Email is Taking Over Mobile Web: What are You Doing About It?

by Shannon Suetos 

E-mail marketing isn’t anything new. Since the 90’s e-mail has evolved into our daily lives. There are RSS feeds we set up, and coupons from our favorite store and everything in between. With that said, a new study has shown that on average, more people are using their phones to check e-mail.

Nielsen is reporting that, “if all time spent on the mobile web was condensed into a single hour, US internet users would have spent 25 minutes in June checking email.” For online marketers that is hard to ignore. So what can you do to make sure your e-mail blasts are user friendly?

Smaller Screen Size

The space available on a computer versus a mobile phone is obviously much different. Mobile phones are smaller and that needs to be taken into consideration when sending out e-mail blasts. Large images and lots of text are not as user friendly when being viewed from a mobile phone. Instead of filling your e-mail blast with a bunch of fluff, make sure you are giving the facts you need only.

Constant Contact suggests, “include short blurbs, and link back to your website. That said, don’t substitute photos for text. If your readers have images turned off, you still want them to know what’s in your email. Be sure to include clear text descriptions for your photos.”

Test Different Platforms

View your analytics and see what devices your clients are opening their emails with. BlackBerry? iPhone? Android based? Knowing what the majority of your customers are using can again help you with formatting the perfect e-mail. Not everyone has a smartphone, so you also need to take that into consideration. Test your emails on different phones.

Call to Action

In most e-mail blasts there is a call to action for the reader. This could be going to a specific landing page on your site for a promotion, or a new blog post. Mobile should also have call to actions such as click to call and a mobile friendly website if a desired landing page is necessary. There is nothing worse than having your customer do the call to action and then getting frustrated because your website is taking too long to load.

Mobile is becoming more and more predominate for web browsing. Online marketing tactics are going to shift towards mobile friendly websites and e-mail blasts. If you haven’t thought about mobile, it may be time to start reading up on some useful tactics to help you get the exposure you need and rightfully deserve.

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer on payroll services based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as small business payroll services at Resource Nation.

CSS3: Too Early or Just In Time?

by Shanon Suetos

When it comes to web development, upgrades in code don’t come around often. It has been nearly 10 years since HTML got a revamp, and now HTML5 is finally making headway. With HTML comes style sheets, and now CSS3 is getting as much hype as HTML5 itself. But don’t be fooled, CSS3 is not HTML5.

A quick history in CSS will tell you that CSS compliments what HTML already does—and with two new upgrades it keeps getting better and better. Like with most industries, the web design community is always trying to streamline processes along with making things a step ahead of the rest. CSS3 seems to do this, and can actually cut out a lot of if not all Flash—which can be time consuming to build.

Browser Compatibility

CSS3 is a double edge sword at the moment. It offers new and exciting features, but it also isn’t compatible on all browsers. Because it is in a “last call” phase, not all browsers are compatible. For now only webkit browsers (Safari and Chrome) along with FireFox and Opera are compatible.

Photo Galleries

Transitions are getting upgrades with CSS3 and there are numerous ways to make your photo galleries stand out. One popular way is to turn your photos into Polaroids. If you click here, you will see a great example, and also get a tutorial on how to implement this into your website.

If Polaroid images aren’t your style, you can create a pop up effect for your images using HTML5 and CSS3—eliminating both javascript and Flash. A demo of how this works is located here, although again it works best in Chrome and Safari.

Buttons

Web designers are going to be grateful for the ease of making buttons with CSS3. Before, if you wanted to have your buttons to have rounded corners for instance, you would have to create the image or use javascript. Instead, CSS3 allows you to create nice looking buttons with just two more lines of code in the style sheets.

If you aren’t an expert on CSS there are many generators out there to help you—even with CSS3. “This Button Maker shows you a live working version of the button you create, complete with :hover and :active states. It is done without attaching any JavaScript events to the button itself. So how is it done? I did it with a technique I ripped off from Doug Neiner who presented it (as small part of a totally different application) at jQConf.”

Animation

You can now use CSS3 to animate—again without using flash. One popular demo of this is located here, and if you are in a webkit browser you will see the demo best. Flash isn’t going anywhere for now, but it is nice to know web designers will be able to animate and do other great effects using another medium.

These are just a few of the MANY things CSS3 is capable of. It may be a bit too soon to start implementing them in your website with the limited browser coverage, but practice makes perfect. It is never too soon to at least getting familiar with the code.

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer time clock software on based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as time card software at Resource Nation.

SMS campaigns: Are they a Match For Your Company?

by Shannon Suetos

Seventy-two percent of all cell phone users send or receive text messages according to a study done by PewInternet. As a result more companies are using this medium to send their customers messages. One of the latest corporations to do so is the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino.

In their SMS campaign, they ask consumers to text a keyword to during the promotion and the hotel will then send a message to the consumer stating, "bring this message to the Believe box office at Luxor to claim your prize." The Luxor isn't the only company taking advantage of SMS.

