Internet Word Magic Blog

Google Does It Again With Website Optimizer

Landing page, home page, or squeeze page; which is the most effective in conversions? One person swears by using a squeeze page to add contacts to his database. Another person tells you it’s a lousy idea and only brings you unqualified leads. Who's right and who's wrong? 

Or, how about the headline on your homepage; should it be a question or an imperative statement? Should you use video on your homepage or would it me more conducive to use a set of bullet points to promote your new product? 

Knowing what information to put on your website and where to put that information is often a confusing challenge for small business owners. A website design is more art than science and therein lies the problem. 

Website Design by Audience 

You may have specific guidelines to follow regarding good website content and design, but the final result depends on how your target audience reacts to what you've created. Both the content and the design of a website should meet the needs of your target audience.

It doesn't matter what you think is best; what matters is what is best for your target audience. 

Unfortunately, most websites are created in somewhat of a vacuum. The designer creates the website based on what the client wants and the content is written based on what the client wants. What's missing from this equation is what the customer wants. 

The customer's needs should be considered in every aspect of both design and content creation on a website. A simple way to find out if you have a website that is meeting the needs of your audience is to test the pages to see if they could be improved by changing a headline or changing some graphics. 

Increase Conversion Rates by 40% 

According to Marketing Sherpa, "Getting landing pages built and tested is one of the top five challenges faced by B2B marketers. The top reason people don't create landing pages is that they don't have the time or resources. However, using and optimizing your landing pages can improve conversion rates by 40% or more." 

Google's new free tool, the Website Optimizer, is exactly what you need to test out your ideas and to create a page that has better conversions. With the Google Website Optimizer you can find out if you have the right content for conversion. Instead of relying on gut feeling to write a headline, you can now test new headlines to see which one converts better. 

The time was, not too long ago, that only big companies could afford the resources to do split testing for a website page. With this new tool, small business owners have the ability to dramatically increase conversions without additional expensive resources. 

How to Use Google Website Optimizer 

Using the Google Website Optimizer, you can create two or three different versions of the same website page, customers are sent randomly to one of the versions and Google technology tracks it for you. Wait about two weeks to get the results. Whichever page performs the best is the one you should be using for your website. 

When making changes to your website page keep these key points in mind: 

*Test a small number of variants. Maybe change a graphic or a headline, but keep it simple so you can see if the changes are the reason for increased conversions. 

*Test only bold changes on your page, such as headlines, colors, graphic placement, etc. 

*Don't jump to conclusions. Study your statistics and make sure your decisions are based on fact. If you need to run the test for more than two weeks, run it longer. 

Conclusion 

According to Tom Leung, of Google, "Bad pages are where clicks go to die. Testing is not about technology – it’s a process you have, to come up with solutions." Don't be afraid to make changes to your website pages. The Google Website Optimizer tool is easy to use and with testing you can make the right changes to double your sales.

Four Curious Reasons Why People Leave Your Website

The rule of thumb is that you have about four seconds to capture the interest of website visitors before they click away. That being the case, have you ever analyzed your website to consider why people would abruptly leave your site? 

Let's take it one step further and really get to the heart of problem by asking yourself, "Why would my target audience leave?" If people who aren't your target audience leave, you shouldn't care. They aren't your potential customer. However, if your potential customers are quickly leaving, you have a serious problem. 

Another way to view the problem is to look at your customers' experience on your website. 

Here are four reasons why potential customers might abruptly leave your website: 

(1) Wrong Intent 

Are you giving your customers what they want? Is your website full of educational resources and your audience doesn't care about learning, they just want to buy? 

Or maybe you have a website with many products with little explanation. If your audience needs more information before they can make a decision, they'll probably leave your site to find the information they need somewhere else. 

In both cases, the website has the wrong intent for its target audience. To avoid intent mismatch, take the time to thoroughly analyze the needs of your target audience. Figure out what would be the best approach to meet their needs. 

