bluetrain_Mobile Marketing Guide

5 things to consider
before building your
mobile website
Mobile Marketing Guide
If you’re a professional marketer or web designer looking to build
a truly optimized mobile website or simply improve the site you
already have, this best-practices guide is for you! Building a
mobile site isn’t always as simple as taking your desktop website
and shrinking it down to fit in a smartphone screen. Before diving
in, there are 5 things you should consider that will help you
develop and refine your mobile strategy. Read on to learn more.

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5 Things to Consider Before Building Your Mobile Website Page 2
Your first consideration should be your target audience and what they need from a mobile experi-
ence. Are they visiting your mobile site because they’re on the go and planning a visit to your location?
Are you expecting your visitors to be accessing your site as part of a paid search or email campaign?
Perhaps you don’t have enough
information on your mobile audi-
ence and the full potential they
may offer your business, but you
know that mobile is becoming
increasingly important to your
customers and prospects, and you
recognize that your mobile web
experience is falling short.
If you’re ready to think about
how you can create a mobile site
that engages your prospects and
customers, creates new business,
and communicates your unique
brand and value proposition,
but you want to be sure you are
thinking about your mobile web
strategy correctly, you’re in the
right place. We think these five
considerations will help you
grow your mobile business re-
sults and delight your customers
with superior mobile experiences.
Whether you’re looking to improve your existing mobile website or
you’re starting from scratch,it’s important to consider several things
before getting started.
Introduction

Page 35 Things to Consider Before Building Your Mobile Website
This is cardinal rule #1. Mobile
visitors should see the essence
of your messaging and your most
important calls-to-action as
soon as they land on the page.
It’s harder to be concise, but be-
ing disciplined and prioritizing
what you really want to say to
your mobile audience will help
you improve the effectiveness of
your messaging and marketing
initiatives, including your desktop
site. Transcoded and responsive
solutions to mobile site design
often fall short in this area, be-
cause they simply pull 100% of
1. Think “Mobile
First” and Don’t Just
Copy/Paste
the desktop content to use on the
mobile site–word for word, image
for image, screen-for-screen–
without regard to the unique
needs of the mobile audience.
Mobile First
An alternative approach is to
think about your web content
from a “mobile-first” point of view.
This is called “Mobile-First Web
Design,” and we’re all for it. In
this approach you start with the
mobile audience and determine
the content, functionality, and
calls-to-action that are necessary
and motivating for your mobile
visitors. You then expand and
build out your mini-tablet, tablet,
and desktop experiences with
increasingly rich and relevant
content that complements the
browsing styles unique to these
platforms as well as the informa-
tion needs and use cases associ-
ated with visitors to the desktop
site. Of course, many marketers
have a legacy desktop site they
are not ready to redesign, but
this does not mean you can’t
think about your mobile site as
the core of your messaging. We
believe that the most successful
marketers will be those who are
adept at targeting and engaging
audiences on all the devices that
are in use today. In the post-PC
world, the web is no longer “one
size fits all.”

We recommend trimming content
down to 75-110 words per page.
And really, it’s not that difficult.
Look at the first paragraph on
any given page – does it contain
introductory language? If so,
eliminate it. Mobile means get-
ting to the point and top-loading
your content. Think of it as writ-
ing a news story or press release;
put the important information
at the top of the page, and if the
Content
You almost never want to take
all the content from your desktop
site to mobile. What’s wrong with
this method? Well, oftentimes,
you’re transferring four or five
paragraphs with anywhere from
250-450 words per page to a
screen that typically displays 90-
100 words per page. If you simply
duplicate your desktop pages,
think of all the scrolling it will
mean for your mobile readers.
“I have only made this letter longer because I
have not found the time to make it shorter.”
Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662),
Lettres Provinciales
It’s no surprise that viewing a
picture on desktop is quite differ-
ent than viewing the same image
on mobile. And no matter how
appealing that group shot of your
team looks on the desktop web-
2. A Picture is Worth a
Thousand Words –
Unless You Can’t See It
site’s “About Us” page, you will all
be roughly the size of ants when
you try to fit that same image on
a smartphone screen.
You may also want to swap
out your homepage’s background
image or resize some of your
location or product shots. Be
sure to consider the 90˚ rotation
in aspect ratio between a 4:3
desktop monitor or laptop screen
to the ~5” vertical screen of the
reader wants to learn more, or
has time to keep reading, put
the nice-to-know content at the
bottom. Finally, don’t say in three
sentences what you could easily
convey in one. It might take a red
pen and some creative editing,
but ultimately your mobile visitor
will be the one who thanks you
by following through on a call-
to-action.

