By the middle of 2011 more people were accessing websites through mobile devices than on their computers, so it’s important to consider how your website looks and functions when viewed on an iPhone or SmartPhone.
From my own experience, viewing a website on an iPhone can be a painful experience. The text is so tiny you can’t read it without “zooming and pinching”, which means it’s difficult to navigate even around most home pages.
How long are potential customers going to spend on your site if your competitors have slick mobile versions that load quickly, are super easy to navigate, and even have the option of saving as a bookmark to the iPhone home screen?
A recent article in Mashable peaked my interest (I’ve been meaning to do some proper research on how to create a mobile version of websites for a little while now). I was pleased to find out that creating a mobile website (from an existing “traditional” version) is actually fairly simple if you use DudaMobile.
The first version of mine “identified” my WordPress site as a blog, so came back with a format that simply enabled easy navigation of my posts. Not satisfied with the result, I republished it in website format which resulted in an easily accessible version of my site based on big (thumb sized) links to my navigation bar headings.
DudaMobile automatically incorporated the colours and fonts of my original site and I was able to upload my website header to brand it even more effectively.
For a monthly fee of $9 you can remove the links to DudaMobile in your header and footer, and even add a link for potential customers to click and call you right away from your mobile site. I’m sure to upgrade to the paid for version just as soon as I’ve sorted out the re-direct to my own hosting company. (The mobile site actually requires a brand new URL – that you have to pay a separate hosting fee for if you want to customise it to your own personal version).
If you want to ensure your online marketing is working for 2012, create a mobile version of your website before you miss the boat!
To view my mobile click on this link (or for best viewing copy and paste the following into your iPhone/SmartPhone browser: http://mobile.dudamobile.com/site/katebacon?dm_try_mode=true)
