Here in the year 2012, even the most old fashioned of businesses have an online presence. Even if it’s just the equivalent of a Geocities page, people have recognized the value of having at least their basic information on a website. Now though, there’s a new browsing trend that’s growing exponentially, and businesses are again proving slow to adapt. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson by now.
About half of all Americans own some kind of smartphone, and as the browsers grow more sophisticated and the connections faster, they’re replacing personal computers as the go-to information gathering device. This kind of digital marketing opportunity shouldn’t be passed up. Despite this ubiquity, many businesses are not developing any kind of mobile site. As a result, visitors accessing their pages from their smartphones have to drag, pull, and pinch their way around to glean any kind of useful information. This is truly unacceptable.
Here are some quick facts gathered from Google’s study on smartphone users. 95% of smartphone users have searched for a local or regional business. As a result of a search, 77% of smartphone users have made contact with a business online, 61% have called directly, and 59% have visited the business.
So please, look at the numbers. It’s essential that you have a mobile presence. To get started, you really need to ask yourself a couple questions. Who’s coming to my site, and why are they coming to my site? For instance, if you’re a restaurant (a business sector woefully under-served on mobile), you want to have just a few large links: location, hours, and menu. You can include all the frills too, if you feel the need, just make sure those three things are front and center. If people have to hunt around your full-size site on their tiny screen, they’re likely to just go to a different page…and a different business.
Admittedly, creating a mobile page can be a little tricky, but no more so than producing a website. If you need a pro to do the developing, or just have a few questions, contact Wikimotive and let the experts help you out.