How to: stop punishing iPhone owners*
Here's a quick test.
Take out your iPhone (your friend's Android, Blackberry or other smartphone will do just as well).
Go outside, beyond the reach of Wifi and onto your 3G connection.
Now: browse to your company's website. And wait.... wait some more...... tum-tee-tum-tee-tum ...
... not long now ...
... are we nearly there yet?
... I wonder what's on the telly tonight...
... maybe I'll just take a quick snooze while this web page loads.
OK, so why should you care?
That's what one in five of your customers experiences.
Just before they leave in disgust.
Now, try this site m.guardian.co.uk
I hope you agree that this is far less annoying.
One in five users are now mobile.
This screenshot below is from the analytics for one of the consumer sites we look after. Popular site too, it has 50,000 members. Quick Caveat: different sites attract different browsers. We look at this on a case-by-case basis with you.
20% of web browsing is now done from mobiles!
You'll know this if you ever travel by train. Sometimes it seems as though half the carriage is busily jabbing away at touchscreen devices. Not having a mobile version of your site means you are annoying one in five of your customers. I think that's a bad thing.
Good news: it's usually straightforward to make a mobile version of your site.Basically, we do some cleverness so that mobiles just skip much of the styling and images that make a desktop site pretty, but slow to load. There's no rebuilding: it just runs off your existing desktop site content. These stylesheets are simple and lightweight by design, so they aren't even expensive to produce.
We'll also set things up so that people on smartphones are automatically redirected to the mobile site. And even put in a link to the full site so they can get to that if they want it. To find out more about how a mobile site could help you, call Frank or Jules on 01422 847 958 or email us: make.it.work@welovetheweb.comIf you have a friend or colleague who you think might like to receive these emails, get them to sign-up here: Sign up for the We love the web newsletter.We won't share their email addresses with anyone else and we won't send through huge numbers of mails, just these how-tos, well, and the very occasional sales pitch, but we promise not to be 'in your face' about it. And you can unsubscribe at any time.
* you stop punishing Android and Blackberry owners too at the same time. You may see that as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about the shiny.
