Today, in a blog post, CEO and Founder Joe Fernandez announced that they have acquired Blockboard.

To keep driving toward our mission of unlocking every user’s influence, we need to make Klout useful and accessible wherever they are – whether they’re at home or on the go. Blockboard has built an amazing local-mobile app that connects neighbors to build stronger communities through technology. This simple, well-designed tool gives people a way to communicate with their neighbors about everything from local news and tips to lost pets and broken streetlights.

With their experience, Blockboard brings an awareness of how social media can be meaningfully woven into the fabric of a local community, as well as a killer mobile app development team. Integrating the Blockboard team, technology and expertise is a significant investment into enriching the local and mobile experience for our passionate users, and will be an incredible boost for all of us.

For a bit more background on Blockboard check out the video from their demo at Crunch-Up

Congratulations on a great move Klout!

[video via TechCrunch]

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Google has unveiled it’s Google+ Developer page. As should be shock to anybody the page is hosted on Google+. This page will allow developers to keep up to date on all of the happenings with Google+. It is a good thing to see Google using its own products for promotion of said product.

The Google+ Development team states that they will be hosting regular hangouts on Google+ as well as letting developers know about conferences and hack-athons that are related to Google+.

Coincidentally, I tried to add the Google+ Developer page to my circles and I could not. I was already signed in, but the page displayed as though I was not logged in. Even after logging in a dozen times it was still not letting me add them.

The only way I was able to add the Google+ Developer page was to see it in somebody else’s post, and then click on ‘Add to Circles’. Then it worked without any issue. It just sound like a little development bug.

The biggest question that many users have is where is the API for Google+. Sure, we are all probably aware of the read API that is currently available, but there is no write API currently in place.

Maybe it’s just me, but as soon as the Google+ development team releases the write API, Google+ will just be littered with spam accounts. Granted, Google+ is chock full of spam account now, but those must be created manually. Once this comes to fruition, it’ll only be on a much larger scale.

You can follow all of the Google+ Developer happenings on their blog or their Google+ page or even their developer website. If you are at all interested in Google+ development, any of these pages are great resources to keep an eye on, it’s only a matter of time before the Google+ platform becomes much bigger.

Source: Google+ Developer Page

Wayne Dixon

I'm into anything technology related. I do some HTML/CSS/PHP development. I like to follow things that most people would find annoying or not worthwhile. I follow Apple, Microsoft, Google, The Cloud, cell phones and even programming. By Day I'm a Systems Administrator for a Library, which has it's own set of issues. Follow me on Twitter.

Website - More Posts

LinkedIn is a social network with over 53 million users that enables you to better use your professional network and help the people you trust in return. It is no secret that LinkedIn is a great place to network professionally, post and find jobs, post and answer questions and build your thought leadership among hundreds of thousands of members.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

It is probably the most obvious way to identify people you may already be connected with either directly or through your connections. From my direct use of LinkedIn, I find it to a great tool to leverage my existing contacts to connect with people and find potential customers online. The purpose for writing this post is to introduce you to some of LinkedIn’s basic elements and what it can do for you to help build your brand, promote your website, and how to use LinkedIn to generate leads for your business.

I bet many of you may already use LinkedIn but are not taking advantage of its full value? Some of you may have probably stuck your toes in the water to make LinkedIn a part of your integrated online marketing strategy but are not aware of how to network among the Groups and thousands of members so as to introduce them to your thought leadership? This post is meant to introduce you to LinkedIn’s key elements so let’s get started by taking a look at this primer for all of the above.

What Is LinkedIn?

* LinkedIn is a B2B networking platform with the highest concentration of educated professionals of any social network.

Image via Wikipedia

* It is a social medium that is not really very “social” at all but is 100% about connecting and interacting with other professionals.

* LinkedIn is a B2B search engine that helps professionals find other professionals and businesses.

Is LinkedIn Effective?

* 57% of companies surveyed said they’d acquired a customer through LinkedIn (HubSpot)

* 58% of small and medium-sized businesses are actively using LinkedIn to promote their business (Merchant Circle)

* LinkedIn, more than any other social media site, is driving referrals to B2B sites (Leadforce1).

Ultimately, that’s what we all want: more traffic directed to our site, which translates to more leads we convert to sales.

