I don’t really need to write a blog about the fact that more and more of your traffic is going to be coming from tablets and smartphones – that is very evident by every statistic that concludes people have their faces glued to an iPhone or Android throughout the day. This blog is going to assume that you understand the weight of likely half of your web traffic coming from mobile devices. Let’s spend some time talking about the quickest way to make the most of it:
The Mobile Site
Your website should be optimized for mobile either one of two ways: with a responsive mobile stylesheet or redirecting to a dedicated mobile site (the m.). There has been debate whether search engines like Google reward websites for the m. (thus displaying with certainty that you’ve made some effort to make a mobile site, inevitably supplying a better user experience) and results vary. One thing is for sure: results will show up different from desktop compared to mobile in the instance of a m..mainly because it acts as another website (the subdomain in itself is viewed as a separate domain, which can in some respects piggyback off of the main domain). This can be proven in one instance where we used a third party for our own site in the past, and a series of nasty redirects for certain pages caused them to effectively render absolutely nothing, thus having us lose out on a number of very enticing keywords we ranked nicely for on mobile.
Mobile Ads
Mobile ads are getting pretty great. Did you know, for example, the weather channel app can display certain apps depending on the weather? In one situation, they told me that they could rotate more personal injury ads (more specifically car accident ads) if it is raining outside? Pretty neat. I did inquire whether the ads could show when it was anticipated to rain in a few hours, but that was wishful thinking. Think about how much less you have to compete for attention on mobile – a 200 X 200 ad that would normally get swallowed up by the noise of a desktop website now often has prominent placement right in front of you on mobile. Often times, it doesn’t even cost extra to be there either.
Having trouble getting things rolling on mobile? We’d love to help! Call us today to speak with an expert today and learn how.