(2) Personality Mismatch 

Your website has a personality, and just as some personalities get along and some don't, your website's personality could be a mismatch for your target audience. 

For example, is your website filled with too much text, dancing animation, multiple navigation choices, and flashing banners, but your target audience is new to the Internet? A website with so much going on would scare off an Internet newbie. 

Or maybe you've created a website that is clean and simple, but your target audience is teenagers. They would think your site is boring without sound and animation. 

A successful website is a good personality match with its target audience. 

(3) Website Usability 

How easy is it for your customers to find things on your website? Take a moment to put yourself in the shoes of your customer and visit your website through the customers' experience. 

Start by asking yourself what would be the most common problem they would be trying to solve. And then follow your website's navigation trail to see what they experience. 

How many times do they need to click to get their problem solved? How far down on the page do they need to scroll to get an answer? Can they easily navigate back to the homepage or do they find "dead ends" that trap them on a page? 

Make your site as user friendly as possible, based on the needs of your audience. 

(4) Visual Layout 

The design of your website should be based on what you think will influence your target audience to do business with you. 

For example, is your target audience more of an analytical mindset? Then make sure you have tables and graphs, as well as more detailed information. 

If your target audience could be described as people oriented, then include pictures of people on your site, as well as happy testimonials from satisfied customers. 

Analyze your audience and use design as a persuasive sales technique. 

Conclusion 

Needless to say, there are many more than these four reasons why someone would abruptly leave your site. (I didn't even touch on the content disconnect.) My hope is to inspire you to simply rethink the problem and come up with innovative solutions that are right for your website.

Online Marketing Summit - Digital Hollywood

In my ongoing search to find quality online marketing information, I hit the jackpot yesterday, by attending the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) at the Digital Hollywood event held in Hollywood, California.

I ended up taking 21 pages of notes and frying my brain in the process! To say the information was good is a complete understatement. Last year I attended the OMS event in Long Beach and thought it was excellent, but this day's event was event better.

Aaron Kahlow, the guy who organizes OMS, has a rule that none of the speakers are allowed to pitch any of their products or services to the audience. And, neither are the participants allowed to sell services or products to each other. There were no vendor tables and no pressure to buy anything.

Unlike other Internet Marketing events I've attended, OMS is solely for educating people about how to ethically and successfully do business online. What a concept!

Here's a quick summary of what you missed:
(1) Online Marketing and Website Planning & Strategy Best Practices
Paul Sonderegger, Wesite Planning/Strategy
Jason Schulman, Online Strategy
(2) Website Usability: Balancing the Customer Experience and Conversions
Olivier Chaine
(3) Driving Your Online Campaigns: Best Practices in Balancing Search Engine Optimization, Paid-Search and Email Campaigns
Ben Hanna
(4) SEO 2.0
Ray "Catfish" Comstock
(5) Email Marketing Secrets
Stephanie Miller
(6) Social Media and Measuring Your Online Success
Jason Breed
Todd Simms

All of the speakers did a great job, but as usual, "Catfish" Comstock blew me away with his "in the trenches" knowledge of SEO. I felt like I was sitting at the feet of the master. What a talent! Oops, my geekiness worship is showing.

Kudos to Aaron for putting together another incredible OMS. If you ever get a chance to attend OMS, go without hesitation. Your brain will explode, but you'll enjoy every minute of it. They will be in NY on June 10, 2008 with DM Days.

The Friendly Sales Advice You Should Never Take

Are you ever worried about giving away too much information?

In the "old days" before the Internet, it was easy for a business to hold back information. In fact, the common thinking used to be that an educated consumer would choose to do the job himself and not hire you, so educating the consumer meant losing a sale. 

Information Overload 

Nowadays, we live in the era of information overload thanks to the abundance of information available on the Internet. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do or what your business does, information is readily available on any topic. All it takes is a bit of searching, and you can easily compare companies, products, and services. It does no good to hold back information. In fact, it can be to your detriment. 

Rather than looking at giving information away as a problem, businesses should look at sharing knowledge with the prospective customer as an opportunity to increase its credibility and trust. The more people know about you and your company, the easier it is to start building a relationship with you. 

The Internet is actually an incredibly easy way to start building relationships with your perspective customer by simply sharing knowledge and being willing to have an open dialogue.

Website Content 

A website could be looked upon as a marketing tool or a sales tool, but in reality it is a tool to build relationships. Well-written website content will speak directly to your target audience in a way that captures their attention. It should also start a dialogue to build trust.

The home page of a website is an opportunity to show that a business has the knowledge and understanding of how to solve the customer's problems. It needs to quickly and efficiently address the number one problem of the prospective customer. At the same time it needs to convince them to go deeper into the website to gather more information. 

The use of testimonials on the home page, as well as throughout the website, is a powerful tool for building trust and credibility. A recent study by ServiceXRG showed that "During the past holiday season, consumers who recalled seeing customer reviews on a website reported 9% higher customer satisfaction levels, were 9% more likely to make a purchase and 8% more likely to purchase the next time they came to that site." 

E-mail Content 

If your company is using e-mail as simply a sales tool, you are missing out on a huge opportunity for relationship building with your customers and prospective customers. E-mail works best as a sales tool when you have an established relationship with someone, that's why purchased e-mail lists have such a dismal success rate. People rarely buy from companies that they do not know or trust. 

Rather than using e-mail as a sales tool, consider using it as a way to open up a dialogue between your company and the consumer. Set your company apart and get ahead of the competition by using something as simple as a courteous e-mail after a product purchase. 

Create a series of customer service oriented e-mail autoresponders that go out after a product is purchased. Each of the e-mails encourages the customer to respond regarding their buying experience and product satisfaction. 

Blog Content 

A blog is a great way to educate the consumer and show your expertise. It's an opportunity for people to get to know you in a more casual way. Because blogs are less formal, it is a more relaxed atmosphere, more conversational. 

Blogs also allow you to educate and subtly encourage sales. One of my clients owns a small boutique selling maternity clothes. We are using her blog as an opportunity for her to talk about fashion and at the same time showcase some of the trendy clothing from her store. The more she writes in the blog, the more people get to know her and trust her. She is perceived as not just a store owner, but a maternity fashion expert. 

Special Reports 

A more formal way to share information with your customer or prospective customer is to create a special report or whitepaper. The topic of the report is usually based on a problem your company solves for the customer. It would include valuable information in the form of case studies or research that would educate the customer. 

The report gives you an opportunity to show the customer you have a deep understanding of their problems and that you have the knowledge and tools to solve their problems. It both educates and persuades by clearly showing your expertise. 

Conclusion 

Don't be afraid to share your knowledge with the consumer. The more knowledge you share, the easier it will be for your prospective customer to connect with you and start building a long-term relationship.

 

Powerful Workshops

I just got back from spending three days in San Diego at Debbie Bermont's "Outrageous Business Growth Acceleration Program." All I can say is "Wow!" What an amazing weekend.

I met people from all over, including England, Australia, New York, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan and even Hawaii. In fact, I felt kind of silly telling people I lived only an hour away from San Diego.

Debbie's event was unlike anything I'd ever attended and it was incredible. Every one of us walked away with a unique business model to generate more abundance into our lives. Not only did I learn some great marketing techniques, but I learned how to make the right marketing choices for my business. 

And, three weeks before Debbie's program, I attended Adam Urbanski's "Info-Profit Seminar" where I had the pleasure of spending three days with one of the smartest, nicest marketing guys around. He shared with us all the brilliant techniques he uses to create info-products that easily help him generate a seven figure income every year. He didn't hold anything back and I walked away with a ton of ideas for products I want to create.

Does Your Website have Too Much Information?

Have you ever gone to a website that is full of good information, but you aren't motivated to do business with the company? Why do you think this happens? 

One explanation is that the company's website is what I call feature-driven. What I mean by this is that the company concentrates so much on giving you information about what they do or describe the products they sell, that it's like reading a parts catalog. (Which is fine if you want your website to read like a parts catalog, but I can guarantee you that you're going to make very few sales or generate very few leads.) 

Company Centric 

Unfortunately, many companies make the mistake of wanting to talk about what they do, their mission statement, and how many awards they have won. They sincerely think that this information is important to their customer because it is important to them. 

Or a company gives you all the details about their services or products and expects you, the potential customer, to use this information to make a decision to do business with them. 

This type of approach on a website is detrimental because the marketing message is from the viewpoint of the company, and is not looking at the situation from the viewpoint of the customer. 

Benefits Please 

The customers are looking for benefits. When they come to your website, they typically are trying to solve a problem and are looking for answers. So, yes they certainly do need the features information, but they'll be getting that information on all the other websites that are in competition with your website. 

How you stand out, or differentiate yourself, from the crowd of millions of websites is to present a marketing message that is benefit driven. Tell your potential customer how they can benefit by using your product or service. Be specific and don't assume they will be able to figure things out by themselves. 

"Don't make me think," is one of my favorite sayings about customer behavior online. Your potential customers need information that makes it easy for them to make a decision as to whether they should stay on your website or click off in search of more information. They don't want to take the time to read through a detailed description of a product or service unless it is immediately obvious to them how they will benefit from this product or service. 

Emotional Thinking 

The biggest problem with a feature-driven website is that you are not creating an emotional connection with your potential customer. People aren't typically logical when they make a purchase, they are emotional. Logic doesn't sell the product, emotion does. 

In fact there's a new book out called "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely that talks about how people make different decisions about the same situation depending on whether they are thinking rationally or emotionally. Participants were asked the same question in a "cold, rational" state and again when they were emotional. Their answers changed dramatically.

Use Bullet Lists 

A simple approach to this problem is to use a headline of "Features" with a bulleted list of important features customers would want to know about, and another headline of "Benefits" with a bulleted list of the benefits the customer will receive by using your product or service. An excellent example of this approach is the website www.FreshBooks.com. 

Use Video 

Putting video on a home page is really hot right now. I could write a whole article about using video on your website, but let me say that it is the best way to easily promote the benefits of your product or service. Because people are drawn to motion and sound, they will automatically click the video and be engaged immediately by the person in the video. 

Two good examples of using video to promote the benefits of a company's service and product can be found at www.ToolsToLife.com and www.OCShephard.com. Take a look at both these sites and you'll see how powerful it is to use video on a website. 

Integrated Approach 

Another technique often seen on websites is to integrate the features and benefits into a paragraph format that tells the story. For instance, if you were a service provider, one sentence can explain the different features of what you offer and then in the following sentence or paragraph explain the benefits to your customer. 

An example of this integrated approach can be found at http://soft-source.com/PAGES/Fulfillment.html. Notice how the company talks about what it offers (the features) and then it talks about how this is advantageous for the customer (the benefits.) 

Conclusion 

To make a sale on a website or generate a lead on a website, you have to have an emotional connection with your potential customer. A simple exercise to improve your website is to take a piece of paper and make a list of all the features of your product or service and then right next to the feature, write the benefit. Use this information to improve your website and make it the marketing tool that it should be.

 

 

Removing Website Obstacles

When someone lands on your homepage, how clear is your marketing message? Is it easy for them to decide to do business with you or do they have to maneuver through a series of obstacles on your website to get the information they need?

Let's take a look at some of the obstacles on a website that sabotage the sales process:

Confusing Navigation

How many times have you gone to a website, ready to buy, and then can't figure out where you need to go to make the purchase?

One of my first clients hired me to write sales copy for her website because she had written the copy and she felt it was not doing a good job converting sales. So I went to the website and pretended I was a customer to experience what her customers experience when they go to the website.

