Want to know what mobile users see when they visit your site? Pick up your smart phone, open your browser, and type in your URL. If you do not have a mobile-ready site you're in for a huge surprise!
With a large percentage of the market moving onto mobile devices, you simply must have a mobile version of your website these days. Mobile website design is completely different from full-size browsers. There are severe limitations in screen size and bandwidth capabilities of these devices that must be considered.
My suggestion is to keep it simple! Mobile users want easy access to information. For real estate agents, that means easy access to MLS searches and contact information. We also include a link to a mobile version of our blog.
If your site is running on Wordpress, there are a number of plugins available that will detect mobile devices and send users to the mobile verison of the site. One of our Wordpress-based sites uses Plugin Buddy Mobile to create a mobile version of the site. Other than creating and uploading a mobile banner, this was a 10 minute set up. The limitation for real estate agents is access to a mobile-ready IDX solution.
We chose to develop a stand-alone mobile website using a simple PHP script to detect mobile users and send them to the mobile website. This choice was driven by our access to the RE/MAX of Texas mobile-ready property search. While we could have purchased another mobile IDX solution, the cost is prohibitive since not only do we have to pay the IDX provider, we also have to pay our MLS another monthly fee to feed the data to the provider.
You may also want to register a .mobi domain name and set up an m. subdomain for your websites. Mobile users will often try using the .mobi top level domain (www.thebranchteam.mobi) or m. subdomain (m.thebranchteam.com) when they're looking for a mobile version of your website.
Mobile computing is not only here to stay, it's going to become an even larger percentage of your web traffic. Is your website mobile friendly?
Originally posted at http://www.thebranchteam.com/wordpress/2012/01/07/is-your-website-mobile-friendly/
Tom Branch and Gina Branch, The Branch Team with RE/MAX Dallas Suburbs, service the greater North Dallas suburbs including Dallas, Plano, Allen, McKinney, Frisco, Lewisville, and Carrollton. While Gina concentrates on traditional listings and buyer/tenant representation, Tom specializes in assisting distressed homeowners to avoid foreclosure. Tom and Gina have published two books (Achieving Rock Star Status and The Field Guide to Short Sales) and are available for speaking engagements in the greater Dallas - Fort Worth Metroplex. Subscribe to The Branch Team Blog.
Copyright 2009-2012 - The Branch Team
The Branch Team - Texas Real Estate Broker 547597 | Team Members are Texas Licensed Real Estate Professionals
Tom Branch - National Mortgage Licensing System 341963
Important Notice: The Branch Team with RE/MAX Dallas Suburbs is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan. If you stop paying your mortgage, you could lose your home and damage your credit rating.
All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. Properties subject to prior sale or rental.
Tom, this is an excellent point in these days. We are becoming more and more reliant on the smaller devices. I am going to suggest this post.
great post and a great reminder. I couldn't live without my phone and buyers don't either. Mobility is the way to go!
Thanks Tom, I am going to have to check out my website, never even thought about it. Happy New Year.
My website really needs a bump up on the tech side. It's not mobile friendly at all. One of my Q1 goals is to get the blog on WP and revise my website to be much more user friendly.
Hi Tom - I have to get a mobile site..SO TRUE and thank you for the reminder.
Tom - Yes! My older site is NOT mobile friendly, and my web dude for my oldes/original site said it was "not necessary" . That is the main reason I got my full WP site. Now I be mobile friendly on the new site, but am scared to get rid of my original standard web site. Time will tell...
Christine #6,
We're a hybrid site. Part of it is in PHP and the other half is on Wordpress. One of our 2012 goals is to get it all moved onto WP. We'll have to do some 301 redirects in the .htaccess file in order to not impact our indexed pages.
We'll likely keep the separate mobile site since it has a mobile IDX on it...
Tom
Great advice. My sites look find on a smart phone but I should proably take it one more step. My IDX is mobile, off to check that plugin out! Thanks!
Thanks for the post Tom! It's still pretty amazing how many Real Estate professionals aren't utilizing mobile friendly sites these days, espceically when you see the stats on how many consumers find their info via their mobile device.
That's why we've gone to great lengths to make sure our single property sites are optimized for mobile devices to give Real Estate Agents and Loan Officers a leg up on their competition.
Keep up the good work Tom!
So complicated! How in the world can we keep up? (By following your blog, of course, and letting you remind us of all the stuff we need to keep up on!)
Thanks, Tom!
Good advice Tom. This is commonly overlooked by Real Estate agents. If you have a flash intro.....forget about it. No mobile visits for you.
Hi Tom, Great advice. I'm off to see how my site looks on the iphone.
I am excited to say we are almost finished with our new site that will be mobile/Ipad friendly! As a consumer I spend much of my time browsing services and products via mobile device, so I had to open my eyes and update our site asap!
