If we had to use one word to describe the future of online marketing, it's "mobile."
Worldwide, there are roughly 6 billion mobile phone subscribers, and close to 1 billion of those folks use smartphones, which allow high-speed, high-resolution access to online applications, web and email.
We all know that the Apple iPhone launched the smartphone revolution. But did you know that sales of the iPad, Apple's tablet, are ramping up even faster than iPhone sales did?
Tablet computers such as the iPad, Amazon's Kindle and dozens of other contenders are taking the digital world by storm. In fact, combined sales of smartphones and tablets have now surpassed total PC sales (laptops and desktop computers) in the United States.
According to the Pew Research Center, 11 percent of U.S. adults now own a tablet computer, and 77 percent of tablet owners use their tablet every day.
Here are some tips to make sure your website looks great, no matter what device your viewers are using:
•Stay away from Flash. Not only is this technology bad for Search Engine Optimization, but it won't display on iPads or iPhones. Use JavaScript or HTML5 instead.
• As much as you can, limit long pages where scrolling is required. This can be tough to do on long blog posts, etc., but make sure your homepage is not too long. Don't make people hunt in order to take the next desired action.
• Use web-safe fonts, colors and textures. Bright background colors are good. Solid black should be used sparingly. Make sure text is not too large or too small.
• Be careful with drop-down menus and other "mouse over" effects. Remember, tablets and smartphone use touch. If you have a drop-down menu, make sure it has only a few sub-items, and create alternative navigation so users can still find the pages they need. Never bury an important page in a sub-menu!
• Design friendly forms. Make sure form elements look good on a small screen. Don't require too many fields!
• Fix broken links. Most people use tablets for pleasure. There's nothing quite so objectionable during a browsing session than having it interrupted by "Page Not Found" and having to figure out how to get the information you're after.
• Limit PDFs and downloads. Yes, most tablets and even mobile phones can now open PDFs. But who wants to wait for the download and have another application open in order to read something? If the content deserves to be on your site, it probably deserves its own page (or several pages if it's a lot of text). Save PDFs for things that you know people are going to need to print and/or sign.
Reach Chatfield at [email protected]
Worldwide, there are roughly 6 billion mobile phone subscribers, and close to 1 billion of those folks use smartphones, which allow high-speed, high-resolution access to online applications, web and email.
We all know that the Apple iPhone launched the smartphone revolution. But did you know that sales of the iPad, Apple's tablet, are ramping up even faster than iPhone sales did?
Tablet computers such as the iPad, Amazon's Kindle and dozens of other contenders are taking the digital world by storm. In fact, combined sales of smartphones and tablets have now surpassed total PC sales (laptops and desktop computers) in the United States.
According to the Pew Research Center, 11 percent of U.S. adults now own a tablet computer, and 77 percent of tablet owners use their tablet every day.
Here are some tips to make sure your website looks great, no matter what device your viewers are using:
•Stay away from Flash. Not only is this technology bad for Search Engine Optimization, but it won't display on iPads or iPhones. Use JavaScript or HTML5 instead.
• As much as you can, limit long pages where scrolling is required. This can be tough to do on long blog posts, etc., but make sure your homepage is not too long. Don't make people hunt in order to take the next desired action.
• Use web-safe fonts, colors and textures. Bright background colors are good. Solid black should be used sparingly. Make sure text is not too large or too small.
• Be careful with drop-down menus and other "mouse over" effects. Remember, tablets and smartphone use touch. If you have a drop-down menu, make sure it has only a few sub-items, and create alternative navigation so users can still find the pages they need. Never bury an important page in a sub-menu!
• Design friendly forms. Make sure form elements look good on a small screen. Don't require too many fields!
• Fix broken links. Most people use tablets for pleasure. There's nothing quite so objectionable during a browsing session than having it interrupted by "Page Not Found" and having to figure out how to get the information you're after.
• Limit PDFs and downloads. Yes, most tablets and even mobile phones can now open PDFs. But who wants to wait for the download and have another application open in order to read something? If the content deserves to be on your site, it probably deserves its own page (or several pages if it's a lot of text). Save PDFs for things that you know people are going to need to print and/or sign.
Reach Chatfield at [email protected]