Mobile is everywhere.
If you follow the marketing news lines you knows that mobile is top of mind.
Every marketer is paying attention to the growing number of consumers using mobile to consume content, create content and make purchases. The numbers are growing to the levels where mobile can no longer be ignored.
A recent interview on eMarketer with Norm Johnston of Mindshare Worldwide highlighted the importance of mobile and integrating mobile design into your various owned online channels.
From Balancing Paid, Owned and Earned Media a Must for Multichannel Marketers:
For example, rather than separating mobile out, we embed a mobility mentality into everything we’re doing. So when we look at paid, owned and earned media, there’s a mobile aspect to each of those things. Sometimes, it’s simply an extension of what we’re already doing—paid search is one example where that’s true. We need to get past this concept that mobile’s something separate, because it’s not. If people can’t see your brand on a mobile phone or a tablet, you’ve got an issue.
The entire article is worth reading. There are lots of good nuggets on marketing for success in the future.
What I’d also like to discuss is mobile design for your business blog.
Business Blog Mobile Design
A holistic approach is good for everything in marketing.
It’s good to imagine the relationship of social and search and how their each interact with your website. It’s also good to look at how different channels intersect with your Web properties including your blog.
In terms of design, your company blog needs to be accessible from mobile devices.
Most handhelds and tablets can handle the basic website design. These devices are good at allowing users to focus on the content they are reading or viewing when visiting Web pages.
There are some issues with leaving your website designed specifically for computer browsing only. When folks visit your blog they might run into the issue of scrolling horizontally and vertically when trying to focus on reading your posts. This is frustrating and it can even make a person leave your site when they’re reading your content on their mobile device.
There are some plugins for WordPress that change your site a little bit to fit into most mobile screen sizes. These plugins take out some of the images and other styling options on your site and make it fast and easy to consume on phones and tablets.
Another option is to design your website with the idea that both Web and mobiles users will be the main target audience. This is back to what Norm is discussing when he says that mobile is not separated from anything including blog design.
Responsive and fluid design are popular with some folks. This option provides a solution where your site will automatically adjust to fit the screen size of your visitor. This solution can be more expensive up front, but as the world turns to mobile you’ll be prepared to have your content accessible to the wider audience.
Consider mobile when setting up your blog.
Keep things simple without too much distraction on the page. This helps with load times, which are important for mobile users. Visitors will be coming to your blog from links in emails, search results and social sites. They’ll want your page to load reasonably fast and when they’re on your site they want it to be easy to read and scroll.
Consider plugins or response design as some options to go beyond a basic website. These solutions are gaining more acceptance and will help business leaders and bloggers with the mobile trend.
I think as mobile continues to gain marketshare in the world, web designers will create sites that are focused on blending computers and mobile devices. There will still be one site to maintain, but the design will allow for viewers in any format or channel to have a good experience.
iPad Lunch image courtesy of bm.iphone