Why Mobile Websites Are So Important

In an attempt to grow your business, you’ve spent countless hours and plenty of cash to develop an interactive app to draw mobile users to your brand. You connect with them through all the social media outlets, and you text message them special savings and deals to lure them to your website. But have you configured a mobile-friendly website that allows users to interact with your brand on their time?

If you don’t have a mobile website, you may be doing your business a major disservice. According to signalnews.com, 16.7 million users over the age of 13 rely on their phones for Internet access. If your site isn’t compatible for mobile use, you might be losing out on a lot of traffic.

How do you connect with all those on-the-go users? Many of today’s mobile users look to their devices as more than a talking piece; most phones are designed as tools for entertainment (videos, music, and general web use) and real-time information exchange. The integration of Qwerty keypads and touch-screen options has given users the web at their fingertips, with a serious emphasis on function and speed.

The most important aspect of a mobile site is the ability to provide content to the lightning-fast smart phone user while still making the site accessible to older models. This can be achieved in a number of ways, including sites designed to detect browsing from mobile devices. These sites remove barriers of entry for mobile users, redirecting them to mobile-friendly sites with information and interaction opportunities designed to engage.

In conjunction with redirection, businesses that use mobile sites as part of a marketing strategy reap the rewards of creating equal access for on-the-go users. Mobile sites can be enhanced with downloads specifically geared toward phone users and can even allow users to take advantage of the applications without downloading. For users with older devices, consider incorporating a simpler version of your mobile site. This version would allow those users to take advantage of your information or applications without waiting for excessive download time.

No matter how you choose to implement your mobile site, pay close attention to the options and features that draw clients to your original site. Finding the balance between conventional content and interactive mobile options will make for a powerful marketing tool capable of engaging users anywhere, anytime.

The Importance of Cross Browser Testing

When it comes time to turn your site from a mockup to something fully functional, you'll want to make sure that it works great for everyone visiting your site whether they're using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or any other browser.

Here's a quick explanation of cross-browser testing and some useful resources for designers and developers:

1. Your site will look different in different browsers. That's because browsers understand some code slightly differently (kind of like the difference between American English and British English).
2. Your designer should be testing to make sure that your site works well in all modern browsers. At Insivia we test site functionality in at least Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari (and Google Chrome), and Opera.
3. There are ways to check which browsers your audience is using to see your site. Google Analytics is a good tool to access this info.
4. New browsers are becoming more and more standards-compliant (meaning they all follow the same rules for code), so hopefully this will be one less headache for designers and developers.

Useful links and resources for designers and developers:

• Check out how well your browser renders sites using the Web Standards Acid Test.
• Freelance Folder lists some great free tools for designers to test cross-browser compatability.
• Mac and PC users alike can delight in Safari 4, which has ridiculously useful tools to help you see sites in different browsers and versions.

5 tips for website owners

So you've got a website or you're thinking of creating a website? What are the top 5 tips we can give you in ensuring your website is a long term success?

1) Plan, plan and plan some more.

Building a well constructed, targeted, information rich and SEO focussed website takes a lot of time, effort and ultimately money. As the website guardian, it is your job to ensure that all of the long term targets and objectives are met, that improvements and fixes are implemented quickly and that the whole system is meeting or exceeding expectations. With larger e-commerce projects and bespoke web applications the importance in planning increases exponentially. The web site will be interacting with more internal systems, encrouching into other departments remits and generally throwing it's weight around more. The importance of planned introductions and improvements can not be underestimated. Knee jerk reactions to implement a new piece of functionality often causes more problems than leaving things alone.
It is worthwhile investing in a suitable project management solution - be that offline like MS Project/OmniOutliner or online like Basecamp - these systems will help you to plan your workloads, timescales and delivery dates more accurately.

Write a full and detailed website spec

There are a multiple reasons for doing this, but the two main ones are that it ensures you get what you want and deliverables are set and agreed by all parties. It it will also help you to think about all the nuisances of your project - for want of a better phrase, 'it will get the creative juices flowing'. Quite often, it's only when writing the full website spec do you realise, 'Oh, actually I need it to handle the lack of VAT on international exports' etc. Writing a spec is a good thing and will result in a happy website owner/developer relationship.

2) Preparing copy and photographs takes time

Creating interesting, key word rich and well written copy is a skill. If you don't have the skill or time to dedicate to doing this properly pay a professional to do it for you. This is often an area that customers think they can cut some costs and do themselves - and more often than not it's very evident in the final result. Copywriters aren't hugely expensive and they will do a better job than you will!
Similarly good photography can make a website. instead of using the camera on your mobile phone, pay for a professional to come and take some pictures. This is particularly important if it's product photography or location focused.

3) Don't ignore the importance of the Search Engines.

Think of Search Engines such as Google as being the pathways from the street to your company's front door. If you have a fantastic looking building, great products and a happy demeanor it's not going to get the customers in from the streets - the pathway to your door will do that.  So it is imperative that you build your website with the search engines in mind - no matter how big and well known your company is, you will need this at some point. The current economic climate (2009) is proving that even big, well established, brands feel the pinch from time to time.

Have a separate SEO budget.

If possible, keep your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) budget and web development budget separate. Although the two are intrinsically linked, they are two different things and can even be handled by two different companies. Similarly, don't spend the budget for one thing on extra funding for the other. You need a balanced and well thought out strategy. After all, investing all your money in a website that no-one can find is almost as bad as investing all the money in optimising a website with poor design and a lack of features - either way the result is the same: a lack of sales.

4) Keep it fresh.

