Somewhere you’ve heard the idea that you should provide different or less content on your mobile view than on your full site view. That misperception stems from the idea that people going online on a mobile device must only be trying to accomplish a specific task. They are on-the-go, in a hurry, and just want to accomplish one or two specific things. The reality is that people go online using a mobile device in all kinds of situations, frequently in a relaxed setting when there is a PC with a much larger screen size available.

People are choosing to do all kinds of online searches using mobile devices because it is faster and more convenient – not because they want different information. The web is not a laptop or a mobile device; the web is content.

The most notable thing about this chart from comScore is that people clearly are using multiple devices to access all kinds of content. People may start on one device, get interrupted, and go back to the same site or search on another kind of device.

3 of 4 mobile searches trigger follow-up actions – additional research, visiting a store, calling a business, making a purchase, or sharing.* When people use mobile search to help make a decision, they are more likely to follow through – including 57% more likely to visit a store and 39% more likely to call a business.*

Without content, the web would not exist. Without good content, you cannot have a good website. Sure, there are many elements that constitute a good site, but it’s all moot without good content. This is true regardless of what kind of device or size of screen someone uses to view your content.
So you need content – period. You need the same content on your site no matter what kind of device accesses it. Content that is not needed for a mobile user, is not needed for a desktop user, either. Get rid of it altogether. If you make assumptions about anyone’s context while they‘re visiting your site or what kind of information they seek or what they are trying to accomplish based on what kind of device they might be using, you will be wrong.

77% of mobile searches occur at home or at work – both locations where someone likely has a PC available to use. Only 17% occur “on the go.”*

Why? Speed and convenience. Why search on your phone instead of your PC with a bigger screen? You don’t have to get up, go to the PC, and wait for it to boot.

The best browser is the one that someone has. You don’t get to decide what device or browser someone uses. It’s your responsibility to clearly define your business and provide the same content all the time and let your users take care of their device choices.

If the experience your website provides is a bad experience, what are the chances someone will give you a second chance and come back to your site? Not much. If you’re there for them, they’ll have a great experience; that’s good for them and for your business.

One of the best benefits of the proliferation of mobile devices is the evaluation and cleaning out of extraneous and useless content.

*Google study, in partnership with Nielsen. March 2013.

The post Mobile Content = Web Content appeared first on 435 Digital.

This seems overwhelming. Why?

Re-designing a site to work well on mobile devices is like moving from a 3,500 square-foot house to a 750 square-foot apartment. Do you still need a table and chairs? Sure. Do you still need a bed? Sure. Do you need cabinets, a fridge, a sink? Yes. You will need most of the same stuff. You will not need duplicates or all of the extraneous pieces that covered walls and sat on floors. It’ll likely be hard to let go of some things and to let go of that space. But what happens in the process?

You notice what is most valuable. You make choices. The things you select for the new, smaller space mean a lot. You might have a new appreciation for them. You might decide that much of the stuff wasn’t needed even in the large house. And friends who come over might find it refreshing.

Not even taking into consideration the capabilities of mobile devices that we don’t have on desktops, the space alone forces a hard look at the goals set for a website. What is the business goal? What does the user need? What is the primary activity to perform on the site? How is all of that best supported?

Mobile is an opportunity to focus. Designing a site to flow well and look good on any device size is an opportunity to improve the site even if no smartphones existed. The fact that they do, and the fact that more and more people are using mobile devices and expect sites to be mobile friendly, makes the need to improve for mobile necessary and valuable for any business.

The post Making Your Website Mobile Friendly Helps Focus Business Goals appeared first on 435 Digital.

Why does a small business need a mobile friendly website?

How do people find out about your business? Do they hear about you from their friends or co-workers? Do they stumble upon your storefront as they are walking down the street? Do they see an ad for your business in the local paper? All of these are fine ways for you to reach people, but if they’re the only ways, you’re missing out on a lot of potential customers.

More and more, people are out and about, and they pull out their web-enabled phones and search. One in three mobile searches have local intent, and 59% of consumers visit a local store after searching for it on the mobile Web.

