Posted by James Crook on July 15, 2011 in Design, First Principles, SEO and Internet Marketing

New 'smartphone' sales have overtaken desktop PCs this year, meaning millions more people can now view the web on their mobile phone.

Is your website ready?

It's not hard to make your website look and work the same on a mobile device as it does on a desktop PC. Most modern websites can achieve that.

But it makes more sense to offer a different experience to mobile viewers in many cases.

Why? It's not just the screen size that is a factor. Mobile users often have different motivations and are in a different environment.

A person using a smart phone or tablet computer could be on a train, on their sofa, at a party or waiting in line at the supermarket. Their situation and attitude mean they behave differently online to their desktop-using counterparts.

So check if your website works on a smart phone. And then check if a mobile person would want to use it at all.

You may need to offer something different to mobile users. Now that's smart.