Mobile Website? Any Advice?

Welcome aboard Lee and making the transition from lurker

In my opinion, mobile sites are now a must, and their importance is getting bigger every year.

Looking at our own stats, and listening to other people, mobile visitors now make up about 30% of traffic. So if your site can't be easily seen on a mobile device, then thats a lot of potential punters you've lost.

But I think a lot of it is relevance. If you're a tradesman, then I'd bet about 50% of your traffic is mobile. If you're a taxi company, maybe it's more?

Would I be searching for a photography site on my mobile? Chances are I would use a full browser, as any photographer site will have example pics for me to look at, so I'd prob use an ipad or laptop, but thats just me.

Also depends on your own website. If you are using, wordpress for example, there are (I beleive ) some straightforward plugins to make your site viewable on a smart phone.

Or you can go the route of something like a .tel domain, where you pay a tenner a year, and use their template. Just plug in a few details, contact details and some propaganda and your good to go. Telnames are a partner of ours, so thought'd try one myself: My Local Services - basic mobile site example

It's a cheap and cheerful solution, but personally I'd be wary of someone trying to sell you a complex and expensive solution.

Google has a good webpage to test your current site against, to see if it is mobile friendly: en-gb test-your-site-overview Test Your Site

Anyone else got any mobile site opinions?

Welcome Lee - look forward to hearing more from you now that you've come to the dark side.



Need? Well, if your site is not any good on a mobile device people will search elsewhere. I know I do. Can you afford to lose potential customers. Are you busy enough as it is? That should help you answer the question.


You summed it up quite well. Yes, for wordpress (& Joomla, Drupal etc.) there are plugins available. Though due the rapid increase in mobile usage these days it makes more sense to have a responsive website (i.e works well on both) from the start.

I see what you're saying about photography websites, but I'd suggest that it's still necessary to show the photos well on a mobile device.


Agreed.

Let us know how you get on Lee and what decision you make.

Hi Lee

I just joined this forum today and just read your post regarding mobile web design.
You have some great feedback already from other members, and here's my two pennies worth!

Do you need a mobile site?
Short answer - YES
Why? You are a photographer which local folks will search for on their desktop computers and also their mobile phones - 1 in 3 searches now is done on a mobile which means 1 in 3 visitors to your site are using a mobile. I dont know where you are based, but in my local city of Aberdeen, many people search for photographers, wedding photographers here. If you check out the google keyword tool and type in photographer your city eg photographer aberdeen, you will get a rough idea of how many people search for you on a monthly basis. And remember at least a third of these people are doing their research on a mobile device.

Another thing to think about is being viewable on a mobile device is not the same as being mobile optimised. A mobile optimised site compliments your existing website, but pulls info that is relevant for a mobile user eg contact number (click to call button), location, hours of operation, where to find you, what others say about you (reviews), and also as you are a photographer, you would want your photos to be viewable on a mobile device too.

You could just have a wee check of your site on a mobile and think like a customer for a second. Can you find what you are looking for? Are you consistently zooming in and scrolling left and right to read content? Is it easy to navigate around?

I would be more than willing to have a quick look at your website and give you feedback, just give us a shout.
Michele

I used the Google tool Steve recommended and notice it recommends clickable telephone numbers.

Is it a complicated job to make a 'phone number clickable plse?

I suppose I should also check whether the number's already clickable ... how do you do that when you haven't got a working mobile phone?

Hi

the tool that Steve suggested, correct me if I'm wrong is the google tool which lets you see what your site looks like on a mobile. This tool is designed to let you see why you need a mobile site, as it will point out what improvements you may have to do to make your site more optimised for a mobile user.

Its a great tool to give you an idea of what sort of thing is needed for a mobile site. If you decide to go ahead and try and build a site yourself then you click build a site and google has a list of companies that can help. I havent yet checked out whether any of these companies are free or not.

To make a phone number clickable will be easy if you use any of the free options on google search, just follow the instructions. Or alternatively if you decide to get someone to build it for you, they will easily add click to call buttons.

Just one word of caution if you decide to build for yourself - some of the free options may only be free for a short period of time, and some of the features you may fancy may be in the paid section, so just remember and read it all through. Also, new mobile phones come out all the time and mobile sites need something called a redirect script to work. Check whether the free company offers a redirect script that auto updates, as if it doesnt, it means that in some cases people cant view your site on their mobile. I didnt word that too well did I? What I meant was every time a mobile user clicks on your site, the redirect script recognises the mobile phone and then redirects them to the mobile site. But, if the redirect script does not recognise that particular mobile phone, the redirect will not work. Unless you have a redirect script that auto updates.
I am sorry if I have confused you more now, just get back to me if I have and I will make a better attempt at trying to help!!!
Michele

Hi Lee,

There are several posts on here that do a good job of explaining why you could use a mobile site, so I won't run over the same ground.

I run a successful SEO team plus a couple of my own ecommerce sites and one of the areas we look into on a regular basis are our analytics programmes.

Over the last two years and in particular the last year we have been paying close attention to the mobile side of the data.

We have seen significant increases in traffic delivered to websites derived from mobile devices, on average we see 19.8% of traffic now coming to sites from mobile devices - that's an average. Some sites we look after see over 25%, which is a fair chunk of traffic when you consider the traffic volume maybe in the hundreds of thousands.

Now, clearly for a client receiving this volume of traffic it would be unwise to ignore and and not tap into it by presenting their site in a version that was accessible to mobile devices.

Some static sites simply go for a trimmed down, fast loading version which works well. It gets a bit more technical for our ecommerce clients that wish to develop sales on mobiles, but done correctly adds positively to their conversion rates.

Do you run any analytics software? It would be a good idea to look at the data and see what traffic you currently receive from mobile devices, this may sway your thoughts.

Definitely - agreed!

Hey, Welcome!
The thing is you have a very interesting profession and people would like to see your work on mobiles and handy devices.
Now importance, well the trends are moving towards mobile websites. According to a research 33-39% of the people in US view websites on mobiles. Now you decide, if your category will do good on mobiles.
Anyways Best of Luck!

You will definitely need a mobile site. The rising number of smartphones and tablet usage should be a key indicator of the shift that is about to come. Don't believe me ? Just use the Google Keyword tool and see the level of traffic your keyword gets from mobile and tablet devices.

If you are getting traffic from the search engines from mobile users and they encounter a janky incompatible site -they will leave...NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN! I certainly don't want to play catch up I'd like to be ahead of the curve. Mobile sites for photographers should have stunning galleries integrated to showcase your work as well.