When those consumers are searching, do they find you? Are you there to be found?

According to eMarketer, by 2013 the majority of mobile phone subscribers will have a smartphone. Already 61% of smartphone users search for local information, and 52% of search clicks result in calls.

That’s not only a lot of potential people searching for your business while they are out and ready to come visit, the numbers are increasing continuously. When someone searches for your business or type of business, it is critical to have a mobile-friendly website that makes your information easy to access and your phone an easy touch to call.

So how do you get that mobile friendly site?

It can seem overwhelming, of course. You have a business you know and love, and it needs your attention. So how can you go about getting an effective web presence while maintaining focus on the core of what you do?

Here are five steps in a proven process that will get you from current state to having an effective mobile web presence to help drive more customers to your business.

Identify the goal. Common goals are:

• Drive both new and existing customers to your store or business.
• Generate calls to your business.

Create a solution.

• Layout the website structure and content in a way that provides the best user experience.
• Great customer service includes providing a great user experience on your site. Happy web visitors will become happy customers.

Design and Write.

• Create a design that conveys the identity and nature of your business and that appeals to your target audience.
• Write content that enables people to quickly and easily find what they need. Make critical information such as your phone number, address, and operating hours easy to see at a quick glance.

Develop the site.

• Code the site in the most efficient way that achieves a responsive design so that your site looks great on any size device screen – from desktops to smartphones.
• Ensure a content management system that enables you to keep your content updated regularly.

Launch your site.

• With good search engine optimization (SEO) and strong content, you will be found more and more over time. Remember that it does take time to build up your site’s reputation and to be found consistently high in search engine results.
• Promote your site and be found in those ever-increasing local searches that potential customers are doing on their phones while out looking for what they need.

Always remember your customers. What do they want, and how can you help them? First, they want to find you and to quickly understand what you offer. More and more they want to achieve this while out and using their phones to search. Then they want to call or visit your business.

You can already provide excellent customer service just by having a mobile-friendly website that is there for people at the moment they need it.

The post Mobile-Friendly Website – Why and How for Your Small Business appeared first on 435 Digital.

The panel started off with an announcement of a mobile marketing report released by ClickZ and the Google Analytics team detailing the future of mobile marketing and measurement.

The panel discussed how, even though the use of mobile devices has become extremely popular in the last few years, only recently has the marketing value of mobile begun to be realized. As a result, they expect mobile marketing budgets to increase. Mr. Singer stressed the value of utilizing mobile analytics to win support for larger mobile budgets.

The panel stressed the importance of considering how people use mobile devices. Just because a device is mobile does not necessarily mean that the user is “mobile”. Mr. Allen stated that “There isn’t a ‘mobile’ user any more. Users just move from device to device to device.” Mr. Singer talked made the point that mobile conversions are different from web conversions. A mobile conversion might be a click-to-call, opt-in for an email newsletter, or just take the form of general engagement. He also stated that nearly 1 our of 5 of all marketers market a non-mobile experience to mobile users, meaning that mobile users might be directed to a landing page designed for a desktop computer, which results in an unsatisfying user experience.

A popular question from the audience was whether to have an app or a mobile version of a website. The panel agreed that each can be valuable, although each has worth in it’s own right, and that the needs of the user should guide the decision-making process. Mr. Hafiz stated that studies have shown that a lot of users on tablet devices use the tablet’s browser to make purchases (as opposed to apps), and suggested that a balance be found between apps and mobile websites. Mr. Singer mentioned that app engagement is important, and stated that, once a user has downloaded your app, “if they’ve used it (only) once you’ve failed; you should not have an app.”

The post SES Chicago: Metrics for Success in the Mobile and Apps Ecosystem appeared first on 435 Digital.

With all the talk lately about the mobile web and the desktop web, it starts to feel as though we have many different webs, different internets. But there is only one. There is one web, and you are on it if you have a website. The differences we have are mobile experiences and desktop experiences. What your website offers for those different experiences can make the difference in the perception of your product and in your relationships with your customers.

All of this sounds nice – mobile first, one web, mobile experiences. What does it mean, though? And why does it make any sense to do it?

