Stu Macik_Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado
I had a client ask my opinion the other day if I thought that his business needed a mobile version of the website that we had done for him. We design and develop mobile sites at Broken Sky (which is why he asked) but that led me to thinking about what kind of businesses could really benefit from a mobile site and which ones perhaps not as much.
It’s been estimated that by 2015 nearly half of all internet traffic will come from “mobile” devices in the form of smart-phones and other devices running some flavor of mobile OS (operating system). Besides smart-phones this would include tablet devices (such as Apple’s iPad) as well as netbooks running the upcoming Chrome OS that Google is reported to be releasing later this year. There are also reports that Google’s Android OS will be deployed on some tablet devices from other manufacturers that would compete with the iPad.
In my view, tablets and netbooks are still able to view “normal” websites so I think what we are really talking about here is “smart-phones” and the need to accommodate their smaller displays…not necessarily all “mobile” devices.
So, keeping in mind that 2015 is still five years away, I think a simple rule of thumb is to consider how it is that your customers do business with you. The most important question to ask is, do my customers come to me for my goods and/or services or do I go to them?
If your customers come to you, then my belief is that you would absolutely benefit from having a mobile version of your website. That way people on the move could find, contact and get to you easily using their smart-phone. A map to your business on a mobile site is just one way that you could benefit from “going mobile”.
If you’re a business that only goes to your customers home or business to deliver goods or services, then my thinking is that you probably won’t benefit quite as much from a mobile site. Your customers are probably going to find and contact you from their home or place of business using their traditional computer/laptop and so in this case I think that a mobile site would be more of a luxury (to cover all the bases) than a necessity.
At any rate, I hope this helps some of you small business owners out there thinking about a mobile site. Oh, and as for my client, he fell into the “goes to his customers” camp and so we decided that his marketing budget would probably be better spent in another area. Not great for me as far as another project goes, but an honest assessment…something I really believe in.
-Stu
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