I caught an article the other day that reported that the smartphone market is likely to grow by about 50% in 2011.

50%!!!

That means that at any given time A) about 50% more people will probably have their eyes transfixed on a mini screen instead of interacting with the actual people they’re hanging out with and B) about 50% more people will have access to your website 24:7.

Have you spring-cleaned your website for all the new visitors? No? Well, now’s the time for it. Visit your website from a smartphone and…

1. Check for broken stuff. Does anything look weird or different from your regular site? Take note of anything that isn’t looking quite right and ask your web designer to make it more compatible with cell phone browsers. 
2. Make sure it isn’t annoyingly slow. Mobile phones don’t have the processing power that computers have, so pages with a lot going on may seem to take forever to load. If your site works slowly, you might be losing people. Another thing to talk to your web designer about.
3. Assess whether your website feels right on your phone. Even if it moves quick and nothing is broken or particularly weird, your website may not feel like it belongs on a phone. If the layout makes the site tough to navigate on a phone or the page has a lot of complicated functions that seem unnecessary as you visit on a phone, it might be time for another conversation with your favorite web designer.

Hmm. Looks like this spring cleanout could lead to a lot of one-on-one time with your web designer.

Good thing you picked a pretty cool one.

And if you haven’t picked a favorite yet, then contact the IntelliSites Albany Web Design team.

Filed under: Experiencing the Web, Maintaining Your Site, Web Design
Tags: cell phones, mobile websites, smartphones, Web Design
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Remember the old days when you needed a computer to use the internet?

There’s no denying what a big splash smartphones are making on the internet scene these days. Check out this recent article by Sarah Kessler, which references some new crazy stats about how big a role smartphones are playing in e-commerce and commerce in general. The article states that 30% of those surveyed used smartphones to look up product information or find the locations of stores and 11% actually made purchases on their smartphones during the holiday season. And, maybe most importantly, Kessler mentioned that the study indicated a correlation between how satisfied shoppers were with a company’s mobile experience and how likely they were to make a purchase with that company.

In other words, people are taking this whole smartphone/shopping thing seriously.

How To Keep Up

If people are going to be making decisions about where to spend their money using their smartphones, then your company’s website needs to be prepared for mobile visitors.

Of course, different businesses are going to need to take different steps to make themselves mobile friendly. You’ll need to sit down with your web designer and have a chat about what kind of business you run and who your targets are. From there, you two can put your heads together and decide whether you’re the kind of business that needs to make smartphone users generally happy or the kind of business that needs to make smartphone users jump for joy.

If you’re going to get some smartphone visitors but not many, then making those visitors generally happy should be plenty. Your web designer will just need to make sure that your website shows up nicely on their phones, and you’ll be good to go.

But if smartphone visitors are going to start taking over your site in the near future, you want to go all out for those folks. There’s a difference between a site that can show up on a phone and a site that was designed for a phone. So if a good portion of your website visitors will be using smartphones to get there, you’re going to need your web designer to make an alternate version of your site that is simplified and easy for mobile users to navigate in order to drive conversions. After all, those cell phone users are working with a small touch screen, so providing big buttons and easy ways to get to the important stuff on your site will really help them out.  And if you really want them to love you, you can even incorporate digital coupons and other promotions just for smartphone users into your site.

Smartphones are hip and here to stay. And if you want their users to say the same thing about your business, make sure your web design team gets your website into shape.

Filed under: Maintaining Your Site, Web Design
Tags: cell phones, mobile, online shopping, smartphones
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Remember video stores?

Or when the only way to buy the music you loved was to drive to the record store?

Technology has turned the music and movie rental industries upside down.  And the e-book craze is spreading like wildfire. And it looks like the video game industry is on its way to making the big transition from physical media to digital media as well.

Advances in technology have always moved toward making things smaller and more powerful. And since there’s nothing smaller than invisible, it makes sense that eventually anything that didn’t have to exist physically would take on digital form.