Here’s a brief overview of the basic elements you’ll use as you get started and familiar with LinkedIn:

1. Profile

• The first thing many people do after meeting someone is to check-out their LinkedIn profile.
• Setting up your profile is free and quick – think of it as your optimized online resume plus – which will become a powerful magnet to attract people to you.
• People searching for contacts will make a decision to connect or not connect based on the information you provide in your profile.
• Your profile should be 100% complete and accurately reflect all that you’ve done professionally, and the skills and experience you bring to the relationship.
• It is important to upload a photo because people are more likely to connect with you if they recognize your face and they feel they are connecting with a real person. Be sure to ask for recommendations from friends, current and former colleagues, partners and clients.
• Optimize your LinkedIn profile for SEO by optimizing keywords in your summary section, for example. This is a full text section, which is indexed by Google. Including your favorite keywords in your summary helps you rank higher in search engine results for these keyword searches.

2. Contacts

• Connect with people whom you have worked with or done business, or generally people with similar interests or have worked in your industry.
• Invite thought leaders in your industry to connect with you so that you establish a relationship with them and, eventually, gain access to their network.
• LinkedIn compiles a list of all your contacts, which is viewable only by your contacts. These contacts get updates on activities you share on LinkedIn; blog posts you promote and events at which you’ll be speaking, for instance.
• Start asking and answering questions on LinkedIn Answers that will enable you to interact and connect with other thought leaders, as well as establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Update your content often for your status to be current.
• How many contacts should you have? There are some people on LinkedIn with 500+, but you can feel pretty confident if you have ~ 200 with the idea of increasing the number with quality contacts.

3. Company Page

• A LinkedIn company page is just like your personal page, but showcases your company as a whole.
• It’s a good place to highlight capabilities, services, and competitive advantages. (Learn how to get more traffic to your company page by reading white papers and viewing webinars, and other compelling content offered by HubSpot, the premier inbound marketing company.
  

  Image via CrunchBase

4. Groups

• LinkedIn Groups give you a great opportunity to reach out to and engage prospective customers online.
• The Groups function is where LinkedIn becomes a powerful networking tool. You can create a group for your industry or participate in as many as 50 groups that LinkedIn allows you to join.
• You can join groups of peers or groups populated with potential clients. If you create a group, promote it on your website, blog, email newsletter and social media networks.
• To get started, search for Groups with the greatest number of members and those that are similar to the Groups that match your ideal corporate profile for lead generation. You find these Groups by doing an Advanced Group search without entering any keywords in the search field. Click on the search icon and LinkedIn will list in descending order the Groups with the greatest number of members.
• You can join as many as 50 groups. When in the group, you can do a search for the decision-makers title. The result will be a list of group members who match your search for CEO or CIO or CTO, for example.
• LinkedIn enables you to send banner ad invitations to the groups you have joined. You can also send uploaded videos and presentations, which you will be able to track by users who open the content you provided. The goal is to establish your expertise among group members who request you to contact them that you will convert to leads.

5. Answers                                        

Image via Wikipedia

• LinkedIn also acts like a forum where you can ask a question or respond to relevant questions posted by others (a great way to demonstrate your expertise).
• Make certain you do not sell your services, no spamming please, but, above all, feel free to drive people to relevant and valuable and compelling content on your LinkedIn profile, website or blog.

6. Search

• Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search for fine-tuning your way of searching for decision-makers by title and function in specific industries that are located in cities you have selected anywhere in the world to do business.
• Refer to search methods (above) in Groups, which will help you identify the groups you should join that fit your company profile for lead generation and how you can upload content, which can be inmailed to group members. Here is a way to create a list of prospects who you can contact, qualify, and convert from lead status to a new customer.
• The goal for all of this is simple: to engage an audience with compelling content, which will establish you as a thought leader as you build a network and a list of leads.

What Can LinkedIn Do For You?

1. Build Your Brand

• It is impossible to attend every networking event out there. With LinkedIn, you will be able to get in front of everyone you want to – and they can find you too.
• By being visible and a genius resource on the #1 professional networking platform, you will build your brand, if you do it right and do it consistently. Find a time each day to interact with your network.

