U.S. Businesses Need a Mobile Ready Website

So, business owner, you think you don’t need a mobile ready website? Think about this little factoid;

For the three month average period ending in June, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices.

That’s right. 234 million!

How about this?

78.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in June 2011, up 8 percent from the preceding three month period.

And over half of those people are using those smartphones to search the web.

Are you being seen? Click on this link for more about mobile ready websites.

Visit here to read the full Comscore report.

Mobile Ready Websites

Here is the headline; U.S. Mobile Web Usage Grew 110% Last Year. As a local business owner, you need to realize that the lines between computers, phones, and browsers are blurring. The so call Smart Phones are taking over the market. More and more people are searching the web with their phone. That menas they might be searching for you or your type of business.

What does that mean? Mobile ready websites are different than those needed for the traditional browser. because of the Smart Phones screen size, a mobile ready site needs to sleeker and more efficient.

You have to keep up, business owners. The playing field is a’ changing.

To read the full article I mentioned, go here.

This is the practical, website “do-it-yourself” manual for the rest of us. Visitors are the life blood of every website. If you are wondering how to drive traffic to your website, this book offers 55 Actions you can take – explained so that anyone can understand them – to get your website to the top of search results. The author assumes you don’t want to spend a dollar more on your website until you see results, and that you don’t have a deeply technical background, but still wish to understand what every business owner needs to know about how search engines work. Whether you are a Director of Marketing wanting to boost your career or a one-person plastic surgeon in upstate New York looking for new customers, these 55 tips will help you drive traffic to your website. All of them are effective and applied over time, will keep traffic coming to your website for years. Even after reading the Table of Contents, you’ll want to make the first changes to your website.

Price:$11.95

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I was a featured speaker at the the Southern Independent Booksellers Convention (SIBA) last week. After my presentation, and over the next several days,  I interacted with the participants and attempted to help them with their internet marketing. Each business owner had their own unique problems. But their was one over riding factor, one myth about websites, that I came to realize was causing them a huge problem.

The myth? That your website needs to look great. Aesthetic. Pretty.

Sorry folks, but that is just not the case. Its not how it looks but what it does.

Oh sure, you want a website to be well designed. But it also needs to be functional. It needs to be informative. It needs to establish a relationship with your visitor.

Here is a list of what the purpose of a website is from sevendesignavenue;

• To establish an internet presence
• As an extension of our current advertising (phone, newspapers, etc.)
• To enhance our company’s professional image
• To offer company information and give the public a favorable impression
• To educate customers and potential customers
• To provide better customer service
• To increase public awareness of our company’s name, brand or identity
• To strengthen our position in the marketplace
• To strengthen brand identification
• To develop a list of qualified prospects
• To gain an increase in sales
• To sell products directly over the Internet taking credit cards and checks (e-commerce)
• To make product or service information available to current customers
• To make product or service information available to distributors
• To serve the needs of current and future clients
• To explain our products and services
• To encourage potential customers to contact us by phone, mail or e-mail
• To consummate a sale
• To bring in new clients or customers to our location
• To compete in the global marketplace
• To offer links to other relevant sites
• To simply establish an Internet presence
• To provide information and customer service
• To offer a virtual community, a place where users can interact with each other

See look pretty anywhere on that list?

Define the purpose, the goal for your website.  Design your website to reach that goal. Don’t re-invent the car to do it.

Building an email list is still one of the most essential things that any business owner can do. The saying that the money is in the list is still so true. Google Adwords is by far one of the most proficient ways to build your list. The fact is, once you understand how to do this, you will see that it is not very difficult. The next few paragraphs can guide you in how to reach this goal.

3 Steps to Building a List

The first step is to Create A Keyword Targeted Landing Page. The reason why you must do this is if your landing page is targeted based on your adwords campaign, you will be able to drive a lot of targeted traffic to your website easily. This step is an important one and with it you should make certain that you avoid not using a keyword targeted landing page. You also want to ensure you are driving the right type of traffic to your website so that your bounce rate stays low as well.

Accomplishing this first step completely and accurately is important. If you don’t put forth the initial effort to ensure your campaign is very targeted, then you may not drive the type of targeted traffic to your website that you desire, which ultimately means less sales.

Step number 2 is going to be to Use an Opt-in Form On Your Website. During this step you’ll want to avoid using an opt-in form that is below the fold. By this I mean too far down the page to capture the attention of your prospects as well as ensure on this opt-in form you are stating “what is in it for the prospect”. Let the prospect know that for signing up they will receive some type of real benefit.

Your 3rd and ultimate step will be to use Pay Per Click (PPC). Pay Per Click Ads are important to marketers. You should know that this step is important because pay per click PPC ads still are the best way to send targeted traffic to any website. This process also allows you to see if your sales approach and marketing strategy is actually working. For this final step it’ll be important for one to avoid bidding on keywords that may be too popular.

Follow all these steps carefully. Please avoid the trouble spots that were outlined. When you do these things right, you should have very few or no difficulties or problems.