What Digital Distribution Means For Your Business

If your company is part of one of the industries that has already taken the leap into digital distribution, then certainly you’re familiar with the way it’s changing your world. If you haven’t done so already, you need a plan for how you’re going to keep up with your competitors by digitizing your business.

But let’s say you’re not involved in an industry where digital distribution has taken over. Let’s say you’re a hair stylist. Digital distribution doesn’t affect you, right? You obviously can’t offer a digital haircut, right?

Or can you?

Sites like this one provide users with the opportunity to upload photos of themselves and see how various hairstyles will look on them. Why couldn’t you have a similar application on your site? Or instead of reinventing the wheel on your own site, you could just provide links on your website to existing sites like that one. You could even set up a computer in your salon and allow customers to surf sites that provide this service (provided that you choose sites that allow for commercial use, of course).  To make your waiting area more fun, you could even have your clients design a digital hairstyle for you before you provide them with a real one!

What I’m getting at is that even if your industry doesn’t seem to lend itself well to digital distribution, there are probably ways you can make your business more digital. Whether it’s making use of fun websites or apps related to your specialty, setting up an online ordering system to replace a printed order form, or offering digital coupons, there are ways to take advantage of the digital world that’s developing. And even though making changes like these might not revolutionize the way you do business, they will give your company a Netflixy, iTunesy, 2011-ey “cool” factor.

Filed under: eCommerce, Maintaining Your Site, Web Design
Tags: digital coupons, digital distribution, online shopping
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I see you’ve made it back to the IntelliSites blog today. Welcome! At IntelliSites, we love visitors to our blog…a lot. After all, visitors to our blog are visitors to our site. And everyone loves company at their website.

If you’re looking for more friendly folks to drop in at your site, then blogging could be a great option for you, too.

How Blogging Helps

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – blogging’s awesome for your site. Do you want a better relationship with your clients? Blog. Want to showcase your expertise? Blog. Want to improve your search engine rankings? Blog.

It really is an easy way to make your site a lot better. To get a lot more visitors, a lot more links, and ultimately a lot more business.

How Much Is “A Lot”?

If you’re interested in exactly how much blogging can help, check out this sweet article by Rick Burnes I came across the other day. This guy did some research and discovered that small business websites with blogs get 55% more visitors than websites that don’t. I knew blogging was worthwhile, but even I was impressed to see just how much oomph it can bring to a website.

Aside from giving away free diamonds or bags of benjamins, there’s really nothing else you can do on your website that can give it that much of an edge.

So blog. If you don’t have one yet, start one. If you have one that you’ve been neglecting, show it some love. But there’s no good reason to let your website get 55% less hits than it should.

Filed under: Maintaining Your Site, Marketing Your Site
Tags: blog, blogging, site traffic
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If you have a website but no one is there to visit it, does it really exist?

This one’s a lot easier than that “tree falling in the woods” question.

The answer is, definitely, “Yes.” Thanks to its host.

Hosts 101

A host is a computer that stays on 24/7 and holds all the files that make up your website. It waits patiently for a web surfer to type your website’s URL into his browser and then sends him your page. Whether it’s morning, noon, or night, the host is in charge of serving up your website to anyone who wants to see it.

Every website needs one of these babies. So if you have a website, it already has a host.

Of course, if you don’t have a website yet, then you A) need to get one, ASAP and B) will need a host to make it work. Don’t worry, though, you don’t have to go out and buy a special computer to leave on day in and day out. If we design your website for you, we can make sure it gets hooked up with a host.

Always Working For Your Website

Yes, hosts are pretty neat. When you’re relaxing on the beach, enjoying a round of golf, or catching some Zs, the host is making it possible for the world to visit your website. You may never get to see your website’s host, but whether day or night…whether rain or shine…whether you think the tree falling in the woods makes a sound or doesn’t make a sound…that host is working for you.

Filed under: Maintaining Your Site
Tags: host, web hosting
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