2. Promote Your Website and Its Content

• If you want people to find you when they’re looking for your niche like a law firm or a dentist or a contractor or whatever it is you can do for them, you need to draw them in like a magnet into your site by offering the audience valuable content in the form of: articles, demonstration videos, surveys, blogs – any compelling content that helps educate your prospect, and solves problems for customers so they buy what you offer to them.
• LinkedIn is a great community to promote your site and your expertise to a targeted audience.
• By sharing what you know with the prospect will lead to forming a trusted relationship, and will see how you can help solve their immediate challenges on the way to building your credibility for the long-term.

3. Using LinkedIn Applications

• LinkedIn offers valuable applications that will help you to promote your content and your brand.
• Connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile to continually share your content with your network. The Blog Link will automatically pull in the latest blog posts from around your network.
• Share and collaborate on files with others in your LinkedIn network by using Box.net file.
• Promote your content by sharing slides from current and past webinars or presentations when you use SlideShare.net.

4. Generate Leads

• LinkedIn can be used to generate new leads for your business by engaging an audience and building a network. You do this by demonstrating your expertise and thought leadership. Refer (above) to Search and Groups.
• Don’t sell your services but drive people to relevant and compelling content on your website and blog. You will learn to distribute content from RSS feeds via LinkedIn ads, newsletters and articles.
• If you do all of the above – create compelling content, promote it on your website, blog, and social media sites, interact and engage with your audience, and showcase your expertise and thought leadership – you will generate leads.
• You can also use LinkedIn’s DirectAds to push relevant ads to LinkedIn subscribers targeted by profile demographic information. This is very similar to ad targeting on Facebook and Google AdWords.
• Make the best use of marketing tools like a landing page where you direct prospects to a compelling offer that will differentiate your product or service and result in the prospect identifying themselves as a lead when they enter their name and email address for you to contact.
• As cited above, use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search to identify and join the largest membership Groups and those that are similar to the ones which match the ideal criteria for the companies where you will generate leads.
• When you are a group member, you will be able to send uploaded ppt. presentations and videos, create RSS Feeds, send banner ad invitations to Group members, and follow User Engagement analytics with a list of leads who have opted-in.

Enjoy the experience as you become familiar with LinkedIn’s capabilities for lead generation. Happy hunting!

Related articles

• Help Your B2B Company in 10 Minutes a Day Using LinkedIn (gcsagents.com)
• LinkedIn groups: Have you joined the conversation? (marketing.yell.com)

Dan

Dan has 25 years of experience in information technology (IT) services sales, marketing, and enterprise account management. He holds a degree in business administration from Miami University, a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and Masters Certificate in Internet Marketing from the University of San Francisco. Dan is also a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach. Dan's passion is for cloud computing, Internet marketing, social media marketing, and mobile marketing.

Are you planning to pick up a few hundred or so shares? My pockets aren’t that deep just yet, but if you’re in – good luck !

I’ll let this infographic do all the talking about what’s about to go down.

Created By: MBA Online

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

In this role I’ve been approached by tons of startups and organizations looking to make managing social/new media profiles easier and more thorough (with analytics and true understanding of KPIs – key performance indicators).

As far as social media dashboards go I tend to bounce back and forth between the default Twitter app, which is now actually TweetDeck, Seesmic and HootSuite. Yes I know there are other tools but the Radian 6, CoTweet and other big money platforms are outside of the scope of my stealth startup’s budget!!

Ever since TweetDeck got fully taken over by Twitter that dashboard has gone downhill in terms of usability and  is more frustrating than anything at this point. I’ll expand on that in a future post.

As far as Seesmic goes; I love everything the company is doing; the LeWeb Conference and all the other aspects that Loic Le Meur is pursuing for his company. The challenge with Seesmic, for me, and a lot of other users is that Seesmic Desktop doesn’t work with OSX Lion due to a crazy Microsoft Silverlight compatibility issue. Man I hope they get that all sorted out sooner than later.

That leads me to HootSuite. Great tool. Great management team. Great energy. I tend to bounce back and forth between having a paid subscription to HootSuite and just using the free version. I’m always looking for and seeing other 3rd party tools that’ll pull in the various analytics and Facebook Insights that HootSuite offers with their Pro membership.

But, at the end of the day, it just makes sound business sense to spend the $6 per month and have all of that analytical aggregation integrated within one tool.

Not too long ago HootSuite announced their App Directory, which I truly believe is in direct response to the great app marketplace that has been part of Seesmic Desktop since day 1.

