How To Redirect Visitors to your Mobile Website
Facebook and Twitter are two of the most user-friendly sites on the mobile web – and that’s great news for those who are going mobile with their websites, because it means people can right-click on bit.ly links in Twitter – and be automatically taken to a mobile version of your site, if they’re accessing it from Twitter.
The best way to accomplish this is to set up redirects, so that whenever a user is detected on a mobile, it goes straight to the mobile version of your site. There are several ways to do this, all based on detecting browser screen size.
The easiest method I’ve seen comes from justtechnika.com, and involves inserting a small piece of JavaScript code on your main website, "anywhere between <head> and </head>". (I’d recommend right at the bottom of your page, so as not to interfere with search engine bots and site SEO.) I tried the piece of code provided – and it worked! I don’t have permission to reproduce the code – I only found it today, and there’s been no time to contact the blog owner, but you can find the article with the code snippet at the following link: http://justtechnika.com/articles/find-mobile-visitors-to-your-website-and-redirect-them-to-your-mobile-site/
Treat Your Mobile Website like A Tweet
So you’ve successfully redirected them to the mobile version of your website – now what?
If you’re re-writing a shortened, condensed version of your main website, treat it like a Twitter tweet: Just hit the high points, and strip out all the filler. (One thing Twitter has done for us since its inception: Turned us into effective self-editors!) Think of your mobile site visitors like Twitter users, and you’ll increase your targeting automatically: You have about 2 seconds to get to the point, and half that again to show them where they want to go.
Don’t use bottom of the page or sidebar navigation – simple tabs at the top will do the best job (and people are becoming used to looking there for them.) Make sure your type fonts are large enough, and easy to read (Verdana and Arial are two of the most popular), and avoid "high tech" color combinations with dark backgrounds (unless your demographic is between 18 and 26): Most people find them hard on the eyes.
Make your site easy to bookmark – and remind people to do it (your "call to action".)
Above all, be consistent with every element. After all, you’d find even Twitter confusing, if the colors and layout changed every time you visited.
Don’t worry – you’ll soon get into the habit of "thinking mobile". But until then, remember this maxim:
Keep it short… and sweet.
Bruno
Twitter Me this, Twitter Me That
We all know that Twitter is a fast-growing social network that allows you to send short messages about yourself or what you are doing. For instance, you may decide to share that you "just saw the movie He’s Just Not That Into You - Check it out." Or…you may want to say something like "Just got off the phone with Joel Comm and had a very insightful conversation."
As twitter grows and adapts their rules to accomodate the new user and people adding to their network the demand get more. I have noticed in the last few days that twitter times out quite frequently when you are trying to edit something on the website. I guess with all the demand on the server it is hard to keep up.
I also noticed that there seems to be a new twitter application or ebook on twitter that is released every other week. I have tested a few of the applications and found they work ok but I went back to what I normally use. As for the ebook’s that come out, free or paid ones, I feel that it is a lot of recycled information. I personally don’t know about the all the paid ones but free ones all read similar to me in my opinion.
There is one thing I can say about twitter. Since the launch of The $5 Twitter Trick I have noticed a lot of new subscribers to my twitter account. I seem to be getting like 30 new request per day but who is counting. I know if I applied using the trick myself, I’d probably get 10 times more follower to my twitter account. I did buy the book because it was only $5 and wanted to see if it was anything I haven’t learned already from previous books.
I’m not going to put down twitter, but is it such a great tool as everyone says it is for marketing? Do people make the sales they really say by using twitter? I think its just a fad that will last a year maybe or less in my opinion. I also think that lots of people spam on there. I know you can control who’s tweets you want to see if you use applications like Tweetdeck.
I guess the irony is that I use twitter too. Although I don’t have 13000 follower because my other account got flagged for so called spam like so many others. What is a reasonable amount of tweets you should shoot out there a day? Do you use it too keep the important people on you fav list so you catch their tweets?
Please tell me what you think of Twitter
Add me to twitter http://twitter.com/BrAuger