WORD MAGIC: (full story)
Make Mine Mobile! ...You
have spent quite a bit of time and money to
create a graphically pleasing, quality website
to lure in visitors and capture potential new
clients. You now have a presence on the Web and
you consider yourself fairly savvy in the arena
of Internet and online marketing and you are
looking for your next challenge —the next BIG
splash.
You may already have it --
it may be clipped to your hip, dropped in your
purse or… it may be ringing as you read this.
The next big “splash” may be
as tiny as the screen on your web-enabled cell
phone. Before you dismiss it based on diminutive
size and a lack of high-impact graphics…
remember that a single drop of water can cut
through rock and many such droplets together can
create a Grand Canyon. Your cell phone, a
standard tool for voice communications, can now
be your next step in the world of web marketing
with text.
A tiny mobile version of
your website can now be uploaded via the web to
be accessible to anyone with a web enabled
phone. And, although this technology is still
seemingly primitive in comparison to your full-sized sites, it’s moving forward at an
impressive clip!
Text is king in mobile
sites. Personally, I love that fact. Since your
palette, the mobile device screen, size is small
– the ‘real estate’ there is precious. Your
words must be selected carefully. Your visitors
must scroll to read. You should keep that in
mind when determining content for a mobile site.
A mobile site is read in a method similar to
an e-book.
Be sure your information is
easy to navigate. Your text should be broken
into short paragraphs that lend themselves to
scrolling on tiny screens. Your information
shouldn’t be merely self-promotional; it must
hold real value for your mobile audience. Your
site will be viewed during what would otherwise
be “down time” – when mobile users are waiting for
their next meeting, in the airport waiting on a
plane, when time may be limited.
Once a mobile user discovers
your site, they will be more likely to bookmark
it for easy future visits than they would your
full featured website on their computer. Unlike
regular Internet, this area isn’t yet
overflowing with quality informational sites.
There are many blogs (web logs and journal
sites), there are also many promotional sites,
but real content isn’t that common and
navigation isn’t as simple as the point and
click on your desktop or laptop. This gives you
an advantage if you enter this playing field
now, as it develops. Use it.
Your mobile web audience
doesn’t believe in wasting time. They stay
“plugged up” and “tuned in” to the world of
technology to stay productive and your site must
offer them real benefit.
This is the place for brief,
concise and targeted “How-To” guides for the
home buyer and home seller. This is the place to
offer guidance and be of service, to show your
expertise gracefully, not to merely promote
yourself. By providing quality information, you
will naturally gain the attention of those on
the cutting edge of technology and will be seen
as a trailblazer yourself.
If you have quality content
on your full website, you can firm it up and
target it for a mobile audience in a relatively
short period of time. I visited the
Wireless Ink site to get a feel for this new
technology and had my own wireless version of
Wicked WordCraft up in just a few hours. For those
of you currently mobile web-enabled, the mobile
URL is http://winksite.com/wickdwdcraft/marketing.
One of my most
technologically advanced real estate clients,
Miguel Berger of (appropriately named) TechValley Homes Real Estate (www.techvalleyhomes.com)
in upstate New York, agreed to let me use him as
a guinea pig for this technology platform for a
Real Estate site.
Having done my own site, it
took less than two hours to get him on the
wireless web. His full website is content rich,
and I merely had to set up the site and transfer
some of the choicest articles to the mobile site
and target the introduction to appeal to the
mobile audience. This site is located mobile
URL: http://winksite.com/techvalley/realestate.
Within 24 hours, both mobile
sites were visible on the main search engines.
Both were also selected as “editors choice”
sites for the content, quality and presentation
and I had a personal call from the co-founder of
the Wink site congratulating me on making the
editor’s choice cut and asking more about my
services and how thought the mobile concept
would benefit others. What a fantastic return on
a few hours work!
My own site has been up
about a month now and I’ve had five new
potential clients contact me overseas as well
as here in the USA to learn more about my
business because they saw my mobile site.
Next month, I’ll review my
conversation with Wireless Ink co-founder, Dave
Harper, and give you some pointers on writing
styles and considerations for launching your own
mobile site.
Until then, seriously
consider going mobile and making this your
business’ next step in to effectively use the
latest available technology.
|
