Often small business owners ask if they should build a separate dedicated mobile site or redo their entire website to leverage responsive web design. The answer is - it depends. If you are providing services to your end customers like banking, accounting, laundry, dining etc, we recommend having a separate mobile website. If, however, you are simply providing information such as news or blogs we recommend responsive web design.

You might wonder why? Put yourself in the shoes of a customer who has a smartphone and is driving. When he is searching for a dining service, the intent is to find the closest one to his location, ability to make reservations online, get driving direction or perhaps browse the menu quickly. If the same customer is searching for a dining service on a desktop, the intent might be different and may be geared towards finding one that offers delivery services, best rates, coupons and so on. Notice the intent is different and one should offer a different experience for mobile and desktop users. Hence a dedicated mobile website with a separate URL than the desktop.

If, however, you are riding NJ Transit and want to catch up on latest news, the intent is similar to what you would want doing the same on a desktop or a TV. In other words, the intent is to consume latest news and you would want to present the same content in the best possible format on that device, thus responsive web design.

Google supports both the configuration and does not bias one over the other.

Give us a call at 408.475.8050 or fill up the contact form and can review your business to recommend the best solution for success.

Seriously. Do you really know the answer to the question? If not, its time to care. I can bet your competitor is.

Nearly one-fourth (24%) of total website traffic came from mobile devices in the first quarter of 2013—up 78% from the same time in 2012 and 109% since 2011 according to a research study done by MarketingProfs. Do I have your attention now? It won't be long when mobile traffic will become the majority slice of the your total website traffic.

Before you get worked up, I'd recommend you pull out your smartphone and inspect what your customers experience is when visiting your website. If you don't have a smartphone handy, I recently came across a pretty descent emulator - HubSpot Device Lab. Its in beta but works well. Now that you see it in front of you, answer these simple questions -

1. How soon did it load on the mobile device?
   
2. Do you need to scroll horizontally or zoom to view the content?
   
3. Do you see call to action (Click to call or contact forms) up front such that customers can contact you with one click?
   
4. Are videos or images loading properly?
   

If you are happy with the answers to the above questions, Congratulations! You have done a great job and are ahead of your competition. If, however, you are shocked, no need to panic. Further investigation is needed to gauge the damage done. If you are using a web analytics tool such as Google Analytics, which is free, find out what the traffic has been to your website from a mobile device. Its better late than never!

Now the good news is, it does not take one days or months to build a mobile optimized website. We. at Medusasoft Solutions, take on an average of 2 business days to get you a preview of your mobile website. So don't procrastinate any longer. Its time to mobilize your business!

Nice info-graphic on why local businesses should get a mobile optimized website.

Have you ever wondered what industry is the most searched one on a mobile device? Yes, you guessed it correct - Restaurant. According to the latest study from SinglePlatform and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, restaurants are the most searched industry by consumers through both mobile device and desktop browsers. The study found that 81% of consumers have searched for a restaurant on a mobile device and 92% through a web browser in the last six months, outperforming other highly searched industries, such as entertainment, retail outlets, hotels, and personal services.

Personally I perform search for a good restaurant t eat all the time. When I am driving back home from a long trip with my family and its getting late and we are tired, I pull up my iPhone and do a search for something we are in mood for. Get to my options, look at the interior decor, read reviews and the menu. If it looks good I reserve my place via open table reservations. All this I do on the go.

If these stats and evolving consumer behavior does not convince you, here are other reasons for having a mobile website:

Beat competition - 95% of restaurants do not have a mobile website. So odds are that your competitor down the street does not have a mobile website. By simply having one, you can beat your competition.

Highlight positive ratings and reviews - Consumers base their decision on where to dine on other like consumer's reviews. These reviews are candid and helpful. Mobile Websites can present the ratings (for instance Yelp ratings and reviews) in a humanly legible manner without having to pinch and scroll.

Improve organic rankings on mobile devices - Did you know that 75% of consumers choose a restaurant to dine at based on search results. With a mobile website, restaurant customers can find you easier on local Google searches. Restaurants with an optimized mobile site are more likely to receive local visits with a better Google search ranking.

