HubShout | Online Marketing Solutions

We're hearing a lot about the growing importance of mobile searches and having a mobile friendly site. This article sheds a little light on what that means.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232894/How-to-Create-Websites-Optimized-for-Mobile?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=twitterfeed

thank you for sharing that. solid advice.

Great share Lisa Thank You. Business owners need to understand that having a mobile optimized site will only help. WIth user spending as much time as they do on there smart phones this is no longer an option. If you want to maximize on conversions you need to cover all aspects of people search including mobile.

Nice article. Thanks Lisa.

Mobile is definitely on every site owner's mind. Opinions change fast on the topic of what the best practice is for handling mobile visitors vs. desktop visitors. The explosion of tablets in the last 18 months has thrown another variable into the mix.

The two biggest camps are "Your mobile site should be the same as your desktop site, only smaller." and "Your mobile site should be mobile focused, with mobile users in mind." I tend to side with the mobile specific proponents. Where your desktop site demands a phone number in the header and a contact us page with a map and hours, your mobile site should have a click-to-call button, directions and hours all on the first visible render of the site. Also, mobile sites that are built this way tend to have a smaller footprint, meaning faster load times.

In looking down the road, I see untapped potential in the graphic utilization of sites for mobile devices. Today's mobile sites are generally graphics lite. The displays on these devices are much more advanced than desktop monitors. With the trend toward mobile-only version of sites you will soon see mobile sites looking better than their desktop counterparts.

And with the exponential explosion in use, this is coming sooner than people think!

Websites without a mobile friendly version can be an immediate end to any business opportunities. If I'm on my phone and the site doesn't load properly, there's no way I'm going to stick around.

Thanks for the share, Lisa!

I agree with Chris. Websites should have a different version designed for mobile users. I appreciate them as a user as well as when I am trying to design the sites.

I have been consistently failing miserably at trying to make responsive websites look perfect on every device and screen size. It seems to me that it makes more sense to just create the mobile-only version because it saves time, money, and headaches.

The statistics definitely support the "mobile optimized" argument. People are looking for different things when they check out a website on their mobile device (usually "just the facts, ma'am") than when they visit on their desktop or laptop. It will be interesting to watch how businesses respond to the trend, and how they will flourish, or founder, depending on their response.

So far I have not been promoting mobile websites. At this point we still don't know where the developments are going. @Chris The tablets are definitely something to watch as they are the hybrid between mobile display and desktop. So, in other words, I think any website built these days should be mobile friendly. I also think there are industries (restaurants, businesses with 24x7 emergency service etc.) that need mobile sites and those that just need a mobile friendly website.