HootSuite’s App Directory makes the $6 worth the expense. Flickr, Tumblr, and Summify were the first apps that I installed when they rolled out, but now I see that the offering has been extended to include some absolute musts for those utilizing social media, especially Twitter, to make a living.

Constant Contact, Digg, Get Satisfaction, and one of my absolute favorite tools online InboxQ have now been added to HootSuite.

InboxQ is the Quora of Twitter. InboxQ allows you to search and filter through tweets from everyone, based on whatever category or topic you choose. Then you can utilize those filters to respond and answer questions that are asked. Helps you gain followers, credibility and a broader reach since you are seen as a subject matter expert to people you probably wouldn’t have had any previous interaction with.

So I’m back on HootSuite. Still spending my $6 per month. I’m loving the App Directory. Now, my only gripe – I really don’t like how HootSuite goes to sleep after some thirty minutes or so of “inactivity”. I’d be willing to pay $10 per month to kill that feature.

What are your thoughts? Do you use any of these tools? Do you have any other recommendations? One other dashboard that I am evaluating and am participating in a beta for is MarketMeSuite which is a UK-based company getting positioned to take over the social media dashboard world!! I HIGHLY suggest you check their product out as well before finalizing on a tool of choice.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Users save and share things that they love on the internet and according to Shareaholic study, Pinterest drives more and more traffic to websites.

Basically, the premise of the service is for members to create “pinboards” (online bulletin boards) and arrange them in categories like wedding, fashion, food, etc. Users can utilize the “Pin It” bookmarklet tool (which I tried in my Google Chrome browser and works perfectly) to save stuff they like online. Also, there’s an iPhone app available for download which lets you browse pins, repin, like and comment on other’s pins and you can also pin with your camera.

The site is more popular among women as they account for more than half of the traffic which says something about women and visual spur. Last December, Pinterest’s traffic brought in 7.5 million unique visitors based on data.

The traffic stats prove that Pinterest is gaining ground in referral traffic as it brings more traffic than YouTube, Google+, Reddit, MySpace and LinkedIn last month. Facebook still referred the most followed by Twitter.

Personally, I just requested a stranger for an invite on Twitter and luckily she gave one without hesitation. Today, I was just starting to manage my boards from Quotes I Love to Music I Love and I just set up my profile. You can follow me on Pinterest or if you want an invite, just let me know.

Anyway, I happen to browse by Pinterest a couple months back when I was searching for quotes. Didn’t know much about it until now when everybody is starting to talk about it.

The site design is very minimalist and it emphasizes the photos more than the comments and/or captions which is a plus for me. The images I’ve pinned can be easily arranged into categories. This is actually more popular for wedding, recipes or craft related boards but I’m still trying to learn more about the site and it features from now on.

Pinterest was built by a small team in Palo Alto and is well-funded by successful entrepreneurs and investors.

Pat Garde

Patrick is the co-founder of GeekyGuide.com which writes about geek stuff and focuses on geek shirts and consumer electronics. Follow Pat on LinkedIn.

Website - More Posts

As you all may know, Facebook has released the Timeline and making it part of everyone’s view.

I’ve been running the Timeline, like a number of other early adopters, for a few months now and really think that it is a great culmination and view of what your shared, digital life looks like. We can talk privacy and opt-in and opt-out concerns later – for now lets just talk about the cool photos and videos we’re all sharing on Facebook.

Well, to make those photos and videos standout even more, and connect with your viewers Facebook has worked collaboratively with Definition 6 to create the Timeline Movie Maker.

After opting in (see told you the privacy conversation would come up…), the app generates a movie based on your greatest hits, attempting to capture the highlights of your Facebook experience through the years by surfacing pieces of content with high levels of engagement.

It’s similar in format to the video Facebook made to introduce Timeline at the F8 conference in September featuring Andy Sparks.

It’s also reminds me alot of the Intel Museum of Me app that was introduced about a year ago.

Timeline Movie Maker will initially be available in English, French, Spanish and German, and will have five music soundtracks from which people can choose to create their minimovie. People can also customize their music selection, images, videos or check-ins at the end of the first automated video view.

“Timeline is about sharing the key moments of your life with your friends and family,” said Paul Hernacki, chief technology officer at Definition 6. “Timeline Movie Maker is evaluating highly engaged content in a chronological fashion, choreographing a user’s personal journey on Facebook, with content that has the most engagement and uses comment analysis to identify key life moments and where the user is tagged.”

