Published: January 04 2011
Modern smartphones with browsing capabilities have brought new viewers to your website. These new viewers are no longer tied to their computers in their office or their home - they are now mobile and are looking for information on the go.
This is truly a good news, bad news scenario. The good news is that means more viewers for your website. The bad news in that is your website may not be compatible for mobile browsers. For example, if your site incorporates any Flash technologies, your site will not be viewable on an iPhone. Also, the general layout of your site may not make the user experience enjoyable when viewed with an iPhone or android based mobile phone.

For some of our customers, particularly businesses working in the tourism and travel industries or businesses marketing through social media, thousands of viewers may be accessing their websites with mobile devices. Reports indicate more viewers are on the way, with more mobile connections being created everyday than traditional deskstop connections. So the question you should be asking yourself is: How many mobile viewers are viewing your website and what kind of experience are they having with your brand?
One of our clients, Kelowna Golf and Country Club, looked at the amount of mobile users visiting their site, and asked Csek Creative to help them with their mobile strategy. We analyzed the devices, we qualified the content, and we ensured consistency with their brand before moving forward. Here's how you can decide if a mobile version of your website is right for you and how you can prepare for production:
- Determine how many viewers have accessed your website using mobile devices. Use a website analytics tool like Google Analytics, it does a great job of measuring viewer traffic and experience on your website. Google Analytics not only measures how many viewers have accessed your website, but how many have accessed your website using mobile devices and which devices they used – iPhone, Android, Blackberry, iPad, etc.
- Determine what website content is important to mobile users. The analytics can show you the most popular pages among mobile viewers and show how mobile users are navigating through your site to access that content.
- There are several dominate browsers that you want to consider, Safari and Android being the most significant that we have seen. Plan to create a mobile version of your website that represents the largest viewership to your website.
We worked with the Kelowna Golf and Country Club to plan their mobile website before designing and programming the solution. You can view the result of our work here –
http://www.kelownagolfandcountryclub.com/. Of course you will need a mobile device to view the mobile version of their website. We have a number of other mobile projects in production, if you would like to discuss your mobile project, please
contact us.