I actually spent over 10 minutes trying to figure out where I needed to go to buy her products and the only reason I didn't give up is because I had been hired to solve the problem of poor sales.

What I discovered is that her biggest problem wasn't the sales copy, it was poor navigation. First we had to solve the navigation problem and then I rewrote the copy for her products. And you know what happened? Literally hours after the website went live with the new changes she started selling products.

 

Confusing Jargon

 

You may be an expert in your field but what about your customer? One of the biggest problems I find with website copy written by the business owner is that it is too technical. The content tends to be filled with jargon or words that would be unfamiliar to a potential customer or client.

A few years back I was working on a website for a client who did remodeling for commercial buildings. He insisted that the website content include construction terminology that only a builder would understand. I asked him who his customers were and he told me they were store managers (who may or may not be familiar with construction terms).

It never occurred to him that the website content needed to be written using words that would be familiar to his customers and to leave out the jargon.

Confusing Marketing Message

When someone comes to your website they are looking for information to help them solve a problem. In order for them to get an answer to their problem, you need to make sure the answer is not hidden on your website or completely missing.

Since most people who come to your website will land on the home page, it's vitally important that you have bold headlines that clearly express your marketing message in a way that is easy to understand.

It doesn't matter whether you are selling a product or selling a service, what's most important is that people can immediately figure out what to do without having to think too much. If you make them think, they will leave your site. No one has the time to read through long paragraphs and long sentences.

You want to present a simple headline, easy-to-understand benefits and a clear value proposition. By scanning the headlines on the home page, the reader should immediately be able to make a decision about whether they want to do business with you or not.

Conclusion

Simple language, clear direction and benefit driven content are key to a successful website. If you want to increase the sales on your website, maybe you just need to remove the obstacles that sabotage the sales process. 

Is Website Optimization Necessary?

Should you optimize your website? 

Having a website is one thing, but getting people to come to your website is quite another. Many online business owners are under the false impression that all they needed was a website and manna will fall from heaven.

So, the question becomes, "What exactly do you need for a website to be a productive marketing tool for a business?" 

Three Tools for Success 

Basically for a website to be an effective marketing tool you need to have three components: a professional website design, well written website content that clearly communicates your marketing message, and a website that can be easily indexed by the search engines. All three components need to be part of a website marketing plan or the website will fall short of the company's expectations. 

Professional Website Design 

Nothing screams amateur more than a homemade website. If you are a small business owner and you want to compete with "the big guys," you've got to invest the money in a well designed website. Expect to pay at least $3000-$5000 for the design of your website. It will be the best marketing investment you can make in your business. 

Your company will be judged by the way your website looks. If you try to cut corners and save money by a designing the website yourself or having your high school nephew do it for you, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You will end up losing more business simply because a poorly designed website makes your business look untrustworthy. 

In choosing a website designer, look for someone who understands that a website is a marketing tool, not just an electronic brochure. A website designer needs to be more than a graphic designer. One of my clients learned this the hard way. A few years ago she paid thousands of dollars for a website that looked good, but because of the way it was constructed, it could not be indexed by the search engines. So her website doesn't exist according to Google. Now she needs to pay more money to have the website redesigned in a format that can be indexed by the search engines.

Website Content 

A professionally designed website is a good start, but without effective communication of the marketing message, a website becomes a dismal failure. The website will not generate leads, build a relationship with the customer or make money for the company if the written content is unclear or poorly organized. 

Again, in many instances, a small-business owner sees writing the website content himself as an opportunity to save money. After all, who knows more about the company than the business owner? It is true that the business owner knows the most about his or her company, but they may not know how to present that information clearly to a prospective customer. 

Writing website content is different than writing off-line marketing materials like a brochure. Website visitors want instant gratification. They immediately want to know who you are, what you do, and why they should do business with you. They will quickly scan the homepage to see if you have a solution to their problem. If they can't find an answer within five seconds they will click away. 

