The fact is that we are stepping into a more simplified internet activity using our own mobile devices, such as your cell phone or even touch pad devices, like ipads. These mobile users are now more then just internet gurus and people who like using computers, it is all kinds of people.
People are literally going mobile weather they want to or not. How is this possible you ask? Well it all started with a thing called the Iphone. Once the Iphone came out, the internet now was within arms reach at all times and people easily could use their own cell phone to surf the internet for anything that they would normally search for on a computer. People now gained a mini sized computer device that could go with them almost anywhere they went.
Now several years have past and the mobile reality has grown beyond the Iphone. We now have Google's Android operating system on all kinds of smartphone devices and touch pad devices. We also have some other pretty good options, such as a Windows phone and Windows touch pads to name just a few.
So now lets get a little deeper into the way things work on these small devices. As you can imagine, a
computer or even a laptop is very large compared to a hand held smartphone. Smartphones are simply
cellular phones with computing mobile operating system within them which allows them to connect to the world wide internet. So they basically are small sized computers that can be taken with you on the go.
Smartphones have multiple functionality within them including:
- Personal Digital Assistance (PDA)
- Mobile Phone
- Portable Media Players
- Compact Digital Cameras
- Video Cameras
- GPS Navigation and Tracking
- High Resolution Touchscreens
- Web Browsers
- Mobile Optimized Site Display
- Mobile Apps
- Mobile Commerce
- More
For several years now, the high demand for smartphones has out paced the mobile phone market in general. According to some stats from a 2012 survey, around half of the U.S. mobile consumers own smartphones and could account to around 70% of all U.S. mobile devices by the start of 2013. About 62% of those smartphones owned are owned by people between the ages of 25 and 34.
So now you understand a little bit about what is going on with the smartphone - mobile movement. It seems that smartphones and mobile devices are in fact becoming normal to all of us and it is time for us to take advantage of the simple ways to use these devices to our benefits, else then simply making phone calls and searching the internet.
The potential benefits of tapping into the mobile market are extremely big and beneficial to business owners of all sizes. The benefits are sometimes being overlooked by business owners and management due to the lack of knowledge and understanding of marketing angels available to them which can create massive amounts of additional cash flow into their own business.
The benefits that businesses can gain by tapping into the mobile market are:
* Help your customers have a better experience on mobile devices to ensure they do not go to a mobile
friendly competitor.
* Mobile Commerce = more money for your business through mobile sales
* Mobile maps on your website to ensure your smartphone users can easily find directions to your business
* Click to call features for your smartphone internet users. This ensures that the people who find your website on a smartphone can easily click a button to call your company without having to search high and low on a basic website that is not designed to cater the smartphone screen sizes.
* Word of mouth and text message exposure. People love nice mobile websites and will share the fact that your site works great on their mobile device and makes them comfortable connecting with your business on mobile.
* Profit increases all around with a huge roi from your mobile marketing investment.
* More internet traffic, mobile internet traffic will be gained to drive more engagement and traffic to your location or business efforts online.
* More phone calls, you gain more phone calls when your website is mobile ready for each person searching for a business like yours within the area.
* More local traffic. Google and other search engines are focusing on local marketing and they are pulling up local results first on all mobile search queries. You must be mobile site ready to ensure your ranking as good as possible in the mobile search results for all local searches that occur in your area via mobile phones.
* More money, yes more profit is made if you have a mobile optimized internet experience for your smartphone users.
What are the losses taken by only having a website instead of a mobile website
* You turn your mobile searching audience straight towards your competition based on stats from Google supplied in 2011 and 2012.
* Loss of revenue from not being mobile
* Public embarrassment, people will talk about bad experiences and your business is at risk if you do not take notice to the fact that people use their phone just like the internet.
* Slap for mobile search results. Search engines will rank you higher towards number one if you are not missing the most important parts of internet marketing, MOBILE is one major factor that can not be missed.
* Potential business loss. Your revenue losses and customer satisfaction rate not being at its best puts your company at risk.
* Possibly negative reviews about your customers bad experience while finding your website on their
smartphone or other mobile device.
* Loss of referrals and recommendations from not having a stunning mobile website
Ok, now lets get into the details of what exactly a mobile website is and what the differences are between both regular websites and mobile websites.
1. Mobile websites are designed specifically to help your smartphone users have a great experience with easy to use functionality and simplicity so they can get the information they are looking for fast and effectively.
2. A basic website is built for people who are using a large screen, not a very small screen such as a mobile phone or smartphone.
