Tiny Web Bits

Are you kind to your mobile fellow ?

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:41:20 +0000

Do your business has a front door that block people with chairwheels from getting inside ? One of tenth time, does you clerk speeeaaaakkkk sssslllloooowwwwlllyyyyyyy and take 10 minutes packing the grocery bags ? Does you desks are flipped on their side while you are sitting on them to meet clients ? No.

Then why your website looks like hell when your customers visit it ? Why does it take 4 minutes loading the home page ? You don’t want their business ? That’s not good because competition might be ahead of you and begin stealing market share.

What is it with mobile Web ?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX of Internet users uses their cell phone to visit websites. It represent XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX of all user. They are techno savvy and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXx of them do windows licking onlien while XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX buy regularly online.

The mobile phone market is exploding with a raise of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX% since 200000000000. Mobile phone application is overcrowded with XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxx apps for iPhone and Android and Blackberry.

For the next XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX years, mobile web surfing is going to be the fastest growing market segment with a XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx% raise and reaching a potential XXXXXXXXXXXXXxx user.

With the traditionnal browser war going on between four majors (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari) comes the need to respect Web standards when building websites. Without knowing which browser web surfers will use, good website developers are building websites that are cross-browsers compatible websites. Doing this, it garantee that all the condition are met to optimize the website’s calls-to-action.

With screens of 320 pixels large and download speed up to an huitième of high speed landline connection, mobile web surfing requires a different set of standards. Most mobile browsers are trying to emulate mobile standard when displaying not conform websites, but struggle to go past design flaws.

Platform-centric separation

Think about it : How would you setup a booth for selling high end stainless steel knives in a high class gathering of worldwide 5-star cuisine chefs in New York ? How would your booth looks for selling the same knives in a country family-gathering middleclass workers fair in Ohio ?

When comes to the attraction of the customer, the wise one knows that fitting customer mood is all you need. As a business, you can rely on browser companies to display your website their way or you can give them a website that works natively in them. Have a look at USPS website. It is nice, with beautiful graphics and well-thought information architecture. It was réfléchi exactly to provide the best experience for desktop users :

PICCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Then look at the same website designed specifically for mobile phone. Out the graphics, out the complex layout that only fit well in big screens. USPS thaught about their users. They asks themselves : “What do mobile users needed the most when accessing our website?”, which that bring these answers :

I don’t want to scroll. The primary content must fit in most mobile screen
I need the info fast. We must strip all the graphics and the layout files that takes time to download
When I am on the road, I don’t care about administrative policies of USPS > We must put the most precious information for mobile users and strip all the rest.

They create this mobile website :

PICCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Simple, fast, efficient

Please speak my language

When comes to mobile web, the best approach is to create a superset of your website using mobile friendly programming. A lot of specifications exists and your web designer should be able to assists you in planning and releasing mobile platform ready websites. One of the most popular approach is to separate the website data from the design and then create a custom design for mobile phones.

When using popular content management systems (CMS) like WordPress and Magento eCommerce, you can find easily plugins that will help you to put a mobile website online. Some compagnies are already offering applications (not website to consult in a browser, but applications that you install on your phone) connected with the data on your website, providing better speed and layout control.

Know you mobile technology

Google Analytics had prove to be one of the best free web activities analytics tool. It includes stats about which mobile platform that visit your website. Other tools like PercentMobile.com and AdMob can identify mobile models and OS giving your website designer tremendous data to help them building failproof mobile website.

Am I doing good on the web ?

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:52:08 +0000

Big question ! In time, we will dedicate a complete section to help you find your way in the enormous world of stats and measures. A lot of solutions exists, but for start, you only need basic numbers.

To be able to know if your are doing good on the web, you will need some stats. For your website, the best free tool is Google Analytics. When properly associated with the URL of your website, it provide a constant monitoring of the visitors of your website. Days after days, it will compile data about your visitors and get them ready for you to analyze them through easy-to-read reports.

Google is providing a good tutorial to help you getting through the installation. Install it, then get back to TinyWebBits.com to learn what to do with this tool.

What if I don’t have a website ?

You don’t have a website and you have a business ? Get one ! Tons of people search on the web to find company that can help them answer their needs. Come on, you don’t have to build the next Amazon.com website. A website with a Services page, a Contact page and which looks good and professional is enough. When you get your website, install Google Analytics.

What if I don’t think I should have a website ?

It happens, in some industries. You should however have a web presence. Twitter, Facebook, a blog, YouTube videos, whatever else… But you MUST be present on the web. We will discuss other ways to measure your performance on the web in other posts

Be present, protect your brand

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:45:15 +0000

Having a website with a nice domain name that tells people who are you is no longer enough.

The day you will feel confortable to take a leap on the web, do it right by securising your brand on some website that you could be using soon. It is the very first steps of building a good web presence. During past years, you just have to have a website with good keywords and the search engine were doing the rest of the job of promoting your website in the first results.

It is not enough today. You must have other websites that refer to you. You must create a “vibe” on the web that is referring to you. We will have other posts that will explain in-depth how to build a great web presence. You, should however start your web presence by creating accounts in these websites :

Facebook (www.facebook.com/CompanyName)
Twitter (www.twitter.com/CompanyName)
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/CompanyName)
YouTube (www.youtube.com/user/CompanyName)
Flickr (www.flickr.com/groups/CompanyName)

These are the basic websites on which you should have an account for your brand. There is no need at this time to add content on these sites, but the account should be ready for when you will be.