Your marketing message needs to be clear, concise and easy to find. If your visitor has to read through bulky paragraphs of information or to navigate to different pages to find information, they will get discouraged and leave. 

How and where your marketing message is presented on the website is key to capturing your visitor's interest in keeping them on the website. The goal should be to keep them long enough on the homepage that they want to navigate deeper into the website so that you can generate sales and leads. 

Search Engine Optimization 

What makes a website such an interesting marketing tool is that you have two audiences for a website: the search engines and the human beings. The website construction and the website content need to be designed for both audiences. 

The website needs to be designed so it is easy for the search engines to index or "read" the coding of a website. This coding includes keywords that someone might use to find a specific website. Where these keywords are found on a website is just as important as the keywords themselves. In addition, the content needs to be written using these keywords in such a way that the marketing message is clear without being repetitious. 

Another consideration in search engine optimization is the amount of linking you have on your website both internal and external. Google will rank a website based on the amount of links it has. An example of a link within your website would be a text link on the home page that takes the visitor deeper into the website. An example of a link outside the website would be a press release about your company that is posted on another website with a link back to your website. 

Conclusion 

Think of your website as a way of using the Internet to start building a relationship with your potential customers. Keep in mind that everything you do with a website will always have the two audiences of the search engines and the human beings. To have a successful website you need to always keep your two audiences in mind.

 

Increasing Online Sales Opportunities

Are you aware that most of the people, who visit your website for the first time, will not do business with you? A website is really like a storefront. Many people will visit your store, and not everybody will make a purchase. However, your online sales can increase with just a few changes. 

Create a Sales Path 

Make sure your website is easy to navigate, and that your products are easy to purchase. Think about the way you have your products organized throughout your website. Starting at the home page, visitors need to know exactly what path they should take to purchase a product. 

If you walk into an unfamiliar grocery store, and you want to buy a carton of milk, you would naturally go to the dairy section of the store to find a carton of milk. However, if you walked into an unfamiliar grocery store to purchase a can of pinto beans, it might be located in the canned vegetable section, a special section for vegetarian food, or maybe it's situated in the ethnic food section. So, instead of going straight to the aisle where the food should be, you end up wandering the store until you get to the correct isle. 

Sometimes the way a grocery store is laid out makes complete sense to you. Other times, the logic to the organization of the store is confusing to you, and therefore the shopping experience becomes negative. The same thing can happen on a website. 

If your website visitors cannot easily figure out what path they need to take to purchase the items they want to buy, they will become frustrated and leave the website without making a purchase. 

The purchase path on a website needs to be simple and logical. Organize your products the way you customers will look for them. For instance, if you are selling skincare products, you might group them by brand or if you are selling just one line of skin care products, you could group them for men or women. The main point is to organize a logical path for the customer to make a purchase. 

Offer Freebies 

Maybe the visitors that come to your website are not quite ready to make a purchase. In that case, give them some other options to do business with you. One idea might be to ask them to sign up to be on a special mailing list so they can receive discount coupons only available to the mailing list. Generally, this mailing list is an e-mail database. However, if you'd like to start building an off line database for a postcard mailing, try to get their physical mailing address too. 

An easy way to get a physical mailing address is to offer to send them a freebie through the mail. The product they receive is free and all they would have to pay is shipping. 

Build a Relationship 

The online marketing plan for your website should include e-mail marketing and autoresponder e-mails. Rather than making a sale as the number one goal for your website, your primary goal should be to gather as many customer e-mail addresses as possible. That way, you can continue to market to people who have already shown an interest in your business. What you want to be able to do is start building a relationship with your potential customers. You want to gain their trust and make it easy for them to do business with you. 

A 2007 survey sponsored by RightNow Technologies showed that, "68% of consumers said they were prompted to browse a website after receiving an e-mail from a retailer." It may take weeks or months before someone is ready to make a purchase on your website. However, if you are continually marketing to them through a monthly e-mail campaign, the chances are quite good that eventually they will make a purchase from your website. 

