Time To Go Mobile ?

According to the latest edition of a popular web developer publication, and something that has clearly been gathering momentum over the last couple of years, is the importance and popularity of mobile devices for using the internet. Having your web site or business featured on web sites accessible by mobile phones and devices is becoming increasingly important if not essential.

Where people used to read newspapers, look out of windows or shuffle paperwork on trains and public transport, a complete shift in making the most of our 'spare' time and mobile devices are now an integral part of our day to day life, phones, handsets, consoles and of course the familiar laptops and notebooks.

So what about the figures, well, for a start mobile devices outnumber home personal computers by almost 4 to 1 in the UK, and on average even at home people spend more time online than watching television. This is extraordinary and we predict the ratio is likely to increase further particularly as on demand products such as BBC iPlayer expand and evolve.

Web sites, even today by most developers are just brochure sites aimed at the home computer. Unless you have had a bespoke solution developed it is likely that your web site is incompatible with 95% of mobile devices, and that is the same for most modern and graphically intensive web sites. Mobile web sites are completely different in their resolution, structure and need to be adjusted to optimise any media content. 2010 is going to be a incredibly important year for the internet and mobile computing.

What can I do to make sure my web site is accessible on mobile phones? Well there are numerous solutions available. The first solution, is to ensure that your business is on social networking sites, with Facebook or Twitter being the two most popular and used sites by mobile users today - while this does not make your web site viewable on mobile devices, you can promote your business free of charge on a popular and web compatible platform in a potentially mass marketing environment. The second solution would be to have your web site developed so that it can be displayed on home computers and mobile devices - this is possible but would reduce the impact of your main web site particularly on home computers and not really recommended. The second solution is to have a second web site for your business, so you have one for home computer users and one for mobile device users. This involves having a normal domain name and web site - www.netvisuals.co.uk - but also the proprietory domain name - www.netvisuals.mobi - for mobile web site. The data for both sites can be shared or you can deliver two web sites with two different aims or objectives, such as news delivery, booking system or online shops.

Each of the solutions has its advantages and disadvantages, and these vary from customer to customer. There are also numerous other mobile savvy solutions depending on what industry customers are in.

It is no longer acceptable to have a simple brochure web site and it is no longer sufficient to rely on search engine traffic bringing you customers as competition grows. The Internet has just grown up and has become a proactive business tool, those businesses that are slow to embrace the benefits of mobile web site delivery may lose out considerably.

Contact us about our web products including our new mobile web package!