Allow booking reservations online - OpenTable is the leader in online reservations for restaurants. Mobile websites can integrate with open table reservation and help fill up your tables.

Show your menu - The #1 thing people want to see when they search for a restaurant online is a menu. In fact 80% of consumers think it’s important to see a menu before they dine at a restaurant

So if you own a restaurant and don't have a mobile optimized website, you are loosing clients. Give your customers what they are asking for. Its time to embrace the mobile movement and rethink your marketing initiatives. We can help. Call us at 408.475.8050 to see how we can help you.

Have you seen the latest series of commercials from AT&T where a grown up guy speaks to bunch of kids and explains why 'more is better'. That analogy does not work well when you design your mobile site. In fact exactly opposite is what one should follow - 'It is not complicated...Less is more'.

Your customers, for whom you built a website, are not only increasingly using smaller screens but also using them as primary screens. Consumers are searching more, communicating more, sharing more, shopping more, watching more videos and so on all on these small screen devices. In fact one half of all local searches are performed on mobile devices according to Microsoft Tag. These consumer will wait about 5 seconds for a web page to load on their mobile device before abandoning the site according to Gomez. You cannot afford to simply render your website, which is designed for 27 inch monitor, on a 5 inch screen. You will simply loose business as 46% of consumers are unlikely to return to a mobile site if it didn't work properly during their last visit (Gomez). It will be a recipe for a disaster.

Mobile users are looking for information on the go. Google conducted a survey in September of 2012 and found that smartphone owners want the ability to take action when on a mobile website - actions like calling or send an email or looking up the location or operating hours. Here is a gist of the actions users want to take on mobile business sites -

 A business mobile site that has these features will serve their customers, who use smartphones to do more and more of their daily chores, with a better experience and lead to higher conversions. Replicating everything from the regular website will only cause the mobile site to load slower and distract the user from his intentions that brought him to the mobile site in the first place. No wonder why many designers take the approach of designing a website for mobile first and then expand it to regular website.

At MedusaSoft solutions, we follow mobile best practices of bubbling up the call-to-actions features and cautiously filter out unnecessary content for mobile consumers. We believe in 'Less is more' mantra for mobile websites. To get more information, please contact us and we'll be happy to review your mobile website with you.

Earlier this year, Google came out and announced how important the mobile web is to them and how they plan on handling non-optimized or mis-configured mobile websites. In plain language - they are going to penalize them and as a result their ranking will take a beating on mobile searches. Note that nothing will happen to your web search rankings if you are not following the recommendations but lets be truthful here - The web is moving towards mobile so will you care about your web results in near future the same way you do today? I think not!

Google wants to improve user experience on smartphones. This is great as it matches with our Mission as well. Here are 2 most commonly made mistakes according to Google -

1. Faulty redirects which happens when one is pointing individual pages on their site to a mobile friendly home page, as opposed to a mobile friendly version of that specific page. Google wants you to simply redirect smartphone users from a desktop page to its equivalent smartphone-optimized page. If there is no smartphone-friendly format for that page, instead of redirecting to the smartphone friendly homepage, Google prefers you to show the desktop content in a non-optimized manner.
2. Showing errors to smartphone users only when they access a particular page which is accessible on the web. Common scenarios include - 404 error page, Unplayable videos, Incorrectly handling Googlebot-Mobile and so on. The point is simple - Google wants to maintain the same user experience no matter the device.

So what should you do to avoid these mistakes? Well first thing that you should do is to pull out your smartphone and access your website. If you can say that you have a good experience browsing your website on smartphone, you are set. In short try answering these question:

1. Can you see your phone number without scrolling?
2. Is your entire navigation menu visible?
3. Can your customer call or email with just a click?
4. Are your links thumb-friendly?
5. Is everything visible without scrolling side to side?
6. Are all of your images and videos visible?
7. Does your site load quickly?
   

If you can't answer 'yes', you need to rethink your marketing and get a mobile website asap.