3. Basic websites can indeed be smartphone optimized by simply creating a second website that is specifically designed for mobile browsers, then you can dynamically connect the website and mobile website using some simple redirect scripts and canonical tags to ensure you do not have duplicate content issues with search engines.
3. A mobile site compared to a basic website has different features that do not compare and are not the same.
The mobile features that are not on any basic website include but are not limited to:
* Click To Call Buttons
* Click To Map Features
* Touch Buttons to send you to links via click
* Mobile Commerce
* Very clear images and video that fit within the width of very small screens
* Scrolling and Pinching limitations and exclusions
* SMS text messaging options
* Mobile SEO which in fact helps you rank better on mobile searches
and more
Now that you understand the difference between big basic website and little user friendly mobile sites, lets talk a little about the difference between mobile websites and mobile apps.
Mobile apps are not the same as mobile websites. A mobile application must be downloaded from an app store as so it can function independently on your mobile device. A mobile website automatically functions somewhat similar to a mobile app, but you do not need to download it and it will automatically work as long as your mobile device has internet access.
Here is a breakdown with a little more detail about the differences of apps and mobile sites.
Mobile apps are native functioning applications designed specifically for certain operating systems such as IOS or Android or Windows. Meanwhile a mobile website will automatically work perfectly fine on any operating system listed and on over 5000 types mobile devices. That is why in my opinion the mobile website is by far the better choice for any business looking to reach out to the massive mobile traffic that exists on the internet. Mobile apps are good for games and possibly banking, but mobile websites are better for business and for extreme exposure across the mobile web.
Now lets go forward and learn a little bit about what options there is to go mobile. You have many different options available and I am sure you will be marketed to about mobile technologies, but keep in mind that you need to go mobile as soon as possible to not miss out on the mobile profits available.
You have two or three main choices. The first option is to pay a professional to design and maintain your mobile website. This first option may be the best if you in fact can find someone who truly understands mobile marketing. Second, you can build a mobile website yourself using any of the mobile tools available. The only problem with this option is that the tools available are not too easy to use and most of them are missing key ingredients which are stated in Google's webmaster guidelines and developers section about mobile sites and smartphone sites. Or last but not least, you can get educated about mobile technology and maintain your own mobile marketing strategies after you have a professional mobile website developer create your mobile site and then teach you how to maintain it. This last option would be best in my professional opinion, you then can manage your own business and keep your mobile marketing practices up to date to match up with your daily business activities.
If you ever need a mobile website designer or just need some mobile optimization assistance or advice, please feel free to email support@mobilizedmobile.com and ask for me, Steven Milone. I will gladly help you with any of your mobile website and mobile marketing needs. I also will help you with any educational advice needed to ensure that your mobile strategies are being developed correctly and effectively to match up with today’s standards on mobile website or smartphone site standards as addressed by Google and as noticed by the Google Bot-Mobile.
Ok, I guess this article is not over yet. Google has mobile website standards and also a mobile bot that crawls through to your mobile website content and code. The bot that crawls your site and determines how you rank in mobile search queries is called Google Bot-Mobile. That means that your site gets crawled by the Google bot and then determines how to index your content on desktop search results, but the Google Bot-Mobile will crawl through to your mobile site version and spider through the content to determine how to list you on Google's mobile search results.
Mobile search results are different then desktop search results due to the fact that the results shown for each user depend on variables, such as your IP address and or actual geographical location you are searching from. This now is more true then ever since the cold hard truth is that Google is going Mobile and Local. They are changing the way SERPS are listed to ensure that they show you the best results for your local area. For example, if you are on your smartphone and you type in pizza or sushi. The first thing you will see is the best results for your search term which is closest to you based on location and additionally based on the businesses trust factors, such as business listings on Google+ and positive reviews to prove consumer trust.
Most people are not currently realizing how important their online reputation truly is these days. People now have smartphones and they search for locations and products and you can bet your money that the locations and products with positive reviews will gain more traffic due to the positively influenced consumer. But the locations and products with bad reviews will drive customers towards competitors with a positive online reputation and good recommendations.
So now we have gone all over the place, fully focused on mobile. The truth is mobile is all over the place and having a mobile website enables local businesses to reach out directly to their potential customers cell phone in a fast and effective way which will in effect help their business grow and gain more profits. But the business owners who do not seize the mobile opportunity will be missing out on the majority of possibilities that can easily help them using mobile marketing methods that have proven statistics to help increase conversion rates and profit margins time and time again.