 1 Thanked 7 Times in 6 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Someone earlier asked about getting clients... If you are just starting out with this offering, I would suggest going back to you current clients and actually creating a 'mobile' version of the site that you created for them, if possible. Once they see it and once you educate them on how it could benefit them, they will be much closer to actually writing you a check. It does not always work but I had really good success at first. Also, don't be greedy. If I've already got them as a client, I use this as n upgrade and charge them anywhere from a few hundred dollars all the way up to $750. Use your best judgment. It's all about educating your customers as to why they need to make this an important part of their marketing efforts. Cheers,

30th May 2011, 08:22 PM	#1096
Luke Bishop Focus on the objective Join Date: 2011 Location: Australia Posts: 184 Thanks: 31 Thanked 32 Times in 26 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: Hey guys, I've come across a few weebly mobile websites, they look really cheesy and 95% of the time the screen dimensions are off. I was thinking, should i bother targeting these local biz and let them know I can do a better job? Just say i was given the go ahead, would uploading the new site be a pain? How does it it usualy work, is it under "weebly's" server or the business?

31st May 2011, 01:29 AM	#1098
philboy uk HyperActive Warrior Join Date: 2010 Location: Berkshire UK Posts: 367 Thanks: 68 Thanked 101 Times in 76 Posts	Re: Mobile Website Design big business in our local market! Share on: I would appreciate any advice on adding a search function to a mobile website. I ask this in anticipation of talking with estate agents, as their mobile websites normally display price ranges.