To be more accessible to your clientele its time to think about going mobile. If you are a brink and mortar business then a website is the first thing that you need to do to get your name out there. However, that my friend, is dated circa 1995. Now, you need to think about the way that your website is viewed by potential customers. There has been a big movement for websites to be available to mobile users. A big problem with that is 0.8% have mobile formatted websites. What does mean? That means that it will display correctly in the mobile phone since the website is formatted for a robust browser and a larger screen. Design wise, it is a mess. Furthermore, usability is minimized if you do not take it into account.

Big bulky websites with a lot of video and picture content will definitely be a big hassle for mobile browsers. In the near future, 2-3 years from now, this may not be the case, but for your consumer or potential client today, it definitely is.

I will create a series of blog posts that discuss what you need to do in order to implement a success mobile site strategy, taking into account the different phone types and browsers.

For now I will discuss part one of your mobile site. The name. The mobile industry has been somewhat inconsistent with the urls of mobile websites because there is a variety of different routes you can go with the name, and for now each one of them is acceptable. However, I will tell you what I think is best, of course. Say your site is called “Mywebsite.com”. Here are the possible urls for your mobile site:

m.mywebsite.com

mobile.mywebsite.com

mywebsite.com/mobile

mywebsite.mobi

wap.mywebsite.com

mywebsite.com/wap

While all of these urls have been used in the past, my personal opinion is that wap (wireless application protocol) anything is too old school. Since the idea of mobile is coming to fruition and becoming mainstream you will want to stay away from techy urls and the word “wap”.

Taking those two away, we have four left.

For mobile sites you want to make it as easy as possible for people to access it. The .mobi” extension has gained some ground but has not been fully accepted yet so I would suggest purchasing the rights to that extension but when advertising for your mobile site I would go with something easier to remember.

USA Today uses “m.usatodaycom”. The “m.” is my personal favorite because it is the easiest to type in, however “m” could stand for a variety of different things. Now, that leaves the actual word “mobile”. Do you put it before or after your website. Putting after the website name implies that the website comes first and then there is a mobile aspect to it (www.mywebsite.com/mobile). Putting it before however signifies that the “mobile” is a subdomain of the actual domain. This is similar to how google does its features. You will find it as maps.google.com, blogsearch.google.com, or docs.google.com. This is what I suggest. When browsing on a mobile device, putting mobile in front of your website lets users know the importance that you put on their mobile usability.

Lastly, although I have a preference for “mobile.mywebsite.com”, I think that you should have everything accessible to your visitors. This means that you will have each of the other three possibilities redirect to your “mobile.mywebsite.com”.

Make sure to check back for more info on making mobile sites in the upcoming weeks.