This is the second of a two-part series on the mobile Web. Also see:
• 3 steps to a successful mobile website

Target audience: Mid-size and small businesses, online marketers, Web publishers, mobile developers, entrepreneurs, educators, journalists, general public.

We sometime don’t appreciate how fast things are moving, but the mobile Web is exploding.

In celebration of the release of my new book, The Bootstrapper’s Guide to the Mobile Web, I offer you this mobile Web infographic to use as your guide to preparing for these sweeping changes, whether you’re an online marketer, publisher or a one of the users of 5.6 billion mobile phones worldwide today (over 327 million in the United States). The infographic explains the difference between native apps and Web apps (big difference), and points out the numbers:

There will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users by 2015, driving $20.6 billion in mobile ad revenue and $119 billion in merchandise spent by mobile shoppers by 2015. And it’s just getting started.

You’re welcome to share and re-post the infographic as long as the header and credits sections remain intact. A larger version of the graphic can be downloaded from TheBootstrappersGuide.com.

Related on Socialmedia.biz

• The importance of mobile optimized landing pages
• 3 steps to a successful mobile website
• 4 reasons you need a mobile website
• How do people use the mobile Web?
• Why you should care about the mobile Web

Image by rzymu on BigStockPhoto.com

Plan for a mobile site that meets your strategic needs

This is the first of a two-part series on the mobile Web. Tomorrow:
• The Ultimate Mobile Web Infographic

Target audience: Mid-size and small businesses, Web publishers, mobile developers, entrepreneurs, educators, journalists, general public.

As we’ve been saying, the time has come for you to offer your readers a mobile version of your website in one form or another.

But before leaping in and creating a mobile website just because you need one, pull back and plan for a mobile site that meets your customer’s needs, fulfills your business objectives, and integrates the features you need now and in the future.

Here are some guidelines to help you plan a successful mobile website:

Plan for user expectations

1In a previous post, we discussed how people use the mobile Web. Mobile device users already know what they want when they get to a mobile website, and are more likely to take action once they get there. To plan for this type of user behavior, answer the following questions about potential visitors to your mobile site:

Include features on your mobile site that will encourage mobile users to share your content, contact your business, access your social media sites & find your business
• Why are they most likely coming to your site?
• What information are they most likely seeking?
• What types of actions are they most likely to take?

Continue reading »

You finally have your mobile ad ready in the new Google AdWords for Mobile and have high hopes for reaching the unsaturated mobile audience. But have you thought your campaign all the way through? Once you reach this mobile demographic, where will you send them? Hopefully, you plan to send them to a page that is optimized for the mobile Web.

You already know the best practices of successful landing pages (if not, here is a link to landing page resources that can help).

• Landing pages should be relevant to to the ad that sent the user there.
• Landing pages should get to the point quickly.
• Landing pages should make the call to action very clear and accessible.
• Landing pages should be short and avoid scrolling where possible.
• Landing pages should require very little from the user.

Continue reading »

Image on BigStockPhoto by suravid

Most social media strategists agree that there is no one, established framework to measure social media success. However, there are tactics you can adjust and apply to any social media strategy to help create a framework that works for you.

This article can help you develop an individualized, social media measuring framework. Follow these four steps:

Know your goals

1Any good marketing plan starts with established goals. You need to know what your goals are before you can measure how successful your efforts have been to achieve them.

What do you want to accomplish through your social media efforts? Some possibilities include:

• Sell more products
• Get more reviews
• Establish yourself as a thought leader
• Drive more traffic to your website
• Generate leads
• Increase your fan base
• Reach a specific demographic

Outline very specific goals so you can measure the results of your efforts.

Establish your baselines

2Based on your goals from step one, establish measurable baselines you can use for comparison later.

Create a spreadsheet that includes:

• Current sales numbers
• Review counts
• Number of hits in Google
• Website stats
• Other baselines specific to your goals

Clearly, some things are easier to measure than others. Quantitative elements like sales, website stats, and Google hits can be tracked easily. However, more qualitative elements such as thought leadership, influence, or customer satisfaction can be trickier to measure.

You may be surprised at just how many things are measurable in social media. Check out this post entitled “100 Ways to Measure Social Media” posted by Marketers Studio in 2009. This lists demonstrates that there are many things that can be measured. Your job is to establish which items are true indicators of your efforts based on your established goals.

Track your efforts

3There are plenty of tools you can use to help measure your social media efforts. Internal features of social media tools like Facebook and WordPress, free external tools, and paid services can all give you insight into how well certain strategies are paying off.

It is important during this step to use more than one tool to track your efforts. Each individual tool can give you specific insight into one or more aspects of your social media presence. Together, a carefully selected host of tools can give you a complete picture of how your efforts are paying off.

Continue reading »

How Socialmedia.biz looked on a smartphone before and after it was optimized for mobile.

How does your site look on a smartphone?

Many of you may be thinking, My website displays fine in mobile browsers, even if it is a little small.

What’s the big deal?

Just having a mini version of your existing website is not going to cut it. You need a mobile version of your website that addresses all of the following issues:

Load time

1A website designed for mobile will load in around four or five seconds, while a traditional website can take as long as 40 seconds to load on a mobile device. Not only will this lead to much frustration for your site visitors, but it will also keep your site from placing well in mobile directories.

Mobile directories

2Even if your site displays properly in mobile browsers, it may not be indexed by mobile search algorithms. When one uses a search engine on a mobile device, the search query accesses a separate index maintained for mobile content. If your website is not optimized for mobile search engines, it will not place well in such search results.

Mobile browser standards

3Mobile browsers do not work the same as desktop browsers. They do not render video, Flash, image galleries, and many other software and scripts in the same manner as desktop browsers. Most mobile browsers simply ignore Flash. If your site uses Flash or other proprietary software, it may not load in mobile browsers at all. A mobile version of your website that adheres to mobile standards as set by W3C’s mobile web initiative will solve these issues.

Continue reading »

Once you have created a Google Plus page for your business, you should link it to your business website.

Linking your Google Plus page will verify your page with Google, and help your page and your website place better in search results. Verifying your page also lets you place a badge on your website that will encourage users to add your page to their circles.

A Google Plus “badge” is not the same as a button. A button will simply take the user to your page, a badge allows the user to add your Google Plus page to their circles on the spot, without needing to navigate away from your website. But, you cannot take advantage of this functionality without first verifying your your Google plus page by linking it to your website.

The video above demonstrates how you can link your Google Plus page and your business website.