The Explosion of the Mobile Web…..Is Your Website Ready?
Just a few short years ago, it was a good bet that you would read articles like this one on your PC or laptop. Today, it’s just as likely that you are reading this article on a smartphone or tablet computer. So what’s changed, what happened? The mobile web happened, that’s what – and the Internet will never be the same. So, what’s the mobile web?
Loosely defined, the mobile web is a way of accessing the Internet via a wireless network, using a handheld mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer.
The Explosion Of The Mobile Web
The mobile web is growing at a phenomenal pace, and is forecast to overtake the desktop web in 2014. In other words, more users will access the Internet using a mobile phone rather than a PC for the first time.
Approximately 900 million people currently access the web with mobile phones, compared to 1.4 billion desktop Internet users. In 2014, mobile web users will outpace desktop users (approximately 1.7 billion mobile users to approximately 1.65 billion desktop users). By 2015, the number of mobile web users is expected to increase to 2 billion.
Assuming an annual growth rate of about 2 percent annually between 2010 and 2015 in cell phone subscriptions (77 percent of the world’s population will have cell phone subscriptions in 2010 and 87 percent will have subscriptions in 2015), about 6.35 billion people worldwide will have a mobile phone subscription and approximately 1 out of 3 subscribers (or 2 billion out of 6.35 billion) will be accessing the Internet on mobile phones. (Source: Wikimedia)
And according to the August, 2011 edition of eMarketer, 33 percent of mobile users are looking to access local content relevant to their GPS positioned location.
Is Your Website Ready?
So, what does all of this mean to you? It means more people than ever will be viewing your website through a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer, via a wireless network. It also means that if you want to survive and thrive, you have to adjust and adapt, and make your website mobile web friendly. The good news is, it’s easier than you think.
“Within the Alexa top 1,000 sites, 40.1 percent of all sites are mobile-friendly. These sites represent the world’s most popular web properties, like Google, Facebook and Yahoo!
Beyond the top 1,000, mobile friendliness still holds strong but is not yet as widespread. Of the top 10,000 Alexa sites, 29.7 percent perform well on mobiles. Once the input data is broadened to include the top 500,000 sites, the total number of mobile-friendly sites drops to 19.3 percent.” (Source: mobiThinking.com)
If you haven’t already done so, the very first thing you need to do is bring your website up to speed visually. In other words, you want to make sure that users of mobile devices can view your site optimally.
The quickest and easiest way to do this is to run your site through the MobiReady online testing site. This is a free service that evaluates mobile-readiness using industry best practices & standards.
The free report provides both a score (from 1 to 5) and in-depth analysis of pages to determine how well your site performs on a mobile device. There are also other tools that will allow you to test your site for mobile readiness. In fact, here are 10 Excellent Tools for Testing Your Site on Mobile Devices.
Personally, I have serious doubts about the accuracy of these types of testing tools. For example, I ran my site through MobiReady, and it gave my site a 2 out of 5 score which, according to their analysis is bad. I got the exact same score before and after I mobil-optimized my site.
Here’s the problem: I’ve had many friends and colleagues of mine, all with different makes and models of smartphones, on a variety of platforms, tell me that my site looks just fine on their phones. So while testing tools may be a useful resource, the true litmus test is what users of mobile devices are seeing – so be sure to ask them.
That being said, there ARE things you can do to mobile-optimize your website.
How To Make Your Website Mobile Compatible 1. Have a fast-loading site. Chances are, most mobile-web users who are using their phones to access the Internet are using a slower 3G connection. You can help these users out by making sure your website code is clean, which will not only make for a faster-loading site, but faster downloads as well.
2. Don’t use flash. Not all mobile devices can see flash? Personally, I’m not a huge fan of flash sites anyway. But if you absolutely, positively have to have a flash site, be both smart and considerate. Make sure you have an alternate HTML version of your site as well.
3. Have a clean, easy to navigate website. Remember, mobile users are viewing your site on a tiny little screen. In addition, there is no mouse and not all mobile devices are equipped with a touch screen. So don’t make it harder for mobile users to view or utilize your site than it needs to be. Clean up the clutter and streamline your content. Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you keep it simple, your site will be user-friendly for everyone.
4. Use HTML phone numbers. Don’t make mobile users have to type in your phone number. Use HTML so that they can simply click to dial the number.
5. Avoid horizontal scrolling. Mobile users prefer to scroll vertically as opposed to horizontally. It’s easier and less of a hassle for them. Always create your content as a single column of text that wraps for mobile users.
6. Use images sparingly. As I mentioned earlier, most mobile users are using a slower 3G connection. As a result, heavier images can take forever to load. To avoid this problem, you should use images sparingly on your website. But if you do choose to use images, they should be lighter-weight jpeg, gif or png format. Also, make sure to compress your images to avoid zooming.
7. Voice Search. Google’s Voice Search on smartphones, has increased voice search usage by approximately 600% in the past year. Since mobile devices don’t have a traditional keyboard like a PC or laptop, voice search makes searching quicker and easier for smartphone users. So you should definitely keep an eye on this trend for SEO purposes. Bear in mind, people tend to search differently when speaking as opposed to typing. For example, while you might type-search “best virtual assistants,” you might voice-search “what are the best virtual assistant services?” Again, it’s a trend you should keep an eye on.
Indexing Of A Mobile Site
Google mainly recommends the following for better indexing of a mobile site.
• Google has a separate mobile bot for indexing mobile friendly pages. So, always redirect this bot (check for user agent ‘Googlebot-Mobile’) to the mobile version of your site. This bot should not see the normal site.
•Use the XHTML Mobile doctype so that search engine bots can clearly identify the page as mobile friendly.
•For each page, there should be a link for the standard view of that page. It will help Google to categorize mobile pages and its corresponding standard pages. (Source: The Right Way to Build a Mobile Site)
By David Jackson
How a Blog Could Revitalize Your Website
O.K. so you think you have an idea or even a product to sell through your brand new internet business.
Internet marketing is a brilliant business to be in. There are boundless opportunities to run online businesses which can make incredible amounts of money, if you have established that there is a market for your chosen niche or product, and have done the necessary research.
All set, ready to go?
Er, not quite.
You should establish a presence in your market before you unleash your product to the world.
If you are about to start an internet business, then you should be wondering about attracting traffic to your site. There are many advertising options available, but if money is tight, some of these options may not seem practical.
Advertising can be expensive especially if you are not too sure what you are doing. Money can be swallowed up very quickly if you do not study advertising techniques.
Promotion can take many weeks or even months to show results, and then may not be effective.
Many courses and books sold by some of the gurus are sometimes out of date. Outdated material and tactics which you pay for then find they just do not work.
You may have an excellent website, but bear in mind blogging is now probably more effective than a static site.
Of course, the most traditional way of running an online business over the last few years has been websites, and is still a very successful method.
However, blogging has moved to the fore because search engines seem to favor blogs over the standard static website.
For those who can constantly add to or update their blog, visits by search engines will become a more regular practice, which will give you more chance of a high ranking in the search engines.
The reason is that search engines seem to prefer blogs over traditional static sites and it is possible to see a page on your blog ranked on the first page in Google within 24 hours.
With a blog, you are updating on a regular basis, sometimes daily, and search engines love sites which are constantly updated, giving you a better chance of getting ranked more highly.
Therefore, blogging is probably the best way to build traffic to your site at the same time enabling you to become an expert in your field in a very short time.
A blog is very easy to use and so adding content to a blog is easy to do. A blog is similar to a diary or journal with which you can keep up-to-date with your thoughts and ideas.
It is easy to keep your customers updated with information or products.
You can build a relationship with your readers, thereby building confidence and respect as you are projecting yourself as an expert.
A blog also allows your visitors to post comments, so you are also creating an interactive environment which of course further develops your relationship with your visitors.
If your subject is one you are passionate about, then writing 300 words each day should not be very difficult. It should be simple to find endless ideas to write about. Adding to a blog on a daily basis will not take very long. You need only write about 300 words every day, and it gets easier the more you write.
Always make your content informative and good quality. Don’t ever give rubbish to your readers. Your readers should always be treated with the greatest of respect. After all, once you build up a large líst of members, who hopefully trust you because you have always given them quality, they will then trust you enough to purchase the products you have recommended to them.
The easiest way to set up a blog is to use a Google service called Blogger or WordPress. You can simply go to the website, choose a user name and the rest is simple. You can be up and running in minutes.
A big disadvantage with Blogger of course is that your blog is owned by Blogger and may be shut down by them without notice. Many thousands have been shut down without notice.
By far the best option is to set up your blog with WordPress because you will have full control over your blogging activities. Set up your blog with WordPress and host it on your domain.
The only downside with WordPress is that you must set your blog up yourself.
The power in your blog comes from the quality information you put into it, attracting readers to your blog and therefore establishing you as an authority and giving you credibility in your market.
Once again, the more often you can update your blog, the more often the search engines will visit. The more you can write, the more exposure you will get.
Your blog post does not have to be a great literary work, it can just be a paragraph or two on your specialist subject, but always make your information quality content, between 350 and 700 words.
You should use your blog to help build a líst of members, because it is one of the best ways of building a relationship with people who are keen to receive information from you.
Building a relationship will also build trust and confidence. Your readers will look forward to receiving e-mails or blogs from you in which you can recommend products and services.
The keyword here is recommend, rather than sell or promote. If someone feels that you have recommended – not sold – to them, then that will go a long way to build loyalty and trust.
If you can build loyalty and trust with your subscribers through your blog which establishes you as a respected expert, then you are on your way to a successful internet business which can easily earn you a substantial income.
Author
Ray Carr
For more information on creating a Blog for your site, please contact us.
Basics of Video Marketing on the Internet
Marketing through audio-video is very cheap as compared to other form of advertisement. It can also be said that one video can be equal to many other forms of promoting. This marketing technique can also be very cost effective and useful in driving more and more customer. And with the way video promoting is exploding the day is not far when it will become the most powerful way of online marketing. You may not believe it but majority of the clients prefer to watch a video about the company rather than reading about the same company.
Video marketing is becoming a large online marketing system. Several businesses nowadays are using video to reach out to their customers or clients. It is the most sorts after thing in internet marketing today and websites like YouTube and Google videos are providing the options for uploading your video so that it can be viewed by a large number of people over the internet.
But creating a video only will not make sure that your job is done as videos will not help you increase your page rank on Google as it’s a viral and relies majorly on community submission and social tags. Only a video commercial will not help in increasing your search rank. But it can surely increase your clientele as many people prefer watching then reading. In a recent survey it was found out that people prefer entertainment while learning and that is what video do it entertains people while they get to know about your business. Sites like YouTube can provide a great marketing campaign for your online business or website and at present you can gain effectively from these marketing campaigns online.
Checkout my online video marketing campaign for Satellite Imaging Corporation on YouTube. A remote sensing and GIS company that provides high resolution satellite image data for mapping purposes.
Majority of the people are still not using video marketing and are not comfortable with this marketing technique. It’s a widely open area to be taken to boost your business through video marketing. In future it certainly will be the mostly used marketing tool, so why not get you ahead of time and get maximum benefits from video marketing technique today. Companies that feel to reach masses would prefer this technique sooner or later as video marketing is effective and efficient.
Information Technology – The History of the Internet
Throughout the history of man, our accomplishments have been marked by various ages. There was the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.
These were primarily marked by the material used in the weapons of the day. In modern days we have gloried for a brief time in the Nuclear Age, but this rapidly fell from favor when we figured out we either could destroy the world, or die from all the waste from our reactors. With the advent of the Internet, we find ourselves in the information age.
Although most people think that the Internet is a recent development, it actually has its roots over 40 years ago. The US military saw the need to interconnect radar facilities all over the country. Later this ability would allow the exchange of information between educational facilities.
What we know as the Internet today actually got its start in the early 90′s. The advent of the personal computer in the late 1980′s spurred the growth of the internet. What started with a few college students talking to each other’s computers has grown to an international information exchange.
Remember the days when you would mention you had a computer to a friend and they would say, “Hey my friend Joe has a bulletin board, do you have a modem?” Once you figured out what a modem was, you went down to your friendly computer store and either bought one, or most likely had it installed. (I remember the days when I was scared to death to open up a computer case.) So you had your 1200 baud modem hooked up, listened to all those tones and viola, you were connected. It took maybe 2 weeks if you downloaded a picture, but you were actually talking to another computer. Heaven forbid that you even thought of video. No one could call you because the phone was always busy as you were exploring this strange new world.
Now we have DSL and satellite so we can talk on the phone while we text our friends on our cell while we post to Facebook.
Information is king in this day. You can find most anything within seconds. We have new words, “I’ll Google that,” or “I Googled that yesterday.” A word that a few years ago did not exist has become a noun and a verb for finding information.
With the rise of the internet we have seen a new economy develop. “Ecommerce” has become the byword of the day. Today it is quite possible to live and never leave your home. This new economy has given birth to a new generation of entrepreneurs, the Internet Marketer. Selling information on the Internet has become a multi-million dollar business.
People like Armand Moran, Alex Mandossian, and Rich Schefren are among the top Internet Marketers in the US, as well as Michael Green, Michael Cheney, and the up and coming Alex Jeffreys in the UK.
Although the main advantage of selling information on the ‘Net is it is a fairly level playing field that most anyone with a few skills can be successful in, it is becoming a bit more difficult now. There is quite a bit to process from web site design, content, sales copy etc.
Unless you are very self-directed, and disciplined, one of the better ways to become successful is to find a mentor. A mentor can provide the information and inspiration to guide you along the way. After all, they have been down the route before and already made the mistakes.
Finding the right mentor can be a challenge. You must take care that you don’t get one who is willing to take your money and leave you standing. Some of the best places might be forums directed to the Internet Marketing niche.
Look for people with a good reputation check references. You can also try typing the potential mentor’s name and “scam” to see if there is any negative feed back about them, but do this with an open mind. Sometimes disgruntled people will leave undeserved negative feedback.
Can anyone know how long the “Information Age” will last? What is next on the horizon, implants that bypass the computer and let your brain directly access the Internet? Can you make it “big” on the “Net?” The only way to know is to find a mentor and give it a try.
Author: Gene Ilten
How Hiring An Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant Can Increase Your Profits For Your Business
If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, you’ve come to realize that marketing your business online has massive potential for huge profits. But if you’ve done your research on internet marketing, you’ve probably also realized that there are so many different ways to market online and many of it takes time and effort.
This is where an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant can be your answer. So what exactly can an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant do and how will he/she increase profits for your business?
Here’s a brief list of the different internet marketing tasks a virtual assistant can perform for your business:
Maintain Your Blog or Website Maintenance If you have a blog or website, you can hire a virtual assistant to load your blog posts and schedule them to post on different days. A virtual assistant with search engine optimization expertise can make sure the right keywords are used on your blog or website. He/She can also update your content regularly on your blog or website when changes are needed. With your website consistently maintained and optimized for the web will help bring you a steady flow of traffic.
Write and Submit Articles
It is well known that writing articles and submitting them to article directories is a sure way to drive a flow of traffic to your website and generate quality leads. Your virtual assistant can write and submit 1 to 3 articles a week on your niche. This technique will definitely bring you continuous traffic to your site while building backlinks.
Write and Submit Press Releases
Press Releases are another fantastic way to generate traffic to your website. Each time your company has a new announcement to share, your virtual assistant can write a press release about it. Also, Press Releases like articles create backlinks to your site.
Email Marketing
In order to do email marketing, you need an autoresponder system. A Virtual Assistant who specializes in internet marketing will most likely know how to set up an autorepsonder service for your website. This includes creating the opt-in form for your site and loading all the messages. With this assistance, you’ll be able to concentrate on building a list instead of trying to maintain it.
Post Classified Ads
With so many classified ad sites available on the internet, your internet marketing virtual assistant can post several ads a day on the top visited sites.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is a form of internet marketing which uses sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to achieve branding awareness of a company’s products and services to the masses. If you have an account with any of these social networks, then an internet marketing virtual assistant can maintain these social networks on behalf of your business helping you stay in touch with your audience.
As stated before, this just a brief list of the many different internet marketing techniques that an internet marketing virtual assistant can do to help increase profits for your business. When you are searching for a virtual assistant, just make sure to ask the person about their experience and expertise in this area before hiring. But once you find that qualified assistant, you’ll be seeing amazing results in your business in not time.
Author Lisa Santos
5 Crucial Components of Website Design
Professional website developers know the importance of web design and the role it plays in making a website successful.
Designing a successful website is no easy task, especially for someone who is new to the world of web development. With the help of web development applications many people can and do create decent websites. But decent in most cases is not good enough to make a site successful from a traffic or financial standpoint.
There are five crucial components of web design that you must focus on in order to make a site valuable to its visitors and successful for you.
• SEO – Getting free traffic to your site.
• Usability – Ease of navigating around the site and finding desired information quickly.
• Aesthetics – Visual appeal.
• Content – Valid, up-to-date, relevant information.
• Graphics – Eye candy that relays relevant visual information to the visitor.
SEO
Before you ever lay down a byte of HTML code for a site, you have to know and understand at least the basics of SEO and how it fits into the design. SEO is the art of designing a site in a fashion that gives the site an advantage for obtaining free and abundant traffic.
The number one aspect of SEO is selecting keywords relevant to your site. The keywords you select should be based on high usage, low competition and relevancy to your topic. Once you select keywords you can then begin the development of your site. Keep in mind keywords are a critical aspect of the design. The keywords you choose will be applied within the design in strategic fashion to benefit the flow of traffic to your site. To understand more on how to implement SEO you should read and learn more about this important subject. If you don’t, your website success will be difficult to achieve.
Usability
Your website must be easy to navigate and designed in a way that makes it easy to find information. Visitors will not stay long if it takes more than one or two clicks to get the information they want or if it takes brain power to figure out how to get the information they want. One of the goals of your site design is to keep usability easy, and simple. To do this, apply the following three fundamentals of usability.
• Provide a site search tool. A visitor in a hurry can quickly find the info they desire then move on to the action they desire.
• Provide simple, intuitive and consistent site navigation. This provides visitors the tool they need to leisurely explore their way through your site.
• Provide logical and simple to follow content. Forget Expensive PPC Advertising – There is an Alternative!
The message of a site should start off in a simple and basic fashion with well defined links pointing the way to more detailed information or explanation as needed.
In the cases above, the goal is to make it easy for your visitor to find the information they want without frustration or difficulty. Doing this well will have a positive effect on increasing the return of your visitors.
Aesthetics
A website has to look clean, uncomplicated and strike a balance in layout that is pleasant to the visitor. Pleasing aesthetics come about when the colors of a site complement each other, the graphics blend and lend continuation of the theme and the layout brings unity and openness to the page.
Often overlooked by novice designers is the color palette of the site. While you can select color in a willy-nilly fashion and still provide a visually appealing site, a better idea for color selection should be based on an understanding of the color wheel and proven color strategies.
Many web designers often view a web page as an opportunity to blast a visitor with lots of information in hopes this will convince the visitor to take action. Usually this results in a quick exit due to the overwhelming visual effect and complicated look. A better approach is to provide less content and open space (referred to as white space) to allow visitors eyes to scan and explore with ease.
Content
An important feature of any website is the quality of the text content. Visitors come to a site expecting to find answers to their questions, solutions to their problems or for entertainment value. The content offered at your site must be well-written and without grammatical or spelling errors. It also has to be relevant to the theme of your site, with valid, up-to- date information for your visitors. Content is King!
Graphics
You can have a functional and usable website without graphic elements. However, if there are similar sites to yours that employ graphics, guess which site will get the most traffic. The necessary companions to any well-designed site are the images and illustrations that grace its pages. The images can’t be any willy-nilly graphic that you might think is cool. Graphic imagery has to support your branding, and communicate the message you are trying to convey. Before you incorporate graphic elements into your site, take some time to look around the web. Notice what looks good and how elements are laid out. These same layouts techniques can be used as models for your site.
The Internet is a highly competitive business arena. To be successful with a commercial website, you have to keep these five crucial web design elements in mind. Contrary to what many will tell you, it is rarely possible to have commercial success without the benefit of a professional website. This is not to say that you must hire a professional, however you must implement professional design elements to improve your chances for success.
