Does your business really need a mobile website?

By Tim Priebe on November 3, 2011 at 8:56 am in Mobile Web

Mobile websites are the hot new thing, are they really necessary for the average small business?

Absolutely! Now that many Americans have smartphones, mobile websites more important than ever before. Let’s look at a few statistics on smartphones and the mobile web in general.

The research company Nielsen estimates that by the end of 2011, about 50% of Americans will have a smartphone. That’s up from about 20% in the end of 2009.

The analyst firm Gartner recently reported that in 2011, new handsets will be able to access the mobile web. And that doesn’t even include smartphones!

Desktop websites on mobile phones

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen performed a study to see how mobile websites performed versus desktop websites being viewed on a phone. While each website had a different goal, they were measurable goals, so Nielsen could see specifically if the goal of the website was accomplished or not.

The success rate of the mobile websites on touchscreen smartphones was 75%, much higher than the 53% that desktop websites scored.

The conclusion that Nielsen drew from the study was that it’s not enough for your website to just “work” on a phone. Your content, website navigation, and even website code needs to be optimized to perform well on mobile devices.

What people look for on websites

The most popular type of information being looked for on websites is an address, more information on a business in the area, and a phone number. These are being looked for by people on the go, and mobile websites can give these visitors exactly what they want.

So whether you go out and hire a web design company to build your website or try to do it yourself, you’ll need to keep one very important thing in mind: Your visitors have different goals when visiting your mobile site than they do when visiting your desktop site.

With the content on a mobile site, less is more. You’ll want less pages, less text and fewer images. You still need to have all those things, but just not as much as you have on your desktop site.

And some things will just operate differently. On your mobile website, a “Call us” button can actually dial your store. And a “Find us” can launch the visitor’s map program on their phone and even show them how close they are to your location.

Once it’s launched, your desktop website should automatically send mobile users over to your mobile website. And it should give them an option to switch back to the desktop site if they’d like, and vice versa.

So chances are half of your potential customers are using a smartphone. Make your website easier for them to use by getting a mobile website, and they’ll be that much more likely to buy from you.

*Illustration by Emily Spirek

 

Why mobile sites are good for you and your business

By Chris Engstrom on September 27, 2010 at 3:00 pm in General,Mobile Web

mobile_devicesHi! This is Chris, one of the interns here at T&S Web Design. After working at T&S for about five months, they have finally let me speak publicly. Well, on the blog, anyway!

A couple of weeks ago Adam talked about the key differences between a regular website and a mobile site in his post Websites On The Go. This week I wanted to go ahead and show you a few examples of mobile sites of businesses that are really neat and easy to navigate through. When people are quickly navigating on their phone, they want something fast and easy or else you’ll lose their interest very quickly. Being condensed and organized well makes your site more appealing to the people that will be viewing it.

Keeping your mobile site simple can be difficult when you have a lot of content that you want to put on it. Sometimes, instead of cramming all the content into your mobile site from your main website, it is better to trim off some of the less important things. And if you absolutely can’t get rid of anything then the next best thing is to have a menu that is set up very well so it is easy to navigate.

The following are a few sites that I think have done their job right. There is a lot of content on these sites but they organize it in a way that makes it easy to get to where you want to go. I’ll list a few things that stand out that I like about each site and you will find a couple things that are consistent across all the different sites.

Walmart

walmart_mobile

http://mobile.walmart.com/

  • Search field on top
  • Store locator
  • Nicely organized menu
  • Link to main site

BlockBuster

blockbuster_mobilehttp://www.blockbuster.com/mobile

  • Search field on top
  • Major categories and store locator on top nav bar
  • Popular movie rentals are showcased
  • Link to main site

IMDB

imdb_mobile

http://m.imdb.com/

  • Advertising their app on top
  • Search field on top
  • Major categories on main bar
  • Most-viewed movies are showcased
  • Mini menu at the bottom
  • Link to main site

Facebook

facebook

http://touch.facebook.com/

  • Main tabs on top
  • News feed automatically selected so you can get up to date quickly
  • Status update right on top
  • Option to view older posts
  • Download link for Facebook app on the bottom

Twitter

twitter

http://mobile.twitter.com/

  • Download for Twitter app advertised on top
  • Refresh button on the top
  • Ability to tweet right away from top form
  • Main tabs towards top
  • Shows most recent tweets
  • Option to see more tweets
  • Ability to turn images off

So now you’re still probably asking yourself, “Why does my business need a mobile site?” Well, just like how it’s easier to view Facebook or Twitter as a mobile site on your phone, people want the same ease of use with your website.

Most people are familiar with phone applications, and minus a few differences, mobile sites are created with the same concept as apps; they are faster to use with more accessible info. Everyone is always looking for the next best thing that uses less brainpower, so creating a mobile site could be a huge asset to your business. If you look at the site examples above and follow the techniques as a base to your mobile site, users are more likely to stay on your site, which will in turn benefit your company. And if you need some more convincing, T&S is always willing to answer any questions you have! info@tandsgo.com

Websites On The Go

By Adam Booth on September 10, 2010 at 4:30 am in General

Smartphones

In the technology world, mobile phones have seen the largest advancements in the shortest amount of time when compared to desktop computers. Recent phones have become incredibly fast and most sport high resolution touchscreens which makes using them much more practical. With these advances, mobile browsing has become a viable option for many people on the go.

Here at T&S, we try to stay on the cutting edge and offer mobile versions of websites that we create. A mobile website is designed separately from the original site with a few things in mind including larger buttons and larger text. We test all our mobile websites with the newest versions of iOS (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad), Android OS, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones.

The two images below illustrate the differences between a mobile website and a full website like you’d see on your computer. On the mobile website, the text has been resized so that it can be easily readable on a smaller screen and links/buttons are larger so that they can be easily tapped by a finger instead of a mouse. This website has been optimized for phones with slower data connections and does not show all of the unnecessary content such as tags on the right side of the page.

Desktop Version:

(Screenshot of a section of the website)

Tim Full Site

Mobile Version:

(Showing the full length of the scrollable page)

Tim Mobile Site