Go here to create your own Timeline Movie. Click here to go check out mine.

[source AdAge]

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

What is Pinterest? It’s a social network like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus but it’s based on sharing (or pinning) cool, fun or interesting images. The interface is simple, intuitive and generally speaking, it’s a fun site to be on and look at. Everything from luscious food to home design and eco tech to cool fashion is highlighted on the site by members. If you recently signed up for Pinterest, below we share three tips for new users.

1. Fill Out Your Profile

When you first sign up, take a moment to fill out your profile page. This includes the usual such as your name and email plus an About section with a picture, your location, a website if you have one and whether you want to have your Facebook and Twitter accounts cross-linked. This is essential for when others want to follow you and or get to know you better. But I would say at the very least add a picture to your profile as this shows up throughout the site.

2. Follow Others -

Like many social networks you’ll have way more fun when you follow others. You can add followers in a few ways. One is via the Invite feature directly on the site, or via the Facebook connect feature Pinterest has under your profile page. As you become more familiar with the site and find cool new Pins, you can also follow other members you like on the site. The more members you follow the more fun you will have and the more items you will come across.

3. Use The Pin Browser Button -

A fast and easy way to Pin items is to install the browser based Pin It button. This way when you come across something cool on the web you wish to share on Pinterest, you won’t have to leave the page, simply press the Pin It button on your browser. It’s free, simple to use and a great way to share freely from wherever you happen to be on the web.

Pinterest is a fun and active social network perfect for those who are visually based. Try our three tips above and make the most of this extremely popular new media darling.

Guest post contributed by Missy who runs a fuel card comparison site and loves to write about cool new social networks like Pinterest.

Missy

Image via CrunchBase

We’ve prepared these “Cheat Sheets” to help you understand it is no secret in our society, mobile devices are more pervasive than computers and it is time for you to develop a mobile marketing strategy for your business. To help you make the leap to considering and implementing a mobile-friendly website for your business, we have prepared mobile device usage facts, mobile website facts and benefits and a mobile website “Getting Started” checklist.

Consumer Mobile Device Usage FACTS

• Consumers are using their mobile devices to access the Internet more than ever before – and it’s expected to grow at astonishing rates over the next 12 months and beyond.

• There are approximately 4 BILLION mobile subscribers across the world.

• Most mobile device users keep their phones within arm’s reach over 90 percent of waking hours.

• Nielsen predicts that smart phones will account for nearly half of worldwide mobile sales by 2013. This is a clear indication of how much more the Internet will be accessed via mobile devices.

• Americans today are spending an average of three hours per day on the Internet from their mobile devices.

• Over the past few years, the shipment of mobile handsets has grown 16% annually – reaching 400 million sold in the last quarter of 2010. Mobile device companies sold a total of 1.39 billion units in 2010.
  

  Image via Wikipedia

• Approximately 30% of U.S. mobile phone users have a smartphone according to Nielson. This number is expected to grow to approximately 43% by 2015 according to eMarketer.

• In 2009, approximately half a BILLION people went online using their mobile device. This number is expected to double within the next 5 years.

• By 2014, mobile Internet usage is expected to exceed desktop Internet usage.

• According to Nielson, 70% of mobile users plan to upgrade to 4G service within the next year so they can have faster Internet speed while using their mobile devices.

• According to founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, customers around the world have ordered more than $1 BILLION U.S. dollars from Amazon.com using a mobile device.

• Gartner also predicts that by 2014, more people will access the internet from their mobile devices than from their PC desktops.

• According to Facebook official statistics from January 2011, more than 200 million users (out of over 600 million Facebook users) access Facebook using their mobile devices; also, mobile Facebook users are twice as active as non-mobile users.

• More than 200 million YouTube views occur on mobile devices every day.

• 86% of mobile Internet usage happens while the users are watching TV.

• Mobile marketing methods have proven to be effective in acquiring new customers, providing service to existing customers, and driving repeat business through relationship-building.

• When combined with other marketing methods, mobile marketing has proven to increase conversion rates.

• Studies show that as time goes on, people will prefer to deal with technology over human interaction.

Mobile Website FACTS & BENEFITS

• Studies show that current mobile web-user experiences are dissatisfied when it comes to viewing and navigating websites. Websites that have not been optimized for mobile viewing are too cluttered and negatively impact the visitor’s ability to locate information.

