Mobile Device Recommendations
Starting with the success of the iPhone and moving onto mobile devices generally, the stats are showing huge migration to mobile devices for search activity.
This has meant that your website needs to be mobile friendly – using a laptop for searching and doing the same on a mobile device are 2 entirely different propositions.
You need to bear in mind:
- Varying screen sizes and resolutions
- Speed – Speed – Speed
- User intent
- Your message and its location
- What data to serve to deliver that message AND satisfy user intent
- Data to NOT serve to keep speed up or at least to prioritize
Our philosophy is not to do down the dedicated mobile site instead we create Responsive Websites, in essence we identify the screen/device and configure the page in real time adjusting what we load and the priority of the content.
Unfortunately, for mobile phones you cannot assume endless bandwidth. Test your pages on different types of network and mobile devices and if you’re mind is wandering whilst you’re waiting for a page to load assume a real user will simply move on to your competitors site. The maximum recommended page size for mobile is 20 KB. Go above that at your peril. Also avoid getting round the page size issue by structuring the content so it is assembled at download – all the extra items still require bandwidth.
A great checker is the the W3C site (W3C Mobile Validator) this identifies exactly any issues that need to be addressed.
Facebook and Twitter are accessed by many mobile phone users. Bear this in mind when using these social media sites to communicate with your customer base.
As the expectation rises to have full functionality via a mobile each business needs to review how important this channel to market is and react accordingly.