What designing for a mobile experience first means:

• Focus. Taking advantage of the constraints of the mobile screen, give a critical look to your content and presentation. What do your customers need most? What do you have to offer that best meets that need? Make sure that thing, or those few things, are clear, easy to access, and obvious even on a mobile screen. The rest is a distraction.
• Embellish. The desktop is a different experience. Fill the screen in a way that best supports your focus. Here you can take advantage of the larger screen to brilliantly display larger graphics, side quotes, or extras that help people feel good about your product.

Why it makes sense to design for a mobile experience first:

• Global internet usage will more than double by 2015, and most of these users will be mobile.
• 61% of customers who visit a mobile unfriendly site are likely to go to a competitor’s site.
• Mobile email opens increased 34% while opens on webmail and PCs decreased by 11% and 9.5% from April to September 2011.
• 61% of smartphone users make local searches from a device.
• 20% of telecom, 30% of restaurant, and 25% of movie searches are mobile.
• In 2012, the U.S. saw a 55% increase in smartphone subscriptions to make for 98 million smartphone subscribers, representing nearly 42% of all U.S. mobile users.
• Mentioning a location in an ad or search result can increase click-through rates up to 200%.

Now is the time to be ready. Reach your customers effectively, which means giving them what they need in the way they need it – quite often now a phone number, address, and clear product info all optimized for a mobile touchscreen.

The key is to focus and understand the needs of your customers. This is the first step in building a great web experience – mobile or otherwise.

Source of collected statistics

The post A Great Mobile Experience Is Good Business appeared first on 435 Digital.

Few of those people care whether you have a desktop website or a mobile website or how you achieve either of those things. Almost all of those people want to find the information they need when they need it, they want to be pleasantly surprised, and they want to be able to view a site without scrolling, zooming, or squinting.

When it comes to providing a great user experience for your customers, or providing a mobile-optimized website, how does that look compared to your known desktop site? What content should you provide? Should your mobile site contain all the same content as your desktop site? Should you offer less? Should you offer something different? How do you decide?

There is no one all-purpose solution. As with any web design, the first question to ask is what is your goal? And then what is the main action you want your customers to take when they visit your site? Focus on the goal and the experience to start determining what content makes sense. It may be all or most of the content from your desktop site. A mobile site may best serve your customers by offering all the same content but with a mobile-optimized layout that includes smaller images, larger and vertically stacked navigation buttons, and more best practices such as these. However, it’s also possible that your customers are going to love you for providing less or different content from your desktop site because you know that when they’re on the go, they need something different from you.

The best solution will address the ultimate combination of what works for the customer and the business. Just as you offer a service or a product, you offer an experience through your website. Understanding the needs of your customers is still a key to determining the best content and design for your mobile website just as it was for your desktop site.

The post Your Mobile Website, Your Content, Your Customers appeared first on 435 Digital.

You hear a lot about mobile websites and desktop websites. You may have concerns about how your site appears on tablet screens. You may hear terms like “responsive design” or “HTML5” and wonder what that means for you.

Is this all just something for web geeks and trendy agencies to get excited about and push on people?

There’s a clear answer to that question: No.

Some form of mobile optimization is important for any business today. People expect it; your customers expect it. While it’s not going to be a quick and simple update in many cases, responsive web design is a beautiful way to achieve a mobile-optimized website.

What is responsive web design? Essentially, this means one website that automatically adjusts to display on any screen size in a way that makes viewing, reading, and using your site easy for all of your customers. It’s one site that works for all. And that seems like a tall order!

With consumers using their handsets as the main way to look up information while on the go, mobile local search is expected to exceed desktop search for local information in the next three years, according to a new forecast from BIA/Kelsey.

There are countless variations of smartphones and tablets out there that all fit into the category of mobile devices. How can you possibly design and build a website that works for every one?

Here is one of many great examples. You see the same site as it displays first on desktop, then on a tablet, then on a smartphone. The image sizes change, the title wraps, and the navigation becomes mobile friendly on the smartphone view.

