Grow your Business by Going Mobile

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Flickr

Back in 2012, I wrote my annual Hector the Connector Prediction article where I stated that making your website mobile friendly was critical to your long-term internet marketing success. Back then few websites were mobile friendly. HTML 5 did not exist yet, and the only way you could truly have a mobile website was to build a separate website designed to fit mobile platforms. These sites were formatted for smartphone or tablet and were easy to spot because they had the designation “.mobi” attached to them. In 2012, the majority of web surfers were using desktop computers. Most smartphones only used 3G (4G LTE was still new) and 99.999 percent of all websites were built for a desktop platform. Today, more than 52% of all web traffic is mobile (i.e., from smartphones). In Asia, it’s more than 65%! Today’s online marketer needs to make sure their web assets are mobile friendly, or they’ll miss out on more than half the traffic! In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will explore what is needed from your mobile-friendly web assets and what it takes to succeed in a mobile-dominated internet. So, get out your smartphone and get ready to browse the changes you need to make to become 100% mobile-friendly.  

The mobile stats listed in my introduction, are conservative at best. I manage many pay per click campaigns and the statistics from most of the campaigns I manage show upwards of 65% being mobile. This is also true for our blogging platforms and social sites. On top of that, you can’t go into a retail store without seeing a person looking up product information on their smartphone while in the aisle shopping. It seems you can’t throw a rock 20-feet without hitting someone with their face buried in their smartphone, even when they’re at a restaurant eating!

In 2014, we published the article called “Going Mobile,” which covered the rapid growth of the smartphone market and how it would soon affect the landscape of web marketing. That article provided solutions to upgrading and refreshing your web properties to take advantage of this trend.  Then, in 2015 we published the article “Are You Prepared for Mobilgeddon?” where we discussed how Google finally stated that it felt being mobile-friendly was so critical that these criteria were elevated to an important SEO ranking factor. Here we are, three years later, and the majority of websites are still not mobile-friendly.

What is Mobil-Friendly? – Some people will tell you that a website is

Courtesy of Pixabay

mobile friendly if it automatically shrinks to fit the device platform screen. This is only partially correct. To be fully mobile-friendly your site needs to rearrange the page elements so that they display full-size but are arranged in a way that makes them easy to use on your mobile devices. If you have to do a lot of side-scrolling, screen pinching to zoom in or out, it's not fully mobile-friendly. True mobile-friendly web properties make it easy for people to read, engage, fill out forms and even buy on a mobile device. Make sure your videos, images, and photos are setup to load fast. Your pages must load quickly if you want the mobile crowd to stay connected. Remember cellular connections are usually not as fast as Wi-Fi or hardwired connections. Mobile users are notoriously impatient. If you want to take advantage of the largest segment of the internet market, then your web properties must meet or exceed this criterion. I keep mentioning web properties because today, you have to manage many types of web content including, websites, landing pages, blogs, video portals, social networks, podcast sites and more.

  

Let’s further explore this and other important prerequisites for a web property today. Your web properties not only need to be mobile-friendly, in many cases, they need to be ADA and GDPR compliant (Americans for Disabilities Act and General Data Protection Regulation). These two elements are required by law, and we are seeing the beginnings of federal prosecutions and lawsuits taking place for owners of non-compliant sites. Being easily accessible to the disabled makes your website friendly to non-disabled people as well. Being GDPR compliant means you have “User-Friendly Privacy Rules” in place, which also improves the trust factor for visitors. Along these same lines is making sure your web properties are “https” accessible. Having a secure encrypted connection also helps create a trust for visitors.

Courtesy of Pixabay

Trust is a Must - Now let's look at creating trust factors in the content of the web properties as well. The first thing you need to add is contact information that’s easy to find and utilize. Every website should provide legitimate contact information. Many websites don’t include phone numbers or address, and yet these site owners wonder why their sites lack trust. If you add a contact form, it must also be mobile friendly. On top of this, we don’t recommend asking for too much information. Many consumers are already wary of data breaches and identity theft, and they are reluctant to post too much of their personal info. We normally ask for the name, email address and phone number only. This will easily fit the screen of any smartphone and is not so intrusive that it won’t get filled out.

