The Importance of Mobile Websites for Smartphone & Tablet Users

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The Importance of Mobile Websites for Smartphone & Tablet Users

Is your website mobile-friendly?

Did you know that mobile traffic makes up over 55% of global Internet traffic?

Did you know that in the US alone, mobile e-commerce are forecast to reach $12 Billion by the end of this year?

Purchases made on mobile devices amounted to $6.7 billion in the U.S. in 2013 and nearly doubled to $11.6 billion in 2014. And by the end of this year, U.S. mobile sales are forecast to more than double yet again to reach $31 billion.

With these positive statistics, just 21% of business had launched mobile friendly websites in 2011, according to Jesse Haines, group marketing manager for Google Mobile Ads. If you’re still on the fence about whether or not your company should invest in mobile websites, here are the top 3 reasons why you must.

1. Over Half of U.S. Consumer Own a Smartphone

The importance of a mobile website is becoming increasingly important. According to the Pew Research, almost two-thirds of U.S. consumers own a smartphone, up from 58% in 2014. And, roughly 50% of consumers own a tablet or e-reader. To put this into perspective for you, the number of tablet owners has almost quadrupled since October 2011 when only 14% of U.S. consumers had a registered tablet.

A report from the Consumer Electronics Association revealed that 66% of online consumers plan to purchase a tablet in the future, and tablets took the No. 1 gift on the wish list among adults this year. If your company’s website isn’t mobile friendly, shoppers are going to seek out a competitor’s mobile-friendly site instead of switching to a PC to revisit yours. It really is all about accessibility these days.

2. US Advertisers Continue Shift to Online Ads 

Take a look at this chart by Statista.

Infographic: U.S. Advertisers Continue Shift to Online Ads | Statista
You will find more statistics at Statista

According to comScore, mobile e-commerce spending is expected to reach some $11 Billion.

M-commerce (mobile commerce) revenue has seen a significant increase for about 5 years, with no expectations to slow down. After customers view your ad on their smartphone or tablet, they want to be able to view the product. Your website must be ready for this!

3. Dramatic increase in mobile shopping

There has been a dramatic increase in mobile website traffic since 2010. With 60% of all searches done on mobile devices, it’s hard to overlook the opportunity of developing a mobile-friendly site for your business.  M-commerce is not “the next big thing.” It’s already an established trend in online retailing that’s set to change how consumers approach online shopping.

Find more statistics at Statista

So there you have it, mobile websites are essential to e-commerce business growth and growing increasingly popular to non e-commerce sites as well. While developing a mobile site does cost money and time, any investment you make now will pay off multi-fold in years to come.

Does your business have a mobile site? What are your thoughts on this data?

 

 

The Future of Mobile Advertising

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The Future of Mobile Advertising

Did you know that Google now holds the badge of being the Internet’s largest mobile advertising company?

Google acquired AdMob in late 2009 and that squarely placed Google on the map as one of the top mobile advertising companies. Google will leverage its Android platform in direct competition with Apple’s iPhone.  Some consider this to be a frontal attack on Apple and IOS‘s most serious advantage over Android – mobile apps. Developers are likely to capitalize on this move by starting to develop mobile ads for the Android Network that is spread across multiple networks.

In short, the Mobile world is now a huge marketplace with massive revenue potential and is on its way to becoming the next battleground for online advertising.

The next few months will see the mobile Internet advertising heating up, especially with the release of newer, faster and user-rich devices that will further impact the future of mobile advertising.

What are your thoughts?

The Mobile Web Comes of Age

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The Mobile Web Comes of Age

According to a report by the BBC, as of the writing of this article, there is a 25% increase in the number of people accessing the internet from mobile devices. This huge increase has been made possible largely because wireless access technologies have advanced. The mobile web comes of age!

The iPhone is the first mobile phone to give users an enjoyable internet experience that is also easy to use. iPhone allows you to access the internet anytime, anywhere and without limitations from your mobile carrier or content restrictions like text scaled down to fit the screen.

RIM’s Blackberry is also gaining popularity in the smartphone arena. You can accomplish a large number of tasks required by modern day business: accessing the internet and checking your e-mail account in real-time anywhere and anytime using powerful GPRS and EDGE technologies that use embedded Web browsers.

Nokia phones are also storming into the market and some Nokia phones have a Blacbkerry Client built into the operating system that allows them to leverage RIM’s (Research In Motion) extremely reliable infrastructure.
There are three main operating systems used on mobile phones. Symbian OS has been designed for Nokia Smart Phones, the Palm OS for PDAs and Windows Mobile.

The Apple iPhone uses a version of Apple OS X, but this is the only phone that does so and it does not have complete smart phone functions…yet.

Windows Mobile is a more intuitive system to use on your mobile phone. The system connects easily with your PC and includes many useful tools, as well as first-class entertainment functions through Windows Media Player.

If you are planning to do business over the internet, it is a great time now, especially if you are willing to cater to mobile device users. The best way to start with this is to have a version of your website specially developed for mobile device users and have it format properly when a mobile device accesses your website.

So, which Mobile platform do you use?