Growth in Mobile Usage and Advertising is making Mobile Websites a must for businesses.
The need for a mobile website is more important now than ever before as smartphone usage has exploded in the last five years. In fact, smartphone use in the UK is set to top 50% of the population by next year (2013) and according to Ofcom’s latest Communications Report, 46% of people regularly use their mobile devices to surf the net.
When it comes to advertising spend, according to Device Atlas dot com the global amount spent on mobile advertising is forecast to hit $5.3 billion by the end of the year this is up from $3.7 billion in 2011. However, by 2016 this figure is estimated to hit $20.7 billion. If you look at these figures, they’re pretty hard to ignore and any company that doesn’t have a mobile marketing strategy in their marketing plan is likely to be left behind.
In essence, even small businesses who are looking to develop a website presence in Cork or throughout Ireland need to seriously consider their site to be mobile marketing friendly. It may be great having a really flashy website that works on a PC, however, business owners should take into consideration the fact that it might not function properly when downloaded on a smartphone. Some of the criteria you should look out for in a Mobile Website are:
- Can it be easily read?
- Is it easy to navigate?
- Are the option selections and data entry, user-friendly?
If the answer is no to any or all of the above, then you are undoubtedly losing out to those sites which are mobile phone friendly
So how do you go about being mobile website friendly?
Keep it to the point – Try to keep your mobile website brief. Offer a few pages detailing the main information that users will want to know.
Make navigation easy– The easier your site is to scan through, the longer a smartphone user will want to stay on your site.
Keep content short – Make sure that content is short and ‘to the point’, again for ease of reading or scanning.
Easy data entry – Any data entry such as contact forms or email capture on a mobile website should be easy to use and brief.
Making the transition from a website to a mobile website doesn’t have to be difficult and if you’re not sure whether or not your site is already mobile marketing friendly then Google has recently launched howtogomo.com in which you can test your website to see if it is indeed mobile user friendly.
If you need a mobile website or need more information in this area, then contact ePresence today who can help.
