The website is the tool of the modern era. It has become a combination storefront and media outlet for businesses to simultaneously engage in PR, marketing, and retail, all in one place. But marketing tools such as this aren't working as well as they could be if they aren't catering to the entire audience. Unfortunately, most webmasters don't optimize their site for use by mobile devices. This could be a serious mistake, especially since more users could be accessing the Internet from their phones than from a PC by 2015. Creating mobile sites is the only way to get the most out of these mobile users.
Of course, creating mobile sites can't be approached the same way as creating traditional sites. There are several factors to take into consideration, one of the most important being the fundamental difference in size. The screen of a cell phone is smaller. While some of the more advanced smartphones on the market have a high enough resolution to display an entire traditional webpage on a single screen, that doesn't mean the site is in any way usable.
For a mobile site to be functional, it needs to feature a layout that matches the phone's size. The text must be large enough to read, and the buttons need to be big enough to push. The user shouldn't need to zoom in to read anything, and they shouldn't need to scroll sideways to find any additional content. This means that sidebars and multiple columns are generally a bad idea, except with phones that have a landscape mode. Any menu items should instead be contained in the header.
Data usage is also an important consideration. Most mobile phones have a slower Internet connection than a PC, which means that a mobile version of a site should also be a "light" version. It should be low on superfluous images and multimedia, only including these when they are important to the core functionality of the site. Pages should usually be kept under 20 kilobytes so that they can be loaded quickly by most phones. Users will generally give up on a page if it takes too long to load. There certainly are some phones and data plans without these limitations, but they are the exception and not the rule. It is important to cater to all users, not just the ones who have bought the latest gadgets.
Compatibility is another important consideration. This is especially true of multimedia such as video and audio. Complex files like Java and Flash should be avoided, and only the most widely compatible formats should be used. The data should be highly compressed. Large images and multimedia shouldn't load unless the user requests it.
The website is the tool of the modern era. It has become a combination storefront and media outlet for businesses to simultaneously engage in PR, marketing, and retail, all in one place. But marketing tools such as this aren't working as well as they could be if they aren't catering to the entire audience. Unfortunately, most webmasters don't optimize their site for use by mobile devices. This could be a serious mistake, especially since more users could be accessing the Internet from their phones than from a PC by 2015. Creating mobile sites is the only way to get the most out of these mobile users.
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