• Traditional websites are designed to be viewed on a computer screen instead of a mobile device. This means that most regular websites are not compatible with mobile devices.

• More and more people are using their mobile devices to access the Internet while on the go. In fact, one-third of the world’s population use their mobile devices to perform Internet searches.

• One-half of all Internet searches for LOCAL products and services are performed from mobile devices.

• Gartner reports that approximately 96 million mobile searches performed in 2009 were by those looking for a “location –based” (LOCAL) service. This number is expected to grow to more than 526 million searches by 2012.

• Mobile-friendly websites receive higher mobile search engine rankings.

• Mobile-friendly websites have higher speed, making the visitor experience more pleasurable.

• Mobile-friendly websites attract both “new” and “repeat” customers by giving your business “instant mobile marketability” when your visitors land on your mobile site with all of the important business information clearly and easily accessible.

• Can be viewed anytime and anywhere mobile cell phone coverage is available.  Due to the massive amount of Internet-enabled mobile devices across the world, this means your website can easily be exposed to many millions of people.

• Makes it easier for “On-the-go” visitors to easily find your business and contact you with one-click calling, one-click email, and instant directions. This eliminates the need for your customers to take “extra steps” in order to contact or visit your business.

• When users are successful in finding what they need while visiting a mobile website, they’re more likely to come back.   When mobile users land on a website that is all distorted, they quickly exit and make a mental note never to return.

• Have the advantage of coming up higher in search engine results for local searches performed on mobile devices. This means that when people search for your type of product or service using their mobile device, you can show up higher in the results just because you have a mobile website.

• Gives you the advantage over your competitors; most of which are not even leveraging the powerful benefits of mobile marketing.

• It is easy to track your mobile success with free reporting and analytic tools available with most mobile platforms. Simply track your visitors and make improvements where necessary.

• Integrating social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube with your mobile website is simple and will help boost your profits even more.

                       Mobile Website “Getting Started” Checklist

                       Ready to get your own mobile-friendly website?

1. Decide what enhancements you want to provide with your mobile website.

• Easy access to your phone number and one-click calling.
• Easy access to your email address and one-click emailing.
• Easy access to your product information.
• Easy access to directions and a map to your establishment.
• Easily accessible through higher search engine rankings

• Retrieve Information Only
• Make Purchases
• Redeem Coupons
• Opt-in to Your List

3. Decide on the content for your mobile site. Keep the amount of graphics and content to a minimum as mobile devices navigate well the less content there is.

4. Decide on a mobile platform or method to create a mobile-friendly website for your business.

• You could purchase programs to help you create your own mobile website or you could hire a professional to do it for you.
• Design your mobile site to be very clean and simple. Only provide relevant content and information that is easy to access.
• Keep it simple – your visitors will appreciate it! Mobile users don’t care about the look and style of your website.
• Create a mobile site that enhances your visitors’ experience instead of distracting them.
• People who access websites from their mobile devices are usually looking for one specific piece of information and then leave.
• Make sure that all of your pertinent information is easily visible on your mobile website. This includes your phone number, address, directions, map, menu, contact capture forms, etc.

5. Track and measure your progress. Test various types of campaigns to drive traffic to your website. Use SMS/Text messaging and QR codes. Be sure to view the analytics of your mobile website to see how many views and conversions you are getting. No matter how many visitors you’re getting, at least you’ll know that they are finding what they need now that you have a mobile website.

If you would like more information about creating a mobile-friendly website for your business, give me a call at (925) 309-4888.

Related articles

• 7 Reasons why your Auto Dealership needs a mobile website in 2012 (slideshare.net)
• Mobile Ready Websites (centexmobilemarketing.com)

Dan

Dan has 25 years of experience in information technology (IT) services sales, marketing, and enterprise account management. He holds a degree in business administration from Miami University, a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and Masters Certificate in Internet Marketing from the University of San Francisco. Dan is also a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach. Dan's passion is for cloud computing, Internet marketing, social media marketing, and mobile marketing.

As part of a recent #hackweek project participants were asked to make the best/worst recruiting video of all time. I thinking this one tops the list.

With mayhem like this happening on a daily basis who wouldn’t want to work at Twitter?!

Related articles

• Hack Week @ Twitter (twitter.com)
• Who’s the one person you’ve never thought to hire, but could change your business when you do? (marketing.yell.com)

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts