Just a few short years ago, it was a good bet that you would read
articles like this one on your PC or laptop. Today, it’s just as likely
that you are reading this article on a smartphone or tablet computer. So
what’s changed, what happened? The mobile web happened, that’s what –
and the Internet will never be the same. So, what’s the mobile web?
Loosely defined, the mobile web is a way of accessing the Internet
via a wireless network, using a handheld mobile device such as a
smartphone or tablet computer.
The Explosion Of The Mobile Web
The mobile web is growing at a phenomenal pace, and is forecast to
overtake the desktop web in 2014. In other words, more users will access
the Internet using a mobile phone rather than a PC for the first time.
Approximately 900 million people currently access the web with mobile
phones, compared to 1.4 billion desktop Internet users. In 2014, mobile
web users will outpace desktop users (approximately 1.7 billion mobile
users to approximately 1.65 billion desktop users). By 2015, the number
of mobile web users is expected to increase to 2 billion.
Assuming an annual growth rate of about 2 percent annually between
2010 and 2015 in cell phone subscriptions (77 percent of the world’s
population will have cell phone subscriptions in 2010 and 87 percent
will have subscriptions in 2015), about 6.35 billion people worldwide
will have a mobile phone subscription and approximately 1 out of 3
subscribers (or 2 billion out of 6.35 billion) will be accessing the
Internet on mobile phones. (Source: Wikimedia)
And according to the August, 2011 edition of eMarketer, 33 percent of
mobile users are looking to access local content relevant to their GPS
positioned location.
Is Your Website Ready?
So, what does all of this mean to you? It means more people than ever
will be viewing your website through a mobile device such as a
smartphone or tablet computer, via a wireless network. It also means
that if you want to survive and thrive, you have to adjust and adapt,
and make your website mobile web friendly. The good news is, it’s easier
than you think.
“Within the Alexa top 1,000 sites, 40.1 percent of all sites are
mobile-friendly. These sites represent the world’s most popular web
properties, like Google, Facebook and Yahoo!
Beyond the top 1,000, mobile friendliness still holds strong but is
not yet as widespread. Of the top 10,000 Alexa sites, 29.7 percent
perform well on mobiles. Once the input data is broadened to include the
top 500,000 sites, the total number of mobile-friendly sites drops to
19.3 percent.” (Source: mobiThinking.com)
If you haven’t already done so, the very first thing you need to do
is bring your website up to speed visually. In other words, you want to
make sure that users of mobile devices can view your site optimally.
The quickest and easiest way to do this is to run your site through the MobiReady online testing
site. This is a free service that evaluates mobile-readiness using industry best practices & standards.
The free report provides both a score (from 1 to 5) and in-depth
analysis of pages to determine how well your site performs on a mobile
device. There are also other tools that will allow you to test your site
for mobile readiness. In fact, here are 10 Excellent Tools for Testing Your Site on Mobile Devices.
Personally, I have serious doubts about the accuracy of these types
of testing tools. For example, I ran my site through MobiReady, and it
gave my site a 2 out of 5 score which, according to their analysis is
bad. I got the exact same score before and after I mobil-optimized my
site.
Here’s the problem: I’ve had many friends and colleagues of mine, all
with different makes and models of smartphones, on a variety of
platforms, tell me that my site looks just fine on their phones. So
while testing tools may be a useful resource, the true litmus test is
what users of mobile devices are seeing – so be sure to ask them.
That being said, there ARE things you can do to mobile-optimize your website.
How To Make Your Website Mobile Compatible
1. Have a fast-loading site. Chances are, most mobile-web users
who are using their phones to access the Internet are using a slower 3G
connection. You can help these users out by making sure your website
code is clean, which will not only make for a faster-loading site, but
faster downloads as well.
2. Don’t use flash. Not all mobile devices can see
flash? Personally, I’m not a huge fan of flash sites anyway. But if you
absolutely, positively have to have a flash site, be both smart and
considerate. Make sure you have an alternate HTML version of your site
as well.
3. Have a clean, easy to navigate website. Remember,
mobile users are viewing your site on a tiny little screen. In
addition, there is no mouse and not all mobile devices are equipped with
a touch screen. So don’t make it harder for mobile users to view or
utilize your site than it needs to be. Clean up the clutter and
streamline your content. Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you keep it
simple, your site will be user-friendly for everyone.
4. Use HTML phone numbers. Don’t make mobile users have to type in your phone number. Use HTML so that they can simply click to dial the number.
5. Avoid horizontal scrolling. Mobile users prefer
to scroll vertically as opposed to horizontally. It’s easier and less of
a hassle for them. Always create your content as a single column of
text that wraps for mobile users.
6. Use images sparingly. As I mentioned earlier,
most mobile users are using a slower 3G connection. As a result, heavier
images can take forever to load. To avoid this problem, you should use
images sparingly on your website. But if you do choose to use images,
they should be lighter-weight jpeg, gif or png format. Also, make sure
to compress your images to avoid zooming.
7. Voice Search. Google’s Voice Search
on smartphones, has increased voice search usage by approximately 600%
in the past year. Since mobile devices don’t have a traditional keyboard
like a PC or laptop, voice search makes searching quicker and easier
for smartphone users. So you should definitely keep an eye on this trend
for SEO purposes. Bear in mind, people tend to search differently when
speaking as opposed to typing. For example, while you might type-search
“best virtual assistants,” you might voice-search “what are the best
virtual assistant services?” Again, it’s a trend you should keep an eye
on.
Indexing Of A Mobile Site
Google mainly recommends the following for better indexing of a mobile site.
• Google has a separate mobile bot for indexing mobile friendly
pages. So, always redirect this bot (check for user agent
‘Googlebot-Mobile’) to the mobile version of your site. This bot should
not see the normal site.
•Use the XHTML Mobile doctype so that search engine bots can clearly identify the page as mobile friendly.
•For each page, there should be a link for the standard view of that
page. It will help Google to categorize mobile pages and its
corresponding standard pages. (Source: The Right Way to Build a Mobile Site)
Making Blogger & WordPress Mobile Compatible
For Blogger users, it’s a simple 3-step process:
1. Log into your blogger account.
2. Navigate to and click on the settings “Email & Mobile.”
3. Click on the radio button that says “Show mobile template on mobile devices.” Save settings and you’re done.
For WordPress users there are a variety of plugins available for you to make your WP site mobile compatible.
Conclusion
I’m well aware, we live in a society where people would much rather
pay someone to do something for them than to do it themselves. Mobile
optimization is no exception. If that’s your preference, for a fee of
$4.99 a month, MobileWebAmerica.com
will convert your website to a mobile accessible site which will
display perfectly on thousands of mobile devices. The conversion will
make your website mobile compatible by adapting it to the smaller
screens of smartphones and other mobile devices. No programming is
required on your part.
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