Go Mobile

Go Mobile According to tech monitor SmallBizTrends.com, over 60 percent of online traffic now comes from mobile devices. Unbeknownst to you, your own website may - right now! - be looking like a bad bowl of alphabet soup: text indecipherably tiny, images disproportionately huge, menus misaligned and the contact form stretched out of bounds of a finger-tap. There goes your chance of that interested editor getting in touch with you for a possible commission or that writers group wishing to purchase your book in bulk for their next reading project! With more people buying smart-phones every day, you need to capitalize on this fast-growing market on the Web: ensure you can reach your mobile audience and they can reach you. The easiest way to do this is to create a mobile-optimized website. This is a version of your desktop website customized for the constraints of mobile viewing, especially the small size of the screen and vertical page alignment. While mobile websites are cost-effective and have a wide reach (anyone with a browser can access a website), they do have two constraints: They are limited in what they can do because they are browser-dependent, and features like Flash and Javascript can be tricky to incorporate. Start your website plan Other considerations will include your available budget, your intended purpose and your must-have features. Want to tout your latest award? Or are you more interested in collecting rave reviews for your debut novel? Perhaps youd like to highlight your flexible rates for ghost-writing services. There are a variety of tools, some free, to help you create a mobile-friendly version of your existing website. Google Mobile Optimizer is the most accessible, but also the least customizable. WordPress offers some plugins,  GoDaddy  has an automated system, other online plug-and-play platforms are  GetGoMobi.com  and Onswipe.com. Simply search online for How to set up a mobile website to get thousands of useful results. Do some due diligence, play around with a few options to explore and get a feel of the technology. During implementation, bear in mind the following three key points: 1. Identify . . . the context and content most relevant to your readers/editors. Remember, they are mobile users, which means they are on the move. They dont want to read pages of PDF of sample articles or