The initial build of a website is exciting and takes up a lot of resources.  However you must not forget that this is now your mouthpiece to the world - you need to keep the momentum up and the new content flowing. Not only for search engine purposes but also to keep your customers coming back to you. They will be interested to see what you're working on, what new products or services you're offering and how you can help them improve/expand/reach more customers.
So consider it your job to ensure that content is added monthly as an absolute minimum - it will be worth the effort in the long run.

5) Nothing lasts forever

Almost everything has a shelf life, particularly in our 'rapid change' world, where technological advances mean improvements can be made quickly and with sweeping effect. So you need to consider that your website will have a shelf life. What is possible now will be different in 3 years time. What is de-riguer now will be old hat soon. You need to continually evolve to stay with the pack. It is worthwhile bearing in mind that websites typically have a life cycle of between 3 and 5 years.

In Conclusion

Of course there are a million and one things to consider when running a website, but these tips might help you plan for the long term or at least give it a cursory glance.

What type of website does your business need?

Quite often we are approached to produce a website when the client doesn't really know what they need. This article aims to discuss the types of website available and what they are suitable for.

Brochure Websites

A brochure, or static website, is a site that often has no database interaction. Quite often these are set up ‘just because we need a website’ - after all, ‘everyone has a website now’. A brochure website tends to have a similar level of information to a standard printed brochure, i.e. who you are, what you do, how to find you etc. These sites can be optimised for search engines, however they are often too small to have any significant impact. Typically, if someone queries a search engine with your company name you would be found, however you are unlikely to be found with a keyword unless it’s very specific.

Flash Websites

A Flash website is one that uses Adobe Flash, a programme that requires every user to have a browser plugin to view the website. The real benefit of a Flash website is that you can use advanced animation, music and video. They are brilliant for showcasing your work and mean any fonts and images can be used on the site. The drawbacks are that they are not indexed well by the search engines (meaning poor performance in search listings i.e. people will not be able to find you on Google et. al.) and that they are not very accessible or easy to update.

Maintenance of a Flash website would need to be carried out by skilled staff and a redesign, which is a part of every website's life cycle, means effectively starting again each time. More traditional websites built using modern coding standards can be reskinned with relatively little rework.

Part Flash/Part HTML/CSS

For clients wanting some animation, video or sound we often recommend a Flash/HTML mix. This is where the bulk of the website is coded in HTML/CSS but elements of it are in fact Flash movies embedded into the page. This offers a 'best of both worlds' solution to having some Flash whilst being easier to update and redesign.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

A Content Management System (CMS) is a web-based tool to allow any authorised user access to edit the website. The idea behind a CMS is that day-to-day maintenance is handled by the client who, typically, has no prior experience in web page programming. By using modern programming languages and WYSIWYG (pronounced ‘wizzy wig’ - meaning ‘What You See Is What You Get’) editors look and work in a similar way to Microsoft Word, but convert the content in HTML (the language of the web).

We find that people who are proficient in Word can easily work our CMSs with the ability to create new content, add content, insert images and basically control what is in the website.

A database powered CMS will store the content of the web page in a database table, meaning it’s searchable and can have various meta data attached to it. It also means that you can have various version of the same page (for example, the live version, older versions and perhaps a new version that is not yet complete.) This makes a CMS a very powerful tool for managing the site content.

There are a few options with CMSs, but the main ones are:

Off the shelf Content Management Systems

Off the shelf CMSs allow you to quickly and easily set up a website. They are often open source, meaning they're free to download, and are well supported. They usually lend themselves well to being re-skinned to whatever design you want.

There are obvious advantages and disadvantages to using an off the shelf CMS, notably:

Positives

• The system is pre-built so there are no development costs
• Well supported
• Well tested with regular updates

Negatives

• Functionality limited to what the package offers
• Hacking older versions can be common place
• Updating systems can be difficult
• What happens if the system is no longer supported?
• Altering the system is often very complicated

Bespoke Content Management Systems

A bespoke CMS is one built to your exact requirements. It will do precisely what you want it do and will look exactly how you want it to. Obviously a bespoke build will carry a greater level of development work and, ultimately, cost. Most web agencies worth their salt should have previously built a CMS. If they have any sense, they’ll have built it in a portable and scalable way, meaning the core code can be lifted from project to project and modified to suit each individual set of deliverables.

As with the off the shelf systems there are, of course, pros and cons to a bespoke build. They are:

Positives

• It will do exactly what you want it to do
• It will look exactly how you want it to
• Additional functionality can be added for things like Google Maps, Flickr imports, RSS feeds and other rich media

Negatives

• Initial build costs
• Longer time scales than off the shelf systems
• Greater requirement for testing and snagging

eCommerce

Selling on the internet is now a massive industry. The overheads are low, the audience is huge and the potential is only restricted by budget and commitment.

Deciding which approach to take is probably dependent upon your requirements and what else the website needs to achieve.

Off the shelf eCommerce

Like the off the shelf CMS, there are many benefits to using an off the shelf eCommerce system, however the negatives are also similar. There are a 101 different eCommerce packages on the market, some good and some bad. Deciding which one to use is difficult.

We tend to use Magento (http://www.magentocommerce.com/) for our off the shelf eCommerce implementations - it's a free to use package that is very flexible and has many great features. It can be restyled and customised relatively easily. The main drawbacks come when you want to add functionality that was not part of the original system.

Bespoke eCommerce

A lot of our Bespoke eCommerce applications are set up because an off the shelf package doesn’t offer the functionality required. Setting up a bespoke eCommerce application is simple in its basic concept, however additional things like reporting, printing invoices and picking lists add to its complexity.

Most of our eCommerce packages are integrated with Paypal or with Protx, who are payment gateway providers.