Have you looked at your website in an iPhone, Droid or Blackberry? Major brands like ESPN and Target know that over 20% of their web traffic comes from mobile devices. This trend is solid. You can bet the farm on it. We all know that more and more people are searching for things online today using their mobile phones. So how does your web site look on a mobile phone?
One of my customers, Aspen Limo, asked me, “Why is my website so hard to view and navigate on a mobile phone?” He was frustrated. He knew that many travelers arriving at the airport, for example, pull out there phones looking for a limo or town car. And …they are walking through the airport carrying bags so they only have one hand free! So using the scroll bar to move the web site pages left and right and up and down, and continually zooming in and out to be able to read even the links on the web site just isn’t a good customer experience. My customer also noticed using Google analytics that more and more connections to his website were coming from mobile devices. Being a business man that always strives to keep ahead of the market, he decided quickly to step up to a mobile solution with me.
Designing a great mobile site takes time and effort to get the most out of the limited screen resolution and navigation mechanisms available on mobile devices. And even if you LOVE your primary web site with tons of columns, flash banners, photos, videos, dancing bears and on and on –GET OVER IT!! Great mobile sites are consistent in branding (logos, colors, tone, etc.) but they DO NOT LOOK exactly like your main web site. That is, of course, intentional.
If I’m walking through the airport with a bag in one hand and my Blackberry in the other, I want the mobile site to be useable with just one hand. I’m also not interested in reading a two page history of your company for goodness sakes. I’m just looking for something to click on to auto-dial my phone so I can talk to you, ask a few questions about your service, get a quote, and have a car dispatched right away to pick me up so I don’t miss my next meeting.
If someone searches on Google for “limo services Minneapolis” and then see the Aspen Limo web link in the search results, they 1) click the link, then 2) software on the Aspen Limo site sees it’s a mobile call, and 3) sends the phone the mobile site home page of http://m.aspenlimo.net (mobile site) instead of the main home page of www.aspenlimo.net (primary web site).
See the m. in the address instead of the www. ? Check out http://m.aspenlimo.net to see what a real mobile site looks like! And if you live in or travel in the Minneapolis area, bookmark http://m.aspenlimo.net on your iPhone, Droid or Blackberry device. Their limo and sedan services are awesome!!
Need a mobile version of your web site? Call Paul DeBernardi at 651-261-4581.