Is Your Small Business Website Mobile Ready?

Thirty eight Million, 38,000,000 folks bought an iPhone in Apple's 4th quarter of 2011. NO ONE expects this rate to slow down. Android has similar stats. 30% of all cell phones in use at the end of 2011 were smart phones with a projection that more than half will be smart phones by the end of 2012. My own observation is that 15% - 25% of searches for local businesses are not coming from mobile devices. An extrapolation of the ownership stats above would suggest that 25% - 45% of all searches for local businesses will occur on smart phones - not Computers - by the end of 2012.

How does your website look on a phone? Doesn't take long to figure this out. You either own one yourself or your spouse or probably your oldest kid does. Don't be shy. Check your website out on the phone. Is that how you want to be represented? Now do something even scarier, do a search for your keyword and city. See what happens. Good result? HMMMM. Now, if you don't have an iPhone, find someone who does. Ask them to ask Siri to search for your kind of business and see what pops up. Looking good?

You need a mobile website. They aren't expensive. You may need a mobile app. They can be expensive, but sometimes they are not too bad. You need to be found on a mobile search by text or Siri. If you aren't doing these things and your competitor is, it is going to be a rough year for you. The cost of getting all of this done is probably under $5000 total, and you can work on it over the next 5 months at $1000 a month. That may seem like a lot. Unless your sales drop by $3000 a month due to not being mobile.

2012 To Do List for Small Business SEO, SEM, and Traditional Marketing

If you are a small business, marketing has become more critical than ever.  As more and more brick and mortar sales go to the internet, Search Engine Optimization based on local business approaches, Search Engine Marketing for small business, and traditional small business marketing techniques must all be employed to reach your customers.

It is a normal human condition to wait until the last minute to do things.  I certainly fall into the normal range in that regard.  But, at least for 2011 I am turning over a new leaf in that department.  Here is a list of goals for 2012 that I will apply to my business, and that very likely apply to every one of your businesses.  Over the next 30 days, these will be detailed out at on this blog.  Be sure to subscribe or set up a feed so you don't forget to see the rest of the story.

While our marketing company, Randy Kirk and Associates does not generally take on project based work we are going to make an exception for two types of products over the next 90 days.  It is so critical for most of you that you have Mobile Websites and Mobile Apps, that we are going to take those projects.  The balance of the items on the list are all things that we do, but are only offered as part of an ongoing retainer.

As always we are offering free DIY advice for all these elements on this blog.  Please help yourself. 

For almost all of us, excellent execution on even a portion of this list would result in a 20% increase in sales or more. 

1.  Mobile website   appx   $700
2.  Mobile Ap            appx   $750 plus $70 a month
3.  Add Google Plus Page and Google+ to all online resources
4.  50 online videos
5.  Double email list - Send out 12 - 48 emails
6.  10 blog post per month.  Videos will create most of those
7.  Mobile blog
8.  Reputation management
9.  Maintain or improve rank of primary website and Google Places
10.  Use push notification on text list and Apps
11.  Improve Customer Service
12.  Add a profit center
13.  Improve margins
14.  Improve closing ratio
15.  Continue to increase activity on all Social Media
16.  Continuous effort on back links to websites and videos