For years, I've been saying, usually in campy, dramatic tones, "In The Future, the web will be mobile. There will be no distinction between the mobile and desktop web." A number of folks at the Miva Merchant Conference 2009 asked me if they should be buying up mybusiness.mobi and engaging developers to build mobile sites to sell products. The short answer was and remains, no.
By the way - I'd be remiss if I didn't take a side note here to say don't miss the Miva Merchant Conference in February 2010. At least two dozen people told me in the weeks after the conference that they made all the money they spent to come to the conference several times over within a couple of weeks. Powerful stuff, people; if you're serious about making money with your website, be there. I'll be there again and this year, Rand Fishkin, SEO powerhouse, will give a keynote packed with basic and advanced knowledge on how search engines work with your website that will give you instant and long term ROI, whether you manage your own site or have someone else do it for you.
As I was saying, the future has arrived. The power triumvirate of 2010 is going to be mobile-social-local
. Blackberries brought us full keyboard texting and access to our email and some sites; today they are much more powerful. With the advent of the iPhone, the process of mobile web becoming a real mobile version of the web experience was begun. The Google Android in 2009 accelerated the process. Last week, Dell announced a mobile phone platform so good that Google stock dipped significantly. Adoption of mobile technology is accelerating at an astounding rate. If you sell overseas, please note that the market in India is becoming engaged with mobile phones (first time sign ups) at a rate of 1.2 million people per month!
Social media was the watch word of 2009. In 2010, it's become a more mature market. The value of conversation and personal recommendation has always been the most powerful form of advertising. Social media gave that process some serious power.
Crossing the live wires of mobile web and social media has sparked a local-focused search boom. People are searching on mobile-enabled cell phones to find local shops to make purchases and meet friends for drinks and dinner.
The ramifications for e-commerce is that main street isn't dead yet. Online ads are leading to more offline conversions. Christmas saw sizzling sales online compared to anemic returns in brick and mortar stores, so the game is far from over. But it's time to be fully engaged in the social-local-mobile advertising world.
- Make sure your site is visible on a mobile screen and that I can buy something from you if I'm waiting for a bus or an airplane
- Make sure I can check details of product photos on my iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Dell
- If you don't already have one, set up a facebook, linkedIn, twitter and other social media pages for your business. I'll be giving specific instructions about how to use social media to drive traffic - what to say, how to say it, how often, and more at Miva's conference
- Take a look at where you ship large numbers of order. Do you ship a lot of canes to Phoenix or dog collars to Montreal? Compete for local searches and offer free 48 hr delivery. You still have a chance to get that sale even if the searcher is looking for a local shop to pick it up that afternoon.
Over the coming months I'll cover more specifics about how to engage the mobile-social-local web to stay at the leading edge of retail sales.
Happy 2010 everyone! It's still a great time to be on the web!
Gillian
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