Is a Mobile Website In Your Future?

Matt Cutts is Google’s lead search engine technology expert. Two years ago he announced that Google intended to expand its search engines capabilities to leverage more Web 2.0 features found in online sites. This includes comments on blogs, Facebook pages and mobile websites. It’s clear the giants are looking forward to growing with the 4 billion world-wide mobile phones – as well as the shrinking 1-billion personal computers. It’s time to plan for a mobile website design.

When the iPad first appeared it was a huge sensation with its tablet-style 9.7″ touch screen with full 1024 X 768 resolution. The first iPad provided copious storage for pictures, videos and music. Including a speaker and microphone, and the ability to flip between portrait and landscape view.

The iPad’s larger screen was looking more like a tiny computer. However, when people started using it to browse the Internet they discovered a flaw. According to Apple – Not a flaw! They had removed the ability to cope with Flash. The iPad browser could not view website that had a flash presentation. Flash was a popular method of showcasing photos and was usually a presentation shown on the home page of websites.

Clearly, the wave of the future was not going to be Flash.

Mobile Website Design

Today, more and more people use cell phones and mobile devices as second computers even though mobile phones have limitations. Your potential customers likely do a lot more on their mobile device than play games; they read books, surf the web, read blogs, and even make purchases.

Or they try to make purchases. Have you ever tried to make a purchase using a Smartphone, but became frustrated with the experience. Did you try to make the purchase from an alternative merchant’s website?

By making sure your site is mobile friendly you can create one more way for potential clients to connect with you. Perhaps even capture sales that started on your competition’s eCommerce site.

Along with removing Flash coding from your website there are other considerations. In order to have a mobile content friendly website you will need to either make a separate page just for mobile users or make sure your page is mobile friendly.

When we evaluate a client’s website for transitioning it to a mobile website design we take in a number of considerations, such as Flash.    Here is another article discussing other points to developing a mobile friendly website.