The technical part of this is extensive once you get into all the details. However, it is not only manageable but gratifyingly logical and beautiful.

One of the biggest challenges is to work out what your website offers for content. This is the part of responsive web design that a business must take to heart, and the reason is that it will improve the experience for your own customers when they visit your site – even if they visit on a desktop monitor.

When redesigning a site to build as responsive design, the most effective strategy is to take a “mobile-first” approach. These are some things to consider:

• What do you want a person to do when they visit your site?
• call you, submit an online form, come to your store, purchase a product, read stories, share content
• Who is your target audience? Who are the people you most want visiting your site?
• What are people looking for when they visit your site?
• your name and logo – for credibility, your address, your phone number, your business hours, your main product, a certain story or topic
• What content does your target audience need?
• What content does your target audience not need?
• What is your website’s voice or personality? What image do you need to convey?

With the sheer size of the desktop monitor, many websites have evolved over time, gaining content and images and stuff that is not needed. Often the navigation is not clear or consistent. Sometimes the most obviously needed information, such as a phone number, is difficult to find. Many times, the space is cluttered simply out of the desire to fill space.

The mobile-first approach to website design and content can be a relief from such a burden. On tablets, and especially on smartphones, space is limited. Download speeds can be limited, as well; sometimes they can be expensive. So when your website is viewed on a mobile device, every bit of content matters. You need to share the most critical, valuable content with anyone visiting your site.

Whether people view your site on a smartphone, a tablet, or even a desktop monitor, they will appreciate you for it. Most importantly, they will have a good feeling about your business because their experience of your website was pleasurable. As a responsive design site, it met them where they were – on any device – and gave them what they needed.

So while the technical details of responsive design and its implementation definitely lies in the realm of web geekiness, the value of responsive design is something truly important for every business.

The post Mobile-First, Responsive Design Websites: Does This Really Matter? appeared first on 435 Digital.

If you haven’t already heard, the release of iOS6 for Mac products will be missing a very important app – YouTube. Don’t fret, just because your phone or tablet won’t automatically include the app doesn’t mean that you won’t have access to it. Google announced last week that the new and improved YouTube app will be available through the App Store. Phew!

Facebook took a step outside of its usual ad placements today by testing its own mobile ad network, which allows advertisers to place ads on other apps or websites based on your Facebook data. This isn’t the first time that Facebook has stepped outside of its own platform to place ads in front of Facebook users’ faces and will likely be just the beginning of their ever-expanding ad offerings, as they look for new ways to generate revenue without disrupting the user experience.

Also this week, Amazon announced the Amazon Maps API, causing many to speculate whether this meant that they, much like Apple, would be kicking Google Maps to the curb. Amazon hasn’t officially said either way, but considering they’re working on their own mapping technology, we imagine it’s only a matter of time.

Twitter has a mobile-first strategy, and yesterday was the launch of several updates that take advantage of the iPad display. You can update your own profile now, adding a big image. Will we see the same kind of creativity we’ve seen with Facebook cover photos? Early indications say “yes.” If you’re having trouble coming up with a big image that fuly expresses your degree of awesomeness, check out these “big image” tips from Mashable.

And because who doesn’t love a good bit of smacktalk on a Wednesday morning, check out what Twitter CEO Dick Costolo had to say about Apple and Facebook:

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, fresh from a day of smartphone Twitter app releases, said Tuesday night that his company saw Apple as a “mentor” to Twitter.

“Apple is in many ways a mentor company for us,” Costolo told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose. He said the companies had “a great relationship.” Facebook, by contrast, got this chilly description: “We’re very different companies.”

Facebook was pursuing symmetric networks, Costolo said, but Twitter saw the world as asymmetric. They were fundamentally opposed, and competed for ad dollars.

Buuuuurn. Our guess is we won’t see Costolo in a hoodie any time soon.

Have a great Wednesday!

The post What We’re Reading: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 appeared first on 435 Digital.

While most of the activity is checking posts from friends and posting one’s own updates, more and more people are interacting with brands and organizations on social networks. About 58% of users in the U.S. read posts from companies, and around 32% say they are likely to click on ads while networking.