Great tidbits of cyber info.
Helps us stay in front.
It hadn't even occurred to me! ANOTHER important reason to READ the blogs! Thanks! I'll definitely be making some upgrades.
I have two sites. One is mobile enabled and the other isn't. If anyone is just getting started I'd highly recommend Weebly.
Thank you. Great post. Need to hit the ground running.
Tom thanks for the reminder; and the information on the available plugins. In the furture the mojority of the home search will be done this way.
Tom - good stuff. Mobile sites are imperative in this quick and everchanging landscape of data information overload. We must stay connected like our customers are.
Excellent post! Especially the discussion regarding IDX services and how many providers are not currently offering a mobile solution. This will be huge deal in 2012 I believe.
I use moble everyday with my iphone and soon IPAD as vrs 3 is released. I think we would be suprised to see how many of our clients are also.
Tom, do you have any statistics on how many users are coming to your mobile site? Would be interested to see them if you do.
Here in Phoenix ARMLS is now offering a Wordpress plugin for their flexMLS IDX. The flexMLS itself is $240 a year and the Wordpress plugin is an additional $240 per year. Still not bad considering the cost of other IDX solutions we looked at.
I've been using my mobile phone a lot more than I once did to look up listings. Having a mobile friendly website is becoming more and more important. I'm going to check out your mobile site.
Tom,
I am making some changes this year so I have bookmarked this post.
Thanks,
Brian
Great point Tom. I will have to investigate what the potentials are with my site.
Tom, I've noticed a lot of agents using QR codes that hook you up to a web site that is not mobile friendly.
Tom, this is excellent advice and a necessary component of our business! Thank you so much for sharing.
HI Tom,
Living mobile is essential, in every way and aspect, and ensuring a proper proper and professional mobile marketing pressence and marketing strategy is in place is very important. thanks for the tips.
Seeing what your website looks like on a smartphone is one of those activities that is overlooked but very simply to examine. I'm going to try our websites now on my blackberry.
Tom, good advice. With exponential growing use of smart phones, it is essential that we make our websites mobile friendly.
Tom I can always count on you for being at the cutting edge of what I need to do next!
I recently purchased an iPad, and it really opened my eyes to how mobile devices will change the Internet. This is going to be an interesting year for those that implement new technology.
Tom:
I just checked out my website on my iphone. It is so tiny and hard to read. I don't think anyone could navigate to my different pages. My ipad has a much larger screen, so I can navigate around my webpage better. But it is still too complex for a mobile device. I need to simplify. Thanks for the info.
I have a product through mobilerealestateid.com that incorporates QR codes and extensive text photos.
Good morning and thanks for the comments.
It will open your eyes to see what your site looks like on smaller devices. I find that the iPad handles the full sized screen just fine. My only concern is to make sure any images are small enough to conserve bandwidth.
It's the smart phones that really require a smaller mobile version.
Tom
Todd #23,
According to my main site logs there were 1.2M hits on our site in 2010. Android and iPhone hits were:
2009: 0%
2010: 1.7%
2011: 2.6% (to date)
While not a large amount of our traffic, it has been growing and I suspect it will continue to do so as more and more people go mobile.
Tom
I need to check on this with multiple sites! Thanks for the reminder.
Hi Tom, thanks for the good information on what to have in this ever changing tech world.
Tom, You have done well to get on top of this and get your site ready. Thanks for sharing the info on the wordpress plug-in and what you've done to make sure your site is mobile ready.
Great information! I have checked my website, and it looks great on the iPhone - cannot check any other phones yet.... Thanks!
There are always so many new things to consider to stay on top of website accessibility for the consumer. Thank you for reminding me about being mobile friendly.
I am not a big fan of my site when used on a Mobile Device, although at least I have it Mobile Ready.
The best way to handle this is to get two different domains, i.e www.anysite.com and www.anysite.mobi and create the .mobi site (which is meant to be for mobile users) with the different layout and very simple contents and search options. Always you can create a feed for any contents from your .com site to your .mobi site. Otherwise , usually the same .com site looks different in the mobile phone screens and sometime the contents doesn't display properly.
Anu,
That's my point! I do maintain two completely different sites. One for full-sized browsers and one for smart phones.
I do use a special script on my main .com website that detects mobile browsers and sends them to the mobile site.
You can also use the .mobi or m. subdomain to get to the mobile version...
Tom
Tom, I'm getting ready to set up a mobile site. Cost to develop is $1500, plus I have to pay an additional $39/month for separate IDX account. I don't think I have to pay my MLS an additional fee. Does this cost seem reasonable to you? I do already have IDX on my wordpress site, btw.