Facing Your Fears
Have you visited your company’s mobile web site? How does it look? Is it optimized to be viewed on a smartphone? Or is it too painful to find out?
Your customers are trying to find you online from their mobile phones. Is your site mobile optimized?
What to do Now?
If these questions make you cringe, maybe you should take some steps to change your answers. It’s by no means too late. The sooner you start investigating how you are representing yourself, the sooner you can begin making a great impression on people who are looking for you online.
Why You Can’t Wait to Go Mobile
Being mobile is no longer a novelty. Many businesses don’t realize it, but it’s becoming critical. Your customers are literally trying to find you while they are on the go. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, and if they have to try to read teeny, tiny type, you might just get passed up to a competitor.
This Means You
If you operate a restaurant, a salon, any kind of retail store, a repair shop, a hotel or bed and breakfast, a do-it-yourself-dog-wash joint, a bowling alley… you need to have a mobile web site or you are losing business. No matter how low-tech your business may seem, people are using their mobile phones to find you. Or trying to.
Don’t be Intimidated
People are trying to find your business while they are out and about. Will they find you?
Don’t get too nervous though because the good news is that a mobile site isn’t expensive or difficult to set up. A basic mobile web site with a landing page, Contact Us page with Facebook and twitter share links, About Us page, a products page, and a page with a QR code (to allow someone on another phone to scan the code and also go to the link) should cost less than $500. The hardest part is deciding to go ahead and do it. Then, like a lot of things that seem intimidating at first, you will realize how easy it is and wonder what took you so long. Small plug here: AlphaGraphics Providence and AlphaGraphics Waltham can build one for you for under this $500 figure.
Some things to keep in mind for your mobile site:
1. Make location information available on the main page. This is the most valuable thing you can do. This is what people need most of all: address, phone, map. Make it easy to find you!
2. Use big buttons. What’s endlessly frustrating is trying to click a tiny link that’s right next to another link.
3. Don’t duplicate all of the content on your main site onto your mobile site. People are not going to read everything about you from their phone. Just provide the critical information, and cut to the chase.
Don’t Let the Competition Eat Your Lunch!
While it’s still true that not every single person has a smart phone, most people do. You can’t afford to wait and let your potential customers–who can’t stand to navigate your non-mobile site–go to your competitor.
AlphaGraphics Marketing 