The next item we feel is very valuable are “Video Testimonials.” These will easily fit a smartphone screen if you embed them on your web property from YouTube or Facebook. Along these same lines, your web pages need to be focused on only one content subject. This will make it rank more easily for that subject versus a page with multiple subjects. Furthermore, the page needs to include a unique selling proposition (USP) which can be a video that also matches the page content. The last two important items include a call to action and if possible,” a compelling offer” with a “Buy Now Button.” If the trust items are executed well and the offer is very compelling, visitors will take advantage of the “Buy Now Button.”

Courtesy of Flickr

I don’t want to make light of other SEO factors, including metadata, keywords, traffic volume, back-links and content congruency. These are very important as well. All of these elements should have been developed and discovered in your “pre-campaign research” where you discover your ideal customer profile and where to look for your “targeted audience.”

So far, I have outlined what it takes to create a mobile-friendly website. The above elements
hold true whether we are talking about HTML5, WordPress or other web programming languages used to create websites. However, it’s also important that all web assets be Mobile-Friendly. This includes blogs, your social networks, video portals, podcast and internet radio portals. All web assets need to be scrutinized. It’s important to note that most web assets like blogs, social sites, and portals can use forms, sell buttons, and all the other types of e-commerce elements used to connect with followers. We love using Blogger because it is mobile-friendly and https compliant without any extra work on our part. It can also act as your main website. Plus, it’s indexed every time a blog is published, which means built-in Google juice!

Most social networks are mobile-friendly (not the desktop versions) via their specialized Apps. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ all have smartphone apps designed to make it easier for people to interact with them when they go mobile.

Get an App for That -
You can also enhance your mobile presence by creating or

Courtesy of PxHere

purchasing a mobile app for your business as well. These apps will allow you to communicate with your following with push messages via text and email, and they allow your followers to contact you as well. You can even sell using your smart app. This makes it easy for followers to take advantage of special offers and short-duration discounts. Mobile apps can also be tied to your e-newsletters as well. And speaking of email, make sure your emails are mobile-friendly as chances are at least half will be read on a mobile device.

There is no excuse for any business today not to have most, if not all their web properties fully mobile-friendly. If they aren’t, it's because that business hasn’t realized the amount of business they are missing. Don’t ignore half the web? Once you realize that more than 50% of all internet traffic is mobile, most businesses make it a priority to try to capture their fair share. If you follow the tips laid out in this article, you will not only create first-class mobile-friendly web properties, you will also greatly increase your traffic conversion ratio as well. Make sure you take the time to visit and read the linked articles throughout this blog. Doing so will provide you with a wider perspective and additional mobile marketing tips as well. Anyone not participating in mobile marketing online today is missing out on the bulk of profitable traffic the internet has to offer. So, if you don’t take advantage of my advice, be on the lookout for “thank you’s”, coming your way. Your competition loves that you’re making it easier for them to win the day.

That's my opinion; I look forward to reading yours.

This article provides more than a dozen tips that will help the reader build or convert their existing web properties to mobile-friendly web assets. The principles and techniques listed make it easy to convert existing websites, blogs, and other internet assets. These principles and techniques can help improve mobile traffic and increase conversions as well.  There are also many links to resources that can provide the reader with everything they need to grow their social fan base.

If you feel your business hasn’t found the net profit on the Internet, we

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can help with guaranteed services that produce positive results, or you don’t pay. If you would like to see your websites rank higher, you can contact us at by dialing 904-410-2091. We are very good at cost-effectively creating tangible online results for our clients. We also provide 27 different digital products to help businesses get their message out. If you’re ready to take your web results to the next level, simply fill out the form in the sidebar of this blog and we will provide you with a free marketing analysis will show you how to get better results. Our claim to fame is that we are one of a few companies that actually provide real guarantees at a fair price.

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Hector Cisneros is COO and Director of Social Media Marketing at Working the Web to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville, Florida.  He is also co-host of the weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success.”