March 2010 Fast Company Magazine notes a milestone of the past decade: US Cell phone penetration was at 34% in 2000 and increased to 89% in 2010. Those figures reflect the number of phone users, however they don’t take into account the major change in cell phones during that time: the dawn of the smart phone. Not only are there more cell phone users, but there’s an increasing segment who are using their phone to connect to the Internet and view websites on the go.
What do phone users see when they go to your website? It’s worthwhile to look at it on your own phone or borrow a friend’s phone. Here’s a one-two punch to catch smart phone hot spots, improve your website and the phone user’s experience.
- Text Phone Number. Open up your website online (on your PC or Mac is OK). Mouse over your phone number. If you can highlight one number at a time it is “text”. If the whole number highlights or a larger area highlights, then it’s likely your phone number has been created as an image. Phone users rely on text phone numbers because they can simply click or touch the number to dial it. Wouldn’t you like customers to be able to easily call you?
- Flash Dead Zone. Handhelds don’t have the capability to display “Flash” software. The iPhone doesn’t Flash either. The iPhone’s big brother, the iPad, doesn’t have Flash. If your website uses Flash, all these users see is “a dead zone”, a box with nothing in it. I worked with a client last year whose entire website was developed in flash. It’s a white page on a white background. Even the navigation menu is in the Flash file. Phone users see it as a white screen with no links to go to any of the secondary web pages.
Design to Spec knows that your successful Internet Marketing begins with being seen online… on computers and on phones! Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you won’t miss any of our savory marketing tips.
