GEEKNOTE: In reviewing the analytics for a number of websites I manage, I noted that a couple of the sites have a significant amount of traffic from mobile devices (eg. smart phones of various flavors and Apple iPADs). Not surprisingly, the two sites with the highest percentages of mobile traffic were Greater New Port Richey Main Street and a local restaurant.
If you will pardon the pun, I think I’ll chew on these results for a bit before drawing any final conclusions. It is probably safe to say that this past weekend’s Friendly Kiafest in Sims Park had a lot to do with Main Street’s mobile web traffic. On Kiafest Saturday, they actually had more mobile than non-mobile traffic.
Other sites I looked at, including my company’s website, have much lower ratios of mobile to desktop use, typically 10-15% of the totals being mobile devices.
The fact that ANY traffic on any website comes from mobile devices is a testament to how popular smart phones have become. Even my old flip phone has a web browser. I tend to do my web surfing on a desktop machine. Those twin 22″ widescreen monitors on my desk have spoiled me.
Websites are being redesigned to display properly on smart phones. That was part of what prompted me to rebuild our website a few months back. While I may be viewing our website on a pair of big screens, the percentage of folks looking at the site on their phones is growing. I can foresee the day when “I found you on my phone” will eclipse “I found you in the yellow pages” as the number one way new customers find us.
One interesting side effect of the general availability of smart phones is the emergence of a new form of business card. The Savvy Card is a product of a Tampa Bay company. I first heard about it at this year’s Business Development Week and the NPI network marketing group I participate in has adopted Savvy Cards as an extremely easy way to swap member information and share that information for referral purposes.
The Savvy Cards are formatted to fit a smart phone screen and have all the contact information you are used to seeing on a business card, plus much much more.
Those of us who tend to use our phones just for phone calls are missing out. I was quite surprised a couple of years ago to discover than my little flip phone actually had a GPS receiver built in. The map is admittedly very small, but it lets me know right where I am. No more getting lost.
Are you using your phone for surfing the web? Would you use it more if you had an unlimited data plan? Let us know.