Start Up Social Media

Rockford Social Media News-Why a Mobile Website for Your Business is a Must Do!

By admin on Sunday, November 27th, 2011 | No Comments

Rockford Social Media News

In the last month, I have added another service to my Social Media portfolio, the creation of mobile websites designed to work on mobile devices rather than your PC. I have actually built a couple, for Logan Counseling and Start Up Social Media.

If you click on the links above on your PC, the mobile website will look funny, as it will be spread all the way across your screen, but if you look at them on your cell phone, you will see a mobile website designed to take advantage of what mobile users want from a mobile search. If I were a retail outlet, I might include a coupon page, and if I were a restaurant, I might have my menu, and specials listed, or nutritional information.

Mobile users typically do not want to see the home page or our websites. The information on the home page is not what they want, and mobile users will not hang around on your website long. They are off to a mobile site that provides what they need when searching from a mobile device.

Just imagine that your car breaks down. You are going to get on your mobile and look for a towing service, and the first website that works on your mobile site will probably be the winner for you. Those excellent towing services that do not have a mobile site will be invisible to you, unless you have your laptop in the car, and plug it into the battery and search using it. More likely that you will use your phone.

Today while I was preparing a letter to a local restaurant, which does not appear to have any online presence, I came across the following information;

“This By The Way Eatery page was visited 55.5 times in the last thirty days, what is equivalent to one point eight five customers per day. An astonishing high rate of 5% smartphone visitors browsing By the Way Eatery from the area around Rockford was measured. ”

Already the analytical folks are tracking the impact of mobile search….

This particular restaurant is leaving a lot of money on the table by not having any online or mobile presence at all.

In fact, I am going to have to call to see if there is such a restaurant. I just do not believe that a business so dependent on foot traffic wouldn’t use the internet.

Rockford Social Media News-Mobile Website VS Mobile Friendly Website

By admin on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 | No Comments

Rockford Social Media News-

I wrote recently about why a mobile website needs to be an important part of your marketing mix, and almost the first response I got was from an individual who downloaded her company’s website to her smart phone, and reported that her mobile website worked fine.

If you have a Word Press blog, you can make your blog visible on a mobile device by using a plug-in, which will shrink your blog to the size of the phone.

However, the problem with making your blog shrink to the size of a smart phone screen is a big problem, because mobile users are not typically looking to read your blog on their phone.

Mobile users are most often looking for a quick loading mobile site (less than five seconds) with thumb friendly simple navigation that gives local directions, or a menu, or a coupon, or specials, or a phone number. In fact, Google reports that 61% of mobile users call a business after searching, 59% of mobile users visit a business after a search, and 50% of mobile searches lead to a purchase.

90% of mobile searches lead to some kind of action by the mobile searcher within 24 hours, again according to Google.

So if I am going to shrink my blog so that it appears in the screen of a phone, I need to make sure the front page of my blog provides the information most mobile searchers are looking for. That would make that blog/mobile site user friendly.

However, a mobile site that is actually user friendly should be a stand alone mobile site, built for mobile devices which loads fast, is thumb friendly, with simple navigation, which caters to the mobile local user. Those users are urgent customers ready to visit your store and spend money, while your desk top user is not usually so ready to spend money. So for my friend in the example I noted above, I hope you will consider a mobile site that mobile friendly as well as mobile.

Rockford Social Media News-Is a Mobile Website Mandatory?

By admin on Saturday, November 19th, 2011 | No Comments

Rockford Social Media News

I have just learned how to put up a mobile website, for this blog, and for Logan Counseling, which means if you search for this url, or Logan Counseling on your mobile, you will see our mobile website, rather than the front page of my blog, which is what you see when you when you use your computer to search out our information, and I have been looking through the online tools used by my business peers in the Rockford area, and I am amazed

Very few of my business friends and peers have made any kind of organized effort which takes advantage of a blog, or social media. Most have no website, many in the restaurant business have claimed a Facebook page, but have not done anything with it in terms of connecting with customers, few have claimed the local pages with Google, Yahoo, or Bing, and I see little or no effort to manage reviews at Yelp or Urban Spoon for example. I do not see any development of Twitter or Youtube, or any of the video sharing tools.

While using social media tools is free in terms of dollars for the most part, it does require an investment in time, but the payoff can be so extraordinary, in terms of visibility and brand recognition, and now those businesses, like locksmiths, or restaurants, for example, who have spur of the moment customers looking for them on their mobile, are not prepared.

If my car breaks down on the way to De Kalb this afternoon, I am going to search on my mobile for a towing company right then. I am not going to wait until I get home and I am sitting at my computer to handle that problem, and the company with the website that shows up in my mobile will be the winner. If your company is not prepared for mobile search, you are going to be invisible to all those folks accessing the internet from their phone, and within the next year, there will be more searches from mobiles than from PC’s.

Players in this competition are Google and Apple and Facebook, and the field is changing almost daily it seems, because of the technological changes.

As I said earlier, I have just learned how to build mobile websites, and Apple brings out Siri, which could define the future direction of local search engine optimization. Siri is a voice activated app that allows iphone users to control their phones verbally, and some experts are saying that it could mean the end of traditional local search engine optimization.

Without getting into that debate, how do those same experts say to prepare for Siri, since she i now on the Apple iphone that is the number 1 selling Apple product after a very short period of availability?

Optimize Your Website for Mobile.
Add a mobile site template.
Enhance your local SEO.
Remove data obstructions, which means Flash and Javascript graphics.

Enhance your digital presence using many of the tools mentioned above. (There are about 1600 social media platforms).

Need help with all that? Call me. 815-484-0946. Do not get lost.

Mike

Start Up Social Media

Rockford Social Media News-Why a Mobile Website for Your Business is a Must Do!

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