Stake Your Claim on the Mobile Web

With the Internet growing so rapidly do you ever wonder if you are missing a new trend or technology that could boost your bottom line? Well, there just happens to be a piece of the Internet that I bet you haven't made the leap to yet and it is going to be BIG. This new space is mobile search and mobile Internet surfing. I know, I know, mobile Internet use has been around for a while, but even now it is very much in the infancy phase of development. After all, it was only over the past year that a Vodafone and Yahoo to Launch Advertising on Mobile Devices (Yahoo) Mobile technology is way ahead in Europe and Vodafone is currently "the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover and has a market value of about 86 billion (November 2006)" ( Google Testing Mobile Ads in Eight More Countries (MarketWatch) "The ads apparently will appear whenever someone in those countries use a cell phone's Internet capability to access a site or to search via Google's engine." The article also states that Google is " also going after the $11 billion that advertisers are expected to spend on mobile marketing by 2011, according to a recent report by the telecom division of Informa Group." 1. Get a .Mobi Mobile Domain Just this year a consortium of major players including Google, Microsoft, Vodafone, Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia sponsored a new domain meant specifically for a new mobile web: GoDaddy is providing the best annual .mobi registration price of $15 per domain (min. 2 yrs). 2. Build Your Mobile Web Site Designing for mobiles is not exactly new but as it is still new to me I cannot provide a great deal of first hand knowledge. That said, StepForth will be creating our own mobile site in-house so I know my Senior Designer and I have a learning curve ahead. Fortunately, to this end, a little research and patience led me to some great resources that I recommend. The following sites will take you in the right direction: - Official .mobi Development Standards : If you would like to custom design your mobile website so that it stands out from the rest then this is the site for you. Develop a mobile website to meet .mobi guidelines at the Mobile FAQ: a mixture of general and specific questions for understanding the mobile phenomenon and designing a mobile site. - 3. Optimize Your Mobile Site Optimizing a mobile site is only slightly different than the average website. The basics of optimization remain true; be sure to create great Title Tags, Description Tags, headings, navigation, and focus your content to match page targets. The only difference is you will have less screen real estate to work with so try to keep your optimized content concise - no one wants to read useless information on his or her mobiles. After all, you can be reasonably sure that the time a visitor is willing to spend on a mobile site to find information will be significantly less than their standard visit from their home computer; thus the word 'mobile'. In short, you will have very little time to convince a visitor to stay at your website. Google Optimization Note: create a Google Mobile Sitemap so Google can ensure your mobile content is properly noted and categorized as mobile friendly. Will this help traffic? I would think so, here is Google's message verbatim, ' by using Mobile Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the mobile web and speed up the discovery and addition of pages to our mobile index.' ( Submit your mobile site to Yahoo! Mobile for free - Use Tell dotmobi about your site and it might just get some free publicity by being featured or becoming a case study. In Summary I think the .mobi domain is a fantastic way to provide a unique presence specifically designed for the mobile world. The fact that mobile phones are ubiquitous simply reinforces the need for the informed website owner to get their own mobile site setup ASAP. At the very least I would recommend picking up a .mobi domain of your own so that it is not snatched up when the inevitable rush to the mobile web becomes a reality. Other Excellent Mobile Content The following are some sites that I came across throughout the creation of this article. I found them very interesting and well worth noting: Comments Tag: Bookmark Murdok: Ross Dunn is the CEO and founder of