Digital Marketing Consultant

One thing that I have not mentioned and which may make you decide that you need to go forward with creating a mobile site is the iPad.  Remember that it, too, uses a difference rendering. 

Having said that, here is a list of great tools to use to validate whether your site old or new renders well on mobile devices:

www.ipadpeek.com – See how your site looks on an iPad.  Because flash works on this site, your need to disable the flash plug-in to be fully accurate.

www.iphonetester.com – See how your site looks on an iPhone.

www.iphoney.,com – same as above

http://validator.w3.org/mobile - Shows how mobile-friendly your site is and checks against W3C compliance.

http://www.google.com/gwt/n - Makes the page mobile-web-friendly by rimming the content down to its bare essentials.

http://www.gomez.com/mobile-rediness-instant-test - This mobile readiness test gives you a score between one and five based on an analysis of over thirty proven mobile web development techniques.

I hope you have enjoyed this series.  Please let me know if I can help more and let me know if you want more.

Yesterday, you will remember that your need to construct a mobile phone website differently than a full-fledged website for a desktop computer.  But the rules are still valid that, if you don’t optimize your mobile website, you have wasted your money.

Here are seven things you need to know:

• Because each smart-phone renders websites differently, you can check to see how your will show by using validators (to be listed later)
• Follow the “traditional” on-site SEO Best Practices, such as, 
  • Major keywords in the title tags
  • H1 and body text
  • Rich keyword Meta Titles and Descriptions
  • Keyword-rich anchor text for internal links
• Have a dedicated link building campaign for the mobile site.
• Mobile search results tend to reflect “local search results.”  Your site must be optimized for local type searches.
• Submit your business information to local directories making sure your site is verified and included in site like Google’s Local Business Center.
• Get the mobile site spidered and indexed by submitting to major search engines: Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Submit Your Mobile Site
• Standard domain names and URLs (m.site.com, mobile.site.com, site.mobi, www.site.com/mobile) should all point to your mobile site.  If you can afford only one of these domains, use m.site.com

Tomorrow I will show you some tools you can use to help your site work.

Okay, here we go.  Here are the basic things you have to know to create a mobile-friendly website.

1. Auto-Detect mobile Phones - Mobile-friendly websites automatically detect that users are on a mobile device and then display the appropriate version of the site.
2. Clear Calls to Action – The most important features of the site should be at the top of the page and should include clear calls to action.
3. Avoid Mobile-Unfriendly elements – The design should avoid mobile-unfriendly elements such as flash, large images, video, and complex layouts.
4. Fluidity – Design with a fluid layout that will gracefully adapt to a range of typical mobile screen resolutions.
5. Touch Interface – Touch screens don’t have hover states.  It is all about fingers tapping, so don’t build a site that requires users to move their mouse over menus or other elements.  Also, make sure links and other clickable elements are big enough to tap with a fingertip.
6. Scrolling – Limit scrolling to one direction.  The site should only scroll vertically.  Having to manage a page that scrolls horizontally and vertically is difficult to navigate.
7. One Window – Avoid pop-ups and new windows.  A user’s entire experience should take place in a single window.
8. Simple Navigation – Simplify your navigation.  Typically, a site’s traditional navigation is too complex for a mobile site.
9. Clean Code – Most desktop webs browsers allow a lot of leeway when rendering HTML and will usually display a site correctly, even if the code has flaws.  Mobile browsers usually have less room for error, so there is an added value to having clean, simple code.
10. Use Alt Tags – Sometimes images won’t load, either because of issues with the mobile browser or because a user’s connection is too slow.  Always include descriptive alt tags for images, in case they don’t load.
11. Label Forms – Some modern websites embed form labels inside the form field.  On mobile, it is much more difficult to keep track of the fields, and users often make use of “next/previous” buttons built into the keyboard.  Without clear labels alongside the form fields, ti might be impossible to know what information is supposed to be in which field.
12. Escape Hatch – Sometimes users just need to use your normal site.  If possible, always have a link back to the original, full site and from your desktop site to your mobile site.
    

Number 13 – None of this will work unless you optimize the site correctly.  See tomorrow.

Before we cover how to make your website information mobile phone friendly, you need to decide if you want to spend the time and money to create such informational platforms.  Here is a check list to ask yourself:

• If your budget allows for a mobile site, build one; your prospects and clients will do better with it.
• Use site analytics to determine how much your site is accessed from mobile devices now and this will help to decide whither it's worth building a mobile site and which platform to prioritize.
• Build a mobile site if people do small, quick transactions on your site under time pressure.
• Build a mobile site if people use your stie to communicate with each other.
• Build a mobile site if people come to your site to kill time and browse.
• DO NOT build a mobile site if your full website has a shallow information structure and limited functionality (1 to 4 possible tasks).
  

One basic thing you must understand.  Each smartphone has its own way of showing information.  So if you decide to have a mobile marketing site constructed, you need to do your homework on point two above to determine which phones are used most to access your main site today.

Tomorrow I will begin listing the attributes that a mobile website must have to be successful.

How mobile marketing can influence your business, depends on which business you are running.  We have mentioned previously that one of the biggest activities on the mobile phone is seeking Information.  This includes

• finding business hours,
• finding store locations,
• getting directions,
• checking news,
• sport information,
• movie times.
  

So how does your business relate to these needs?  Do you need prospective customers to find you when you are open?  This means you are a retail business, at least.  It could be you need prospects to find you for others reasons, like deliveries, pickups, appointments.  You might also just want to out-compete someone else.

