Newsletter Archive | Oct 27, 2010
Honey, did you see where I put my Blackberry?
In the last 10 months (Nov 09 – Sept /10) the ratio of web visitors who used their mobile device (IPhone, Blackberry, etc.) instead of a conventional computer to find the website they were looking for increased by 136%. That’s right, 136%! In 10 months! Even more surprising is that a good portion of this growth came from seniors. Your challenge as a business manager, is to make sure web surfers can see your site when they go looking. Because not all websites are mobile friendly.
What is a mobile friendly site? Most websites are designed for powerful desktop and laptop computers, with large screens and high speed internet, usually loaded with high quality pictures and graphics to help bring them to life. This style of web design does not always transfer well to smaller screens on less powerful devices. But, web sites can be designed and programmed to be compatible to both mobile and desktop applications, as long as the thinking goes in up front.
Why is a mobile site important? If users try to view your website via their mobile device and find it slow or hard to navigate they will leave and go to your competitors’ website. This means you could be losing business without even knowing it.
What can you do if you don’t have a mobile friendly site? Using current, powerful content management systems (CMS), web site developers can design and program websites that work on both desktop/laptop computers and on mobile devices. Not just large corporate sites, but Ma and Pa sites too. For example just 2 months ago SilverStripe, a New Zealand based CMS we are particularly fond of released their mobile module. This module is designed to easily allow developers like us create separate mobile friendly sites alongside the regular site, often at minimal extra cost to our clients.
Make sure you aren’t losing sales opportunities in the mobile device market.
We are Webbuilders Group and we help companies achieve better results from the internet. Call us.
