Mobile best practices
There's been a lot of talk out there about the need for a mobile strategy to reach the fast-growing consumer segment that relies on their mobile devices for so much more than simple voice calling. Increasingly, they're turning to the mobile web to entertain themselves and find information at the moment they need it.
Great, so you know you need a mobile strategy to reach these people. Now what?
The key to mobile success is understanding how to build -- and then sustain -- a mobile audience. Based on the work that we've done to create "adapted" mobile websites for major brands and content owners, we've be able to focus on some best practices in making sure the site is engaging enough to keep that audience coming back for repeat visits.
The following is a synopsis of those best practices for driving traffic to build the mobile audience and to sustain it.
Build your mobile audience
By using a variety of techniques to drive mobile traffic, our clients are able to quickly build a sizable audience. We see massive jumps in traffic based on the approaches outlined below:
Site redirector: It is crucial for sites to leverage the power of their online presence. If a client has an online domain name that is well known by its consumer base, we have found that using that same domain for the mobile site is an important element to capture high levels of traffic. Using a "mobile re-director" technology that can recognize when the URL request is originating from a mobile device is integral to capturing consumer interest and allows the mobile site to be easily found. Having the same domain address for the mobile site provides consistency in the minds of users and makes the marketing message clearer and more effective than trying to re-brand a .mobi or m. address. Like branding in general, consistency is key, so leverage what you already have to succeed in your mobile efforts.
If a client has a recognizable online URL, implementing the site re-director can have a dramatic impact. One of our leading lifestyle and entertainment brands added the re-director to its mobile site and traffic grew more than 350 percent.
Author notes: Lars Albright is VP of business development at Quattro Wireless. Read full bio.