Take Action Immediately
One of the reasons SMS campaigns are becoming so effective is the immediacy it brings for your customers. Getting them to act immediately to something can excite them and make them feel special. SCA Promotions (a promotional solutions and incentives that connect with consumers, without risk to the sponsor) Director Tony Ebert says, "utilizing text messaging for promotions is a natural. Promotions are designed to incentivize people to take action. With text messaging they can take action immediately."

Reach
Not only does most American's have cell phones, most don't leave home without it. Implementing a texting campaign will ensure your message is reaching your audience within minutes of sending the message. According to Moto Message, "over 90% of text messages sent are opened and read by your customers in 15 minutes. No other advertising medium has that relationship with the consumer."

Cost
If you currently cannot or don't want to spend the money for radio, print and TV ads, texting can be a great option. There are many services to choose from that can host your SMS efforts-and like you would guess the price varies. The more DIY type companies are going to be cheaper than the more sophisticated service.

Before committing to a company, talk to multiple companies that offer multiple service features such as creating lists for you, tracking your efforts and producing reports. One company may be a bit more than the other, but if their features are more intricate and helpful it may be worth the money. MobiQpons for example has 3 data plans to choose from ranging from around $10 a month to $50 depending on your SMS needs. Microsoft actually offers a desktop software application that can send SMS messages-and the download is free.

According to a survey conducted in May of this year has stated that, "one-third of Americans who currently have signed up for mobile marketing alerts indicate that such services impact their decision to go into stores and 27% report that such programs have impacted their decision to buy products in physical retail locations."

No matter what you decide, the fact remains that SMS campaigns are becoming a viable marketing tactic. The number one thing to remember is to plan accordingly, and decide ahead of time if it is the right tactic for your company.

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer on debt leads based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as debt consolidation at Resource Nation.

How Can You Help Your Load Time?

by Shannon Suetos

If you have a company website, it is probably safe to assume that you want to rank high with the search engines. You want your brand out for everyone to see, and what better way to get it out with a company website. But what are you doing to get your site up on that ever coveted first page of Google?

Search engine optimization (SEO) has become more popular over the years as businesses are making a profit from helping other companies rank high on the major search engines. You may not be an SEO guru, but there are certain tactics you can utilize to help.

Google announced at the beginning of April that page loading time will now be a factor in their mysterious algorithm. If you don’t have an in-house programmer, or you aren’t an expert programmer, there are a few tactics you can do to help you optimize for faster loading times.

Reduce HTTP requests

HTTP, short for hypertext transfer protocol is a lot less intimidating then what it sounds like. Basically the Internet works like this—you have web crawlers (like the ones Google and Yahoo! send out) that read your site, and then they index your site and tell the search engines what keywords are relevant to your site.

If your HTTP requests are not in order, or you have too many it could slow down your loading time. In non web speak, if you are looking for a pair of shoes to wear and your closet is a mess, it’s going to take longer to find them than if your closet was in order.

To reduce your HTTP files you can do the following:

• Combine your files so that there is less information to search. Make it as easy as possible for the web crawlers. There are plenty of tools available to help you if you are not knowledgeable on combining your files. SL Combinator, CSS Mixer and minify are just a few programs you can use.
• Group images into one large image—doing this will reduce your HTTP requests and can help prevent a longer loading time. To do this you should use, “the data: URL scheme to embed the image data in the actual page.” You will need to do a little digging around though, because using an inline image isn’t supported on all browsers quite yet.

Avoid Flash

You don’t have to take Steve Job’s stance on Flash and cut it out all together, but many Flash files take a longer time to load. If you can’t live without your Flash, then think of ways you can use minimal amounts of Flash. Other great alternative to Flash is to use a large image or oversized header image. Both of these options can add a lot of value to your site, and will have less loading times than Flash files. HTML5, which is the newest upgrade to HTML code also brings an alternative to Flash files. Although HTML5 is not quite ready, their video tag will allow people to insert video files without Flash.

Clean Up the Code

Keeping your HTML code neat and tidy will also help with your loading time. Get rid of any, “white spaces and excessive tags that you don’t really need such as empty tags.”

Tools to Assess Your Loading Time

Google wrote in their blog after announcing the loading time factor now incorporated in their algorithm some useful tools to help you gauge your loading time. These include:

• Page Speed, an open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that evaluates the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement.
• YSlow, a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed.
• WebPagetest shows a waterfall view of your pages' load performance plus an optimization checklist.
• In Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world as in the chart below. We've also blogged about site performance.

You probably won’t be able to change your loading time over night, but it is something you should have on your radar. Getting higher rankings in the search engines is a must if anyone is going to see your great product and services. Although many companies utilize pay per click campaigns to help get their website out there, it is a good idea to supplement those costly ads with high organic search optimization as well.

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing.