The other day I clicked on 4 banner ads on my iPhone's RottenTomatoes app, 3 went to non-mobile websites and the 4th for Tide went to a French mobile website. I guess P&G thought everyone in Canada speaks French. Parlez vous Anglais?

I thought, "Hmmm, that's stupid, why aren't I being directed to phone optimized websites?" I tried some more mobile banner ads. Only about 2 in 10 went to mobile specific websites.

I imagine this is because the agency that is placing the banners doesn't check or doesn't care whether their client has a mobile website option for that particular page. Shouldn't they be informing their client that it might be a good idea? They are making the effort to create a mobile-sized banner so why not go the extra mile and make sure the client doesn't look stupid. The website for the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum was totally mobile unfriendly (see image on left) even as a straight desktop site viewed on mobile. (Great museum, BTW.)

In this day and age, at the very least, your desktop site should be mobile friendly. The NY Times comes up very nicely on mobile even as complex as it is. And it does have a mobile version as well as an app (which sucks). So they have all the bases covered.

Maybe the site you've had up and running for the last 4 years just can't accommodate a mobile sniffing option without a major upgrade. But with a large and growing percentage of people surfing from their phones it's a bit insane not to support mobile. That being written, this link from a Nov. 2011 survey shows that 70% of companies had yet to launch a mobile site.

And it's not just the kids. You can't get the damn phones out of the grownup's hands. The number of adults pulling their phones out in washroom stalls, gad, I can hear you typing people! Yech. People LOVE their mobile phones. Too much.

With YWD mobile sites are part of our core package - that means you can go in and set up the mobile version of your site for no additional cost.

Watch our how-to set up mobile video.

We think that mobile is so important to small and mid sized businesses that it is something we regularly blog about. Check out the mobile category of the YWD blog for tips and tricks on how best to use the features and see examples of how other YWD clients are using mobile.

We can even set up your mobile site for you. For a flat fee of $500.00 we will:

Create a page banner for your website specifically for mobile
Assessment of, which key pages (plus the Home page) are to be used for mobile. We will make sure they are mobile-friendly
Create mobile-friendly versions of up to 2 forms
Add your phone number for one-click call

*Additional work can be discussed. Request our Mobile for $500.00 package.

Related posts:
Why a mobile website is important for your business
Mobilizing your website
Smart use of smartphones for websites

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