The number of people engaging in social networks through mobile devices – phones and tablets – is massively increasing. The 64.2 million is up 77% from the year before, and the 38.2 million engaging daily is up 88%. With increasing smartphone adoption, these numbers will continue to grow rapidly.

With the upcoming Facebook integration with iOS 6, these numbers will soar even higher.

With iOS 6, Siri can now post Facebook status updates. If you had iOS 6 right now, you could ask Siri to post to your Facebook wall that you’re reading a great blog post from 435 Digital – or that you’re leaving in five minutes to try out the new Korean BBQ place just a few doors away.

In Apple’s new App Store, you’ll be able to “Like” a song, which will appear on Facebook. This might lead more people back over to Apple’s App Store.

Twitter is already integrated; with iOS 6, Facebook will also be integrated. If you want integration with Google +, you’ll surely need an Android device.

Whatever mobile platforms and devices people are using – mostly iOS and Android in the U.S. – any business that wants to reach people through social networking must get serious about not only their social presence but also their mobile-ready websites.

The post The Steady Rise of Social Mobile appeared first on 435 Digital.

They are using desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets,and smartphones — with screen sizes ranging from 3 inches to 27 inches or so. They’re on wired networks, wi-fi, 3G and 4G cellular networks. Some are sitting and browsing patiently, some are browsing intermittently while getting out of the car or sitting on the train, while shopping for some great new jeans or ordering dinner, while getting the kids ready for soccer practice or feeding the baby in the middle of the night — even while walking down the street or waiting for their friends who are always late.

Is your website a good experience in most situations on any device?

It’s a question worth considering since good user experience is good customer service, which leads to satisfied, happy, and returning customers.

According to Internal Google Data, via mobiThinking, mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year. A significant percentage of searches are now mobile.

• 1 in 3 mobile searches are local. After looking up a local business on their smartphone, 61 percent of users called the business and 59 percent visited.

• 71 percent of smartphone users who see a TV, print, or online ad, do a mobile search for more information, but 79 percent of large online advertisers still do not have a mobile optimized site.

A large percentage of businesses in general still do not have a mobile–optimized site. Yet you may wonder what the big deal is about mobile optimized. If your website can be viewed on a mobile device — and many can be — why optimize? What’s the difference?

Here are five great reasons it matters:

1. People can read mobile–optimized sites.

A site that is designed for a mobile–sized screen is a great experience. People can see all the content you have to offer right away – no squinting, zooming, sideways scrolling, reaching for the reading glasses. Why would anyone bother doing all of that just for your site? More than likely, they’ll leave and spend time exploring sites that work well on their beloved smartphones.

2. Mobile–optimized sites load more quickly.

Who doesn’t get frustrated waiting for sites to load on their phones? Who waits around when it takes too long? Especially when someone is trying to take a quick look before crossing a street or before making a purchasing decision. You have a strong edge if you’re simply there when your customers need you.

3. Video and graphics look good on mobile–optimized sites.

A good mobile site does not use Flash. It won’t work on a lot of phones.  Flash technology is frequently used on desktop sites to display videos, but it just doesn’t work at all or doesn’t work well on many smartphones or tablets, including iPhones, iPads, Windows 7 phones, Blackberries, and some Android devices. Your valuable content will be lost if it is not served in a way that actually works.

4. Smartphones are used by 58% of American consumers.

And smartphones are used by 76% of those under age 44, according to a 2012 study by Frank N. Magid Associates. That’s a lot of potential customers you can lose or gain in mere seconds based on their experience using your website on their mobile phones.

5. At least 46% of smartphone owners browse the Internet on their devices “several times per day.”

This is according to the Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Research Series. The percentage of smartphone owners who browse the Internet at least once every day is much higher.

Here’s your opportunity:

With so many businesses not yet providing a great mobile experience, you still have an especially prime opportunity to be ahead of the competition — to pleasantly surprise people, gain their confidence, and sell your product or service all because you provided a mobile–optimized website that served the desired content when and where it was needed.

The post Why Does Your Business Need a Mobile Website? appeared first on 435 Digital.