But maybe you have understood something no one else has discovered.  As JK Rowling (author who had to struggle to get anyone to publish her first “Harry Potter” book) said, “The market doesn’t know what it wants until it sees it.”

Yes, there is less competition AND having fewer subjects to filter in mobile may mean you will get a higher Click-Through-Rate in mobile search.  But you need to do it right on mobile, meaning that, if you don’t, the user will have all the problems mentioned earlier:

The Small Screen will make it necessary to scroll with awkward input on a poorly designed website which might take much too long time to download.

If you design your message correctly, you will make the user happier and more likely to deal with you.

How do you make your website information mobile phone friendly?  That is next.

A Few Additional Stats You Will Want to Know about Mobile Marketing

Google’s research says…

• One in seven searches on Google are performed on a mobile device.
  
• 59% of smart-phone users report using the mobile Internet while waiting in line.
  
• 48% of smart-phone users report using the mobile Internet while eating.
• 44% of smart-phone users report using the mobile Internet while shopping

Additionally, you need to realize according to Google…

Local results are more likely in mobile search.

Image search optimization and video SEO often have a low priority in enterprise SEO, but will play a crucial role in Mobile search.

So how does this influence your business mobile marketing?  We will get into more detail tomorrow.  

But what is important to stress is that low competition in Mobile marketing means big opportunities for your business.

Yesterday I listed why the Mobile fast growing media platform is interesting in general.

Next, let’s look at the problems mobile phone users face. 

 Essentially, there are four problems:

1. Small Screens
2. Awkward input
3. Download delays
4. Poorly designed sites

What are the main Internet activities of mobile phone users?

1.       Communication – This includes email, social network sites, forums, using a camera application to send a picture to a friend.

2.       Seeking Information – This includes finding business hours, stores, locations, directions, checking news, sport information, movie times.

3.       Data handling – This includes uploading a picture, and installing an application.

4.       Entertainment – Usually this means watching a video.

5.       Transactions – This means shopping and banking.

N

I am going to write a series about marketing to Mobile Phones.  Why?  I will cover that question first.  But I will also get the how and the problems involved.  It is not so easy as setting up a website and optimizing it for Google.  But at present, before the gold rush starts, you have an opportunity to create of powerful marketing.

First some stats you need to know

• Ninety percent of mobile users in the US and Western Europe have a web-enable phone.
• Mobile web use is growing faster than application use.
• The current industries seeing the most growth in mobile searches are business, entertainment, and travel (30% in the restaurant category).
• Mobile searchers tend to use the same search engine on their mobile device as they use on their PC.

I quote McAfee again: "Threats to mobile devices have been a hot topic within the security community for several years.  We expect attacks to erupt at any time, yet they never quite seem to happen. 

"Nonetheless, McAfee Labs predicts that 2011 will be a turning point for threats to mobile devices.  This year we saw many new, but low-prevalence, threats to mobile devices...rootkits for the Android platform, remote jailbreaking exploits for the iPhone, and the arrival of Zeus (a well-known banking Trojan/botnet). 

"The widespread adoption of mobile devices into business environments combined with these and other attacks is likely to bring about the explosion that we have long anticipated.  Given our historically fragile cellular infratstructure and slow strides toward encryption, user and corporate data may face serious risks."

It would not surprise me to learn that most of your company staff have quite advanced mobile phones, including the top executive.  And it would not surprise me if no policy is established for the use of these phones. 

The number one policy is to establish what programs and apps can an employee have?  But then, how can you control that?  Any comments?

About three months ago I posted a series of articles about how to start an effective mobile marketing campaign. If you missed it, search for it on this blog under those key words (Mobile Marketing Campaign). However, what I did NOT do (and which I will attempt to correct now) is to give you any examples of campaigns.

The first example is from Yamaha WaterCraft.

The Project: Yamaha WaterCraft Sweepstakes plus Brand Awareness

Objective: To extend the reach, effectiveness, and penetration of Yamaha’s messages across new media outlets and new consumer consumption models. To increase brand awareness; establish a brand footprint in mobile, leverage the immediacy and intimacy of mobile communications and increase number of opt in users.

Overview: Yamaha launched a promotional SMS sweepstakes to supplement their overall mobile campaign. Yamaha’s mobile campaign was a combination of SMS and WAP to engage its target market with relevant messaging, plus interactivity through WAP.

The SMS based sweepstakes was a tactical method to increase awareness, generate excitement for Yamaha’s mobile services and increase opt-ins. Participants entered into the sweepstakes and opted into the campaign by either texting “WAVE” to a short code or entering their mobile number into a seamless ‘web to mobile’ widget displayed on the Yamaha WaterCraft website.

Yamaha mobile members received the latest news, events, promotions and incentives, new accessory info, and race results via SMS. The SMS alert messages also contained a clickable link to the Yamaha WAP site where the user could further their engagement with Yamaha with articles, reviews, pictures, Twitter integrated feeds and info on the latest Yamaha accessories.

Sweepstakes winners were chosen weekly from the mobile numbers database to win a variety of products. The Yamaha mobile sweepstakes ended Dec. 16, 2009 when an ultimate winner was chosen to win the 2010 Yamaha VX Cruiser grand prize!

Market: National USA

Results: Four hundred percent increase in users opting into the SMS alerts program with an average of one consumer opting in every eight minutes from the launch of the sweepstakes.

If you want to understand how mobile marketing might benefit your business, contact us.