average smartphone. Yes, smart-
phone users will occasionally flip
their phone into landscape mode
to watch a YouTube video or play
a game, but more often than not,
smartphones are upright for web
browsing. Keep this in mind when
choosing focus images, or else
you’ll be doing a lot of cropping.
A more advanced way to en-
sure your images look great on
any device is to use techniques
such Responsive with Server Side
Components, which uses device
detection to determine what size
image to deliver on a webpage.
If your mobile website platform
offers this functionality, you’ll be
You want to rethink your
navigation as carefully as you
rethink your content. Many people
just use the full sitemap from
their desktop website for their
mobile site in order to ensure
that everything gets included.
However, you need to remember
your mobile user has different
needs from your desktop user, and
therefore, should have a navi-
gation system tailored to their
needs and behaviors. People who
are on their smartphones need to
quickly reference information, and
your navigation structure should
give them the ability to do just
that. Usability studies offer basic
guidelines on how to optimize
mobile website navigation, such
as menu buttons with nested
navigation.
When you’re determining what
pages to include on your mobile
site, ask yourself,“How often will
a mobile user need to access this
content and why do they need
it?” For instance, here at Bluetrain
Mobile we chose not to include
our Press Kit on our mobile site,
because we assume press and
media audiences typically file
their stories on a desktop
computer. Don’t be afraid to make
these kinds of decisions—
ultimately they will lead to an
3. Navigation: Not All
Desktop Pages Merit
Mobile Versions
easier navigation experience for
your mobile users.
In addition to eliminating
pages, you’ll notice that multiple
pages on your desktop website
could be combined into one
mobile page. Do your “About Us”
and “Brand Story” pages share
similar information? If so, we
recommend consolidating them.
While streamlining your website
for mobile, you may even realize
that certain desktop pages are
superfluous.
able to add one high-res image
to a page and it will automati-
cally resize based on the screen
size of the device accessing the
page, be it smartphone, tablet, or
desktop. This helps optimize load
time and performance across
all devices.

Creating and rethinking your
calls-to-action for the mobile
user is one of the most important
steps to delivering a truly opti-
mized experience. Your mobile
website should be a finely-tuned
lead generation tool.
For example, if downloading a
brochure or company overview is
the main call-to-action (or CTA)
on your desktop site, chances are
a smartphone user accessing the
homepage of your mobile site
will be less interested in read-
ing a longer document, even with
the option of having it emailed.
Perhaps more action-oriented
options such as “Sign up for Our
Newsletter” or “Like Us on Face-
book” are better lead generating
offers for someone who’s
on-the-go.
You also want to think about
your overall lead generation
flow or funnel. Let’s say you’re
a university or local community
college, and your “Admissions”
page on your desktop site has a
CTA button that launches visitors
directly into a form where the
prospective student can request
more information and also share
valuable targeting information
for the admissions team, their
background and fields of interest.
That may be an easy and friction-
less process for desktop users, but
unless your form was designed to
work on a smartphone, you may
be dropping mobile visitors into a
frustrating user experience.
Instead, what if your mobile
site offered a shorter form that
allows the visitor to provide
their name, email address, and a
simple checkbox selection from
a list of intended majors? You
could then send your prospect an
email with detailed information
on their intended programs of
study that they could open later,
perhaps when they are working
on a desktop PC. Always keep the
engagement model or user flow
across device platforms in mind,
and decide how it might look on
different screens, such as smart-
phone, tablet, or PC.
4. All Calls-To-Action Are
Not Created Equal
Finally, don’t forget to take
advantage of mobile-specific
CTAs. Utilize click-to-call buttons
or map links to provide users
with turn-by-turn directions to
your location. If you’re a local
business, these types of CTAs
often belong right on the mobile
homepage.

Mobile is offering entirely new
ways to engage website visi-
tors, showcase your brand, and
market to potential and existing
customers. More than anything,
now is the time to think about all
the things you can do on mobile
that you can’t do (or you can’t
offer as easily) on desktop – and
that means thinking outside the
monitor-shaped box.
For example, do you have ex-
cellent user-generated videos you
want prospects to see? Consider
adding a video gallery, but be
sure you offer this on a high per-
formance platform so the experi-
ence is optimized. Do you want
to increase the number of people
who attend specific events? Put a
prominent mobile homepage link
to your event page and automati-
cally update the event content via
your backend systems. Do you
want to share special informa-
tion to event attendees who will
undoubtedly have their mobile
phone with them? Post a QR
code on signage at the event or a
unique URL on your event bro-
chure and provide your attendees
a special offer, a donation page,
or perhaps an event survey. They
will be converting before they
even leave your event!
Don’t let the blank page or the
newness of mobile intimidate
you. As more and more people
begin accessing your website via
mobile devices in the months and
years to come, your mobile site
will soon be your first interaction
with customers. So start thinking
about mobile strategically, and
you may very well find yourself
ahead of the game.
In Conclusion
Before you get started on all this
good advice, we need to share
a sixth best practice, which is a
fundamental consideration. At
the outset of this Guide we said
that paramount to your mobile
success is knowing your target
audience and the context for their
mobile experience.
To gain insight on current user
experiences on your mobile site,
you need to determine what
pages on your website are most
viewed by your mobile visitors.
Not only will this help you pri-
oritize content on your mobile
website, it will also help you
observe trends and ultimately
measure changes and visitor traf-
fic. Google Analytics is the most
popular analytics tool on the
market, and it enables you to drill
down to discover your mobile
traffic fairly easily. Mobile is now
included in their standard report-
ing, however we encourage you
to set up a custom report to see
top website pages viewed on mo-
bile devices (not included in their
standard report).
Alternatively, if you’re look-
ing for a quick and easy way to
monitor your mobile traffic, track
your top desktop pages viewed
on mobile devices, and see the
most popular device types arriv-
ing on your website, check out
Bluetrain’s Mobile Dashboard, our
free mobile analytics tool. This
is a great place to start before
planning your mobile website!
5. Be Innovative

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