2010 Trends: Leveraging the Mobile Market Marketing | January 5th, 2010
by Antonio Felguerez
As more Internet users log on from a variety of handheld devices that took over the smartphone market over the past few years, web sites are becoming more mobile to meet the growing demand.
Mobile web usage increased 131 percent from March 2008 through the end of 2009, and growth is expected to continue for the next few years. As users become more comfortable placing winning bids on their iPhones or ordering airline tickets through their Blackberry, all sites can cash in on the explosive growth of the mobile web.
Separate Google Index
Google has created a separate index for mobile web sites, giving sites customized for mobile use the edge on the less populated and less cluttered portion of the search engine and making it easier for web sites to stand out in the crowd.
eBay & iPods
eBay has distributed over 6 million copies of their mobile app, with 1.5 million copies going out between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, increasing users 300 percent within one month. iPod Touch sales jumped 57 percent over the Christmas holidays, opening mobile web browsing capabilities to a significant segment of the marketplace that had until now been limited to desktops and laptops.
Easy Upgrade
Customizing an existing site to run on handheld devices creates another sales avenue and limitless opportunities for potential customers to find and purchase online products. Existing sites can be easily adapted to fit the needs of mobile users, carrying over the site’s most used features to optimize mobile web usage.
Unlimited Sales Opportunities
Customers essentially remain in the marketplace 24 hours a day with the mobile web never more than a cell phone or handheld device away. In an arena where consumer use is growing faster than businesses are evolving, this is an opportunity to become a leader in your industry in the mobile web.
Time to Act
If you are seriously considering utilizing the web to either help sell your products or sell yourself, you must enter the mobile environment. Last year if you wanted to build a web site you had to budget for search engine optimization. The same goes for the mobile site this year.
