The Dakota County Technical College\'s (DCTC)course in Innovations in Marketing includes an excellent hands-on book called "The Bootstrapper\'s Guide to the Mobile Web" as its textbook. This ppts is the first lecture I give in the course. See www.dctc.edu for courses in Social Media, offered online or in the clasroom!

1. Innovations in Marketing
Chapter 1.1 pg 1-24
Bootstrapper’s Guide to the Mobile Web
Author Deltina Hay

2. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• How People Use the Mobile Web
▫ 1. Don’t surf the mobile web per say
▫ 2. Know what they want and act on it
▫ 3. Want location, news, social media and products
▫ 4. Recommend, buy, and follow more than
desktop users

3. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Why You Need a Mobile Web
▫ 1. Websites to load fast and be free of Flash
▫ 2. Mobile websites need to adhere to industry
standards
▫ 3. If a site is not compliant, will not be listed in
directories
▫ 4. If your site is hard to navigate on mobile
devices, folks will move on.

4. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Mobile Browsers Have Different Behavior Than
Desktop Browsers
▫ No Flash
▫ No Rendered Video
▫ Image Galleries
▫ Adhere to mobile standards of W3C mobile web
initiative and you will avoid these issues

5. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Planning Your Mobile Website
▫ Define business objectives
▫ Make a list of the must-have features for your site
▫ Plan for user expectations
 Why are they coming to your site?
 What are they seeking?
 What type of actions are they likely to take?

6. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• User Expectations
▫ Browsers on mobile devices typically take action
on their purpose
▫ Spend most of the time seeking contact and local
info, visiting social media site, researching retail
products and downloading music and video

7. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Business Objectives
▫ Ask Yourself
 What are your immediate goals for your mobile
website?
 What are your resources? (money and personnel)
 Are there any other factors that may restrict how
you develop your mobile site?

8. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Features to Consider for Inclusion in Mobile Website
▫ Click to Call Buttons – for mobile device
▫ Social Media Buttons
▫ Share Badges for other to email a friend
▫ Google Maps – interactive map with directions to your
location
▫ Forms to allow action on your site
▫ SMS (text messaging on mobile device preferred)
▫ Event Calendar
▫ Location Check-In
▫ Multimedia – don’t use a lot for mobile devices
▫ News/blogs
▫ E-commerce – make it mobile-friendly
▫ Industry Specific Features

9. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Mobile Website Best Practices
▫ Make the mobile website load fast – no Flash and
few images
▫ Design simply – Avoid scrolling, Avoid horizontal
menus and Avoid clutter
▫ Prioritize content, be concise, and make it easy for
users to take action
▫ Take advantage of mobile features, and check
your site for errors.
▫ Think Tap-able not Click-able (design for touch
screen not mouse)

10. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Formatting Content: Be Concise
▫ Make headers prominent and concise
▫ Text should be readable at arm’s length and
broken up with “read more” links
▫ Shorten excerpts for blog posts and new items
with links to full story
▫ Avoid placing too many links within the body of
text

11. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Overall Site Design: Simple Usability
▫ Design for small screen is challenging. Try to:
 Not Clutter your site with paid ads
 Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets-defines HOW
HTML elements are to be displayed.)
 Use plenty of white space on your site. Use lighter
colors
 Place a search box prominently on your mobile site.
 Avoid placing images, audio, or video across site
 Single columns are best

12. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Think About
▫ Page Size – Page load time Should be Less than 4
seconds
▫ Images that are necessary
 .jpg or .gif
 Reduced size and resolution of images
 Use image crunching services like Crunch4Free
 Optimum page is around 20 KB
 Offer alternate text for images for mobile browsers

13. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• URL: Dotmobi vs. Sub-domains
▫ It is recommended that you purchase a dotmobi
or .mobi extension so your mobile site is
“yoursitename.mobi”
▫ Or you could pace your mobile site in a directory
on your main website and assign it a name like
m.yoursitename.com

14. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Redirecting Visitors to Your Mobile Site: Let
them Choose
▫ It is best to allow browsers to choose which
version (full web or mobile site) they wish to view
on mobile device
▫ Place links at the bottom of your website that
directs visitors to use standard or mobile versions
of the site

15. Chapter 1-Mobile Websites
• Testing Your Mobile Site: W3C It
▫ Test your mobile site on W3C mobileOKChecker
 Checks for site errors
 Checks load times
 Checks image sizes
 Etc.