Ranking
As the Internet becomes increasingly central to the daily lives of consumers, the importance of business presence on the Internet and easy accessibility to consumers is becoming increasingly clear to both small and large businesses. The focus on Internet marketing has shifted from being predominantly web-based to include a new focus on mobile websites and applications. Over the past decade there has been a significant growth in the use of mobile devices, and in the past 5 years alone there has been exponential growth in the use of Smartphones. Mobile phones, and now Smartphones have become an integral part of the everyday lives of consumers. Because of this growth, business presence and accessibility on these devices has become essential.
Today, 91.4 million people in the Unites States own a Smartphone and 1/5th of mobile phones in the world are Smartphones. The amount of time users spend on their Smartphones is growing at an impressive rate, and in mid 2011 app use reached 81 minutes per day surpassing web use (which averaged 74 minutes per day.) In addition to an increase in the use of Smartphones, the research company, Informa, predicted that mobile ad revenues will reach $24 billion by the year 2015.
So, with this significant increase in Smartphone and mobile web use, you can see why it is so important for businesses to be equally accessible on the regular web as well as on mobile devices. But to do this, there are a few important factors to keep in mind. One of the most important things being that there is a difference between the design for mobile sites and regular websites – something that many businesses do not realize. The small size of the screen on mobile phones compared to the screen size on a PC makes formatting key to website development. Because of this difference, it is important that business make sure their sites are both search friendly and formatted to work on a PC as well as on mobile devices. It is better to have sites formatted so that when using a mobile device, users do not need to turn their screens or zoom in to navigate the page. Today, consumers often uses mobile phones when on the go to search for restaurants and other places nearby, making it important for mobile sites to be easy to navigate on their mobile devices, and for relevant information such as contact information, products and services, and hours to be on the home screen or somewhere easily accessible. Today, what consumers want is convenience, they want sites to be user friendly and they expect information to be fast and easy to find.
