Courtesy of eMarketer

The projected results for 2013? $10.46 billion for mobile media advertising, mobile customer-relationship management, and mobile direct-response marketing on nonmobile media. The MMA expects this number to double by 2015. The study also found that every $1 in mobile spending results in $20 in sales.

Taking a deeper look into how mobile advertising dollars were allocated, the MMA found that of the $4.8 billion being spent in mobile media advertising, $3.16 billion of that is dedicated to mobile web.

In addition, Insight Express conducted a study on the effect of mobile advertising on brand metrics. They found that mobile spending can also greatly impact a business’s brand health. Mobile advertising consistently grows ad awareness, purchase intent, and brand favorability. One thing remains clear: mobile advertising is helping businesses build their brand, bring traffic to their sites, and ultimately, drive sales.

Side-by-side comparison between the two flagship phones:

Courtesy of Trusted Reviews

We like it because: Wrap & Roll’s page is built to deliver a great mobile experience. The sandwich bar is updated and uses almost all of Duda’s mobile widgets, including new features we’ve recently added to the site editor. As a result, the content on the site is focused and perfect for someone on-the-go. Wrap & Roll also provides various action buttons that encourage visitors to really engage their business.

Mobile friendly features they’re using: The sandwich joint uses a new tool, Multi-Location, on their mobile site to map their three locations around town, as well as the Business hours function to let people know when their doors are open. Using the Send Info feature, sandwich-eaters can also sign up for the restaurant’s text alert service for discounts and promotions.

Quick thoughts: We work hard to identify the growing demands of mobile consumers and develop new features that meet their needs. Stay current and update your site to make sure you’re constantly providing your customers with a great experience on your mobile site.

There were 1,305 businesses and nonprofits surveyed, and only 34% responded to having a mobile-optimized website.

Of the 34% of small businesses who run a mobile site:
- 44% contain a navigational menu.
- 40% contain individualized product listings.

Image Courtesy of Constant Contact

The most eye-opening data from the report; however, was the 34% of small businesses owners that reported having no involvement with mobile technology. What’s more is 65% of those businesses said they have no plans to go mobile in the future. Here were some of the reasons why:

- Customers haven’t expressed demand for mobile communications.
- Small businesses don’t have the time or know how to implement mobile solutions.
- Mobile is irrelevant to their business.

These numbers seemed surprising to us, given most people are dependent on their mobile devices looking for local information. It’s a wonder why so many businesses have yet to join the mobile movement.

1. Don’t provide a link to the page your visitor is already on. We see this all too often. However, “Home” buttons have no place on the landing page of your mobile website. Make better use of your screen’s real estate by adding another mobile feature or image.

2. Keep your content effective and focused. Just because Duda extracts all the content from your desktop site doesn’t mean all of it needs to go on mobile. When users are on their mobile devices, they’re looking for the essentials like contact information, business location and hours, lists of products and services, etc. Make this information obvious and easy to find.

3. Make your site visually appealing. Get creative with your site. Like we’ve said before, our website converter is a convenient tool when it comes to tackling the technical difficulties of creating a mobile site, but take advantage of our site editor to add images and brighten your page. You can also add color to action buttons like Click-to-Call and Mobile Maps to help them stand out, making it more likely for visitors to click on them.

4. Allow visitors to take actions quickly. Put action buttons above the fold. Put action buttons at the top of every page. Put action buttons at the bottom of every page if you want to. Do whatever it takes to allow users to view your website and immediately give you a call, find your business location, or book a table at your restaurant.

5. Take advantage of all the mobile features on our website builder. Update your site with features that are being added to the editor. New features aside, we know it’s hard to believe, but we still see plenty of sites that are missing action buttons. We don’t say it enough: use them.

We like it because: Friday Fun Nights uses bright, bold colors on their mobile site to attract the user’s attention without taking away from the actual content of the website. Achieving the perfect balance of visual and text can also be challenging for mobile sites that are information-heavy; however, Friday Fun Nights keeps their content well organized without overwhelming the reader.

Mobile friendly features they’re using: Though our Contact Form is typically used as the name implies, to allow users to provide basic contact information to businesses, Friday Fun Nights creatively uses the widget as a talent call, allowing local performers to submit their acts into the program for review. We also like Frankenmuth’s interactive approach to social media on their mobile site; people visiting the page can directly access Friday Fun Nights’ Facebook wall and can also participate in the program’s photo contest on Instagram.

Quick thoughts: Though going mobile is as easy as a push of a button, it’s important to remember that the do-it-yourself editor is there for businesses to make sites their own. Our builder can be a convenient tool when making complicated sites mobile-optimized and user-friendly, but don’t be afraid to get creative and have some fun when customizing the look, feel, and content of your mobile site.

Mobile Maps is designed to provide mobile users with step-by-step directions to businesses with one location. With this navigational feature, customers are brought from your mobile site straight to your door with the click of a button. As for businesses that have more than one location, mobile users are often looking for the one that is closest to them.

As a result, we created Multi-Location. This new mobile feature allows users to view businesses with multiple locations all on one map or list view, making it easier for customers to identify which office or store is most convenient for them to get to.

According to a mobile consumer study conducted by Google, 94% of smartphone users search their mobile devices for local products and services. Of those local information seekers, 50% look up a map or get directions to the business. This means your mobile customers want to find you. Give them some direction with Mobile Maps and Multi-Location, so people can find your business, whether it’s the flagship store or the small branch office across town.

Attending the event will be DudaMobile’s own Chief Executive Officer, Itai Sadan. Itai will be delivering a 20 minute presentation entitled, “How to Create a Mobile Website that Drives Leads and Sales.” In this session, you will learn why the mobile web is critical to the growth of your business, and how to quickly create a mobile-friendly website.

There will also be a number of other industry professionals at Apps and Apps giving presentations on the following topics:

• Growing your audience
• Identifying your best customers
• Ways to update your main contact database among many different tools available
• Making your website or social media presence more effective

We know that designing something entirely from scratch can seem like a pretty daunting task. So, we created a bunch of terrific templates to keep the process super easy.

We’re still running a few tests, so not everyone is going to see these yet. However, if you happen to be one of the lucky people to land on our newly designed homepage, we highly recommend checking them out.

As you can see, these templates look pretty amazing, but we don’t think they’re the coolest part of this update to Duda. No. We think the coolest thing is our builder will now scour the web looking for your business’s online content and then automatically place it into your template. Basically, this means you can create a brand new mobile website just using your Facebook page. Cool, right!?

So, how do we do it? Well, we’ve got tons of creative people in every department at Duda, and we wanted to give everyone a chance to let out their inner designer while fostering a sense of friendly competition.

Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the fruits of our endeavor: The Duda Shoes.

As you may know, you can find all sorts of wonderful things on the internet. We find that Do It Yourself design tools are especially great. So, you can imagine how excited we were at the prospect of holding a company-wide competition to design some type of clothing or accessory that could be worn with pride by all of the DudaMobile staff. After, kicking around some ideas (get it!?), we decided that shoes were the perfect fit because, like Duda, shoes make you mobile. The only rule we had was you had to use the Duda brand colors, blue and orange.

After a considerable amount of deliberation (there were a lot of great entries), we brought it to a vote and chose the above design as the winner. It was created by one of the fine people on our development team, Ronnie. Though this was the winning shoe, there were some truly interesting and inspired designs that were entered. Here’s just a few:

In conclusion, if you’re looking for a way to lighten the mood at your business, feel free to follow our lead. Find something that’s relatable to what you do, creative, and gives your employees a sense of engagement with the company. But most of all, we recommend you just have fun with it.