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Loading ...The internet has been abuzz about website optimisation for mobile phones for the past few years. Of course everyone declares him or herself an expert and so the myths and misinformation is born. It has got to the stage where people speak of ‘mobile SEO’ and the need to have a ‘mobile website’ and everybody gets themselves into a tizzy.
As human nature is, everyone climbs on the bandwagon. “Experts” are offering mobile optimisation services left, right and centre. So it is time to set a few facts straight and choke some of the myths so that everyone can take a deep breath and go on running their online businesses.
Kicking myths out the door
The most asked question is whether having a .mobi domain is essential? The answer is definitely no. A .mobi domain is not an essential purchase to qualify your website to operate on mobile platforms. The usual .com and .co.uk etc will work just as well. It must be said that it is in no way wrong to create a mobile website; but it is not essential. What you must do though, is to make your website more mobile friendly. Here again myths have sprung up about the need to eliminate or greatly reduce images for mobile users.
The iPhone and Blackberry Storm already loads images exactly as any computer does. Other smart phones are starting to follow suit. Another myth is that you must have two separate URLs; one for traditional access and one for mobile phones. You can damage your marketing campaign greatly with two URLs and your visitors will have to remember two instead of one URL. With two different URLs you also run the risk of creating duplicate content. That leads to a heap of other problems.
Best practices is valid
Doing traditional SEO according to best practices works just as well for mobile phone optimisation. The difference is that there are a few extras that must be done to get your website ready for mobiles. It is not a must, but it is advisable XHTML code that is W3C compliant and meets accessibility standards. Your website should be submitted to mobile search engines. The creation of dynamic mobile pages can be done by combining your content database with UAD [user agent detection]. Transcoding pages are complex and should be done by a programmer. However, smart phones are evolving fast and won’t need this in the near future.
Conclusion
Mobile phones have grown much smarter in the pat 4 years so if you have not yet created a mobile version of your website, do not take on that extra effort and money to be spent. Instead concentrate on the basics of best practices search engine optimisation and the principles of user friendly web design.
Make sure that your website is compatible with all web browsers and that your website is readable in all the different screen resolutions. It is important that you sure that your web pages load fast as this makes it accessible to everyone. Lastly, keep up your optimisation efforts as you have been and you are set to go.
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