For those who want to establish their own online business, it is important to use sound internet marketing strategies in order to reach out to a lot of clients. These days, the environment of the World Wide Web has changed immensely as more and more people tend to use their mobile phones to access the internet. For this reason, online entrepreneurs should adapt to this new movement by making websites that are not only accessible from usual devices but also from the myriad of mobile gadgets like tablet computers and smart phones.
According to an online survey conducted by Pewinternet, there are about 35% of the total adult online users in America alone who access the internet from their smart phones. If you are a business owner, this particular statistic is definitely hard not to ignore and to use to your advantage. This is the reason why mobile web design is becoming an important facet in internet marketing.
What Is Mobile Web Design?
As the name implies, mobile web design refers to the development of websites that are compatible with mobile devices. Today, more than 60% of internet users access the World Wide Web from their mobile devices. Conventional web design only caters to devices lie PCs and laptops. The reason why you need to include mobile web design in your website development is that it allows your readers to browse through your website despite of their limited screen. In a way, good mobile web design revamps to cater to the smaller screens of mobile devices.
It is also important to take note that different mobile devices work under different operating systems and these include Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Mobile Linux, Symbian OS, iPhone platform and android to name a few. Aside from operating systems, there are also different types of browsers used for virtually each type of mobile devices. If you do not include mobile web design in your web development, there is a big chance that your mobile readers will not be able to view your site from their gadgets.
The Advantages and Disadvantages Of Mobile Design
Just like any other types of internet marketing strategies, there are good and bad aspects of mobile web design. Starting off with the advantages, mobile web design offers mobility as it allows everyone to access your website wherever they may be. In fact, implementing mobile design can help increase your website traffic. Take note that more than 60% of the internet population browse the World Wide Web from their mobile gadgets thus if you geared up your web design for mobile access, then it makes your website more appealing to your readers and prospective clients.
On the other hand, the disadvantage to using mobile web design is that there are times when your readers find it difficult to load your website from their mobile devices. This might be due to the fact that your web page elements are too much for the less powerful devices to support. This is the reason why it is crucial to implement a good web design in your web development strategy.
Challenges in Mobile Web Design
Although there might be some people who might argue that mobile web design is not really necessary, it still cannot be refuted that it is one of the most important aspects in making online businesses drive more traffic to their site. Although simple, mobile web design is a far-cry from simplicity. It is important to take note that the language of mobile gadgets is numerous than conventional devices. For this reason, it is crucial for online entrepreneurs and internet marketers to know about the challenges in mobile web design.
• Delivery method. It is important to take note that mobile web design requires less complicated elements in order to be viewed by small devices. However, with the different types of web browsers used by mobile devices as well as operating system, the delivery method can be quite complicated. Unlike conventional devices, you only need to deal with HTML but with mobile devices; you have to deal with other markup languages such as WML and many others depending on the brand of the mobile device.
• Inability to support CSS3. In web development, CSS3 is an important style sheet language used in describing the presentation of a website. It codes for the appearance of your website in the web browser. Unfortunately, not all mobile devices can support CSS3 so you might resort to other formatting language in order to make your website readable on mobile devices.
• User cost and speed. This particular challenge is directed to your readers. It is a fact that mobile internet providers cap the connection of their internet users thus limiting the bandwidth. Moreover, there are some internet service providers that apply roaming charges that can be quite expensive for mobile internet users. For these reasons, most users do not tend to open websites from their mobile phones that load slowly in order to save bandwidth and data cost.
Best Practices in Mobile Web Design
If you want to establish a good mobile web design, it is important that you understand the basic elements in effective mobile web design. One of the most important practices that you need to implement in mobile web design is simplicity. Gone are the days when you have to use flashy images and videos on your site. Make your layout as simple as possible so that your mobile readers can easily load your website to their gadgets.
Another thing that you need to consider is the size of navigation as well as the clickable objects. Since mobile devices have smaller screens, it can be very hard to click on objects as well as read tiny texts. Make sure that your layout has large texts and clickable objects. If possible, try to reduce the number of clicks needed in your site to make it more convenient for your readers.
Adapting effective mobile web design strategy is a great way for you to draw in more traffic to your site because your website is no longer restricted to conventional devices.