If you aren’t ready for mobile phone users to find you online, you need to get started. Here’s why:

• By 2013 — 50% of web traffic will come from mobile devices
• 74% of smart phone users made a purchase based on a phone search
• The US population is approximately 306 million. 69 million have smart phones now

“Mobile” is growing faster than any other aspect of computing. If you expect your customers to be able to find you online, you need to be ready for mobile.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a video you should watch.

So what can you do to get ready?

First, see where you are today. Check out your website, blog and Facebook page on a smart phone like an Apple iPhone or a Droid. If you don’t own a smart phone, borrow a friends, or ask them to look you up and show you.

The problem with viewing websites on a small screen (typically 320px wide) is that the text and images are too hard to read. In addition, iphones cannot display Flash-based websites. If you have a flash-based website, you are losing customers.

If your pages aren’t optimized for mobile devices, make a commitment to yourself to get a new website. You can

1. Have your current website redesigned. Make sure the designer is familiar with mobile phone apps, as there are over a dozen different phone models that must be taken into account during the redesign.

2. Use a web design company like APhotoFolio or  FolioLink that creates a new website for you that is optimized for mobile viewers. This may cost a bit more per month, but typically will give you the most professional solution.

3. Use a service like Gallerytopia that redirects mobile visitors to a mobile-only website you run side-by-side with your old website. This is the cheapest solution, but it requires you to update 2 separate websites.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 at 4:33 pm and is filed under website. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.