Another way to continue building a relationship using e-mail is to set up a series of autoresponders that come into play as soon as someone makes a purchase on your website. In fact, the 2007 survey by RightNow Technologies showed that, "73% of consumers said they would appreciate any post-purchase follow-up." Customers not only expect, but they want to receive follow-up from a retailer when they make a purchase. 

Conclusion 

A website is more than just a storefront for a retailer; it is the whole shopping experience. The more pleasant the shopping experience, the more likely sales will increase.

Designing Websites for iPhone Viewing

How would your website look on a hand held device? Is it easy to
navigate? Is the most important information readily available to your
visitors? Is your website "mobile Web" ready?

Ten years ago most small business owners didn't have a website and
probably didn't see the need for one. Now, a business without a
website is considered second rate at best. A website is a necessity
for doing business in the 21st century. Also a necessity in the 21st
century is a website that can be easily viewed on a hand held device.

According to the latest statistics, only 11% of Americans are getting
their news and information using the browser in their mobile phone.
That doesn't seem too impressive until you look at the enormous
popularity of Apple's new iPhone and realize that "the times, they
are a changing." In the next few years, the popularity of surfing the
net on your mobile Web is going to skyrocket.

Hand Held Devices Are the Future

Mobile devices are the future of the Internet. According to a
November 27, 2007 article in the New York Times, "More than 30
companies have signed up for the Open Handset Alliance from Google,
which aims to bring the wide-open development environment of the
Internet to mobile devices." If Google is getting involved in this
effort to broaden the use of the Internet on hand held devices, you
can be sure that this is not just a passing trend.

The incredible popularity of the iPhone is leading the way to a new
website platform for businesses. As the Web technologies for mobile
devices continue to improve, more and more people are going to be
using their iPhone or Blackberry to connect to the Internet. However,
even though the improved Internet navigation capabilities of the
iPhone make it easier for users to connect to the Internet, there is
still one big problem with mobile devices. Small screens make for
difficult viewing.

Most Websites Look Terrible on a Mobile Device

Unfortunately, shrinking a website to fit on the screen of an iPhone
or a Blackberry usually leads to difficulty viewing and finding
information. A smart business owner will make sure their website can
be viewed easily on both a desktop and a mobile device.

Here are some pointers in getting your website mobile ready:

*Don't use flash. The screen is too small and flash is just plain
annoying. Besides, the iPhone browser doesn't support flash.

*Get a .mobi extension for your website. Available since September
2006, over 500,000 .mobi domains have been registered. Go Daddy and
Network Solutions both offer .mobi registration (and mobile specific
site building tools).

*Use easy to read fonts. Make sure your website uses Verdana or Ariel
fonts. Also use black fonts on a white background; the greater
contrast makes for easier viewing.

*Keep it vertical. Your website content needs to be set up so that
most important information is centered within the website.

*Keep the costs down. Unfortunately, using a mobile Web is not a flat
rate in most situations, so users are looking for information
quickly. Help them out by using informative headlines, subheadings
and bulleted lists. Don't make them go deeper into your website to
get answers.

*Design for simplicity. A small screen is difficult to read, so you
may need to reconsider the look of your website. A graphic dominant
website is probably not a good choice for a small screen. Streamline
the look of your website and concentrate on the message. Zero in on
what specific information your customers need and give it to them.

*No second chances. On a regular website, you can move around with a
back or forward button. On a hand held device you only have a stop
button. So, you need to get it right the first time and make sure
your website has the right answers.

Conclusion

Getting a website mobile Web ready may include redesigning the
current site or completely building another site just for the mobile
devices. Each business owner needs to evaluate the situation and make
choices depending on what they want to accomplish. But whether you
make changes or not, the Internet is moving off the desktop into the
hands of your customer. Now is the time to get a jump on the
competition.