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Mobile Websites-New Opportunities

By Vickie J. Scanlon


Businesses are always looking for new ways to reach their audience. And with the increase uses of iphones and smartphones, expect mobile websites and mobile advertising to be yet another avenue to reaching your target market.

A mobile website and your standard website are not the same. With that thought in mind, you can also assume that a standard website may not be able to reach your iphone or smartphone customers. Why? A typical website may look distorted within the cellphone's small screen. 


What's a Mobile Website?

A mobile website, is a website that is capable of being shown on a mobile browser. However, some businesses are of the misconception that if their website is showing on a mobile browser then they have a mobile website. But it's not true, because some of the elements of a typical website will not translate well within a mobile browser.


Elements to Consider for a Mobile Website

Don't think you need a mobile website? You may start to change your mind as compatibility issues are resolved. And, with more than 700 million mobile phone owners, with 30% of these users using their mobile browser to browse the Internet-it will probably become the next predominant Internet platform. So what are some things you should consider when revamping your typical website to that of a mobile website?

Here are some of the elements you should take into account when revamping your typical website or when building a mobile site:

1. Computer browsers are not compatible with mobile phones.
2. Your site must follow certain accessibility rules.
3. Mobile phone browsing technology uses WAP. Thus, 
4. In addition, you will have to strip down your typical website to meet the phone browser limitations, and to accommodate the screen size and allowable download. 
5. You will need to strip down your "typcial" website in terms of layout, design and construction.
6. Websites that uses tables in their layout will find that the tables will not look right on a mobile phone.
7. Your site must use CSS.
8. Your site should be coded in XML or XHTML
9. Your character encoding should be set to UTF-8
10. Since you have to be aware of the different screen sizes of a mobile phone, you will quickly realized that important information 
will need to be at the top of the page for the mobile user to see.
11. Images should be in jpeg or gif format.
12. Since most phones do not have back buttons, it would be wise to provide back buttons and links within your mobile Web site Design.
13. Since a mobile page size is only 20 kilobytes you should try to fit your page to fit that page size.
14. Since users are paying fees to access your mobile website, be sure that the user is getting their money's worth.

Can your mobile website support all available devices out there? Probably not. The next best thing that you can do is to keep your mobile Website clean and simple. The simpler the design, the greater the reach across multiple platforms and portable devices.


Mobile Advertising

If you are thinking about have a light version of your traditional website you may be wondering if their is any advertising available to you? There is.

You can place banner ads on your mobile website by utilizing mobile advertising networks like Quattro (acquired by Apple),AdMob (acquired by Google) and text advertising with Google Adwords.

To conclude, once all the application bugs are out of the iphones and smartphones, mobile websites will become another way of reaching your market. And, the up-and-coming mobile Internet platform, may well become a technological extension to the people of the 21st century and the Internet.

About Author:
Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: My Affiliate Place   where to find information about internet and affiliate marketing, affiliate programs,  tech accessories, security utility software and computers for the online business or home business.