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vangogh
12-01-2011, 07:19 PM
Does your website work well on mobile devices? If not you may want to make sure it is.

Early statistics are showing that mobile traffic was up 160% (http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8380-mobile-traffic-increases-160-over-thanksgiving) this Thanksgiving over last year.

Luke Wroblewski, who's a big proponent of designing for mobile first provides data about mobile every Monday. This week he mentioned that mobile traffic came close to tripling this year on Black Friday (http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1452) as compared to last year. It accounted for 14.3% of all traffic as compared to 1% from 2009.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that mobile traffic is on the rise given how many new mobile devices we all have and use. The question is are you prepared for it?

greenoak
12-01-2011, 09:38 PM
customers use their phones inour store everyday.sending pictures out for approval or to copy or???? i see it a lot.....its just amazing how fast the new phones have changed things.... when a storm approached a while back customers in the store warned us.
..im planning to reallly work on it next week...

vangogh
12-02-2011, 01:07 AM
It is amazing isn't it? Pretty soon there won't be anything called smart phones. They'll just be phones and everyone will have one. I use mine all the time for so many things now. Before too long it'll be common to pay through your phone instead of pulling out a check or credit card.

Mobile traffic to my site is still a small %, but it has been growing. You might want to do something so the first thing people see on a phone when they visit your site is contact information and maybe a map with directions to the store.

KristineS
12-02-2011, 12:28 PM
Mobile is one of the things we're working on for the EnMart site. We're seeing more and more people using their phones to check prices or find information. I know I use mine much more than I used to, and I'm getting a lot more annoyed when a site isn't mobile friendly.

vangogh
12-02-2011, 01:24 PM
You're not the only one. I think we're still learning when, where, and why people are browsing on mobile devices. Some people are on the go and just want a quick bit of information. Others are browsing from the couch, possibly for longer time frames.

So much about mobile use is still something of an unknown. What's clear though is mobile traffic is only going to continue to increase and it's time we all start paying more attention to it.

vangogh
12-02-2011, 03:12 PM
Just came across another article with more interesting data. More people now browse on mobile devices than wse IE6 & IE7 combined (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/more_people_browse_on_mobile_than_use_ie6_ie7_comb .php).

Next time you're deciding if your site needs to work better in IE6 and IE7 ask yourself first how it works on mobile devices.

greenoak
12-02-2011, 03:21 PM
KRISTINE....WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER MAJOR FOR BEING A MOBILE SITE? thx

Steve B
12-02-2011, 05:42 PM
Good question VG - Am I prepared for it? My wife and I had to go back to "not quite so smart phones" - so I can't check.

vangogh
12-02-2011, 06:15 PM
Unfortunately you didn't get the reception you wanted. Are there carriers where you are with better coverage than AT&T? I know you liked your iPhone during the short time you had it and it's now available on both Verizon and Sprint too. The 4s has a great camera and Siri can be very useful at times.

J from Michigan
12-02-2011, 08:37 PM
Prepared? Eh.
Preparing? Absolutely!

It's one of my biggest goals, during our off-season.
My hosting offers mobile pages, but I haven't quite got the jist of it... yet.

vangogh
12-03-2011, 06:01 PM
The majority of us don't really need a separate mobile site. It'll depend on your site of course, but most of us will be fine with a single site that has considered mobile devices when designed. The term being used in web design circles is responsive design, which is a way to build flexibility into your design so it renders well across a variety of devices and screen resolutions. Media Queries (http://mediaqueri.es/) is a site with lots of different examples.

In most cases responsive design will be less work and less expense that developing and maintaining two separate sites, one for mobile and one for the desktop.

Another philosophy in web design is mobile first. Here's a presentation on mobile first (http://www.lukew.com/presos/preso.asp?26) by Luke Wroblewski. The basic idea is to think mobile first when designing your site, in part because mobile devices have more constraints that desktops. You want to really think about what absolutely needs to be on a page and site and get rid of the rest since you aren't going to be able to get everything in on a mobile device. You can then alter the design as the device becomes more capable and the screen resolution increases.

JHL
03-03-2012, 06:31 PM
Not only that but also with the ever growing popularity of Tablets and how much they are advancing with keyboard docks etc. When people used to be on the couch browsing on their laptop, is now turned into mobile browsing through their smartphone or tablet.

I offer quick and easy one step website to Mobile Website conversion. Which also turns any mobile website into a Mobile App, which enables users to put it on their homepages or app drawers for iPhone, Android or Blackberry.

Most people when looking for a business or restaurant are quickly searching on their phones web browser, if your site comes up on google but isn't web friendly, your really doing yourself a disservice.

vangogh
03-03-2012, 07:31 PM
Absolutely. Most statistics show that the most common place people surf using either tablet or phone is from the couch. Ok, maybe the stats can't pinpoint the couch, but the surfing is being done at home. We're at the start of the time where most people are going to trade in their PC for a tablet. Some people will always need more, but the majority just want to surf, respond to email, check out social networks, and similar things. You can do all of that on an iPad now.

RyanSmith
09-25-2012, 06:47 PM
We're seeing our client sites have an incredible growth in mobile traffic as well.

I've been seeing estimates that mobile search is up to 25% of all searches now... I totally believe it.

Some of the most successful online marketing campaigns our agency has done have been mobile-targeted search. Those are the people "on the dealership" or "in store" that are doing comparative shopping...

We see mobile traffic hit a second peak between 6 and 10pm too, when people get home and use their phones to browse while watching tv (I guess).

vangogh
09-26-2012, 12:12 AM
Interesting. I haven't been checking to see what time mobile traffic is arriving, but it's definitely been growing recently. For a large part of the world a mobile device is the only computing device for most people. Some interesting stats via Luke Wroblewski (http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1628).


66% of social networking started on a smartphone.
65% shopping online started on a smartphone.
65% searching for information started on a smartphone.
63% browsing the Internet started on a smartphone.
59% managing finances started on a smartphone.


You can't ignore mobile devices now. There's a good chance if someone finds you online they'll be holding a smartphone when they do.

KristineS
09-26-2012, 03:07 PM
I've seen a huge uptick in e-mails that say "Sent from my iPhone" or "Sent from my iPad". Our mobile stats have also risen in Google Analytics. The hard fact is that almost every site is going to have to have a mobile option eventually.

vangogh
09-26-2012, 06:03 PM
Eventually would be waiting too long I think. It's time to start doing it now. Most sites won't be designed and developed well for mobile devices in the immediate future, but if your's is, you'll have a competitive advantage. In a few years you'll be at a disadvantage if you don't have a site that works well on mobile device.