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Beantin Webbkommunikation is James Royal-Lawson+46735931654, Stockholm-based digital strategist and web managerwebbkonsult, webbrådgivare
On this blog you can find articles that cover web strategy webbstrategi, intranets intranät, trends (often with a Swedish twist), analytics, and running an effective web presence. Check out my most popular posts.
I’ve been self-employed now for 6 years. I’ve been a web and intranet consultant for the past 8. It’s not been often I’ve seen a job advert during that time where I’ve really thought - the person they are describing is actually me.
268 companies surveyed about their web strategy. Interesting 17 page report. Majority of organisations have a web strategy that covers the coming 12 months, which seems worryingly short-term. I suspect it’s the usual muddling of strategy with tactics.
Some metrics are revealed in the press release, including the top 10 UK mobile web destinations. Facebook, Google and mobile operator portals dominate.
Bit of a rant, but a good one. As I pointed out in 2010: mobile web tipping point, the mobile web is more than just the iPhone. By developing iPhone specific sites and applications we are creating a walled garden that ignoring web standards and potentially creating extra costs and lost business in the future.
An amusing assessment of Google’s latest offering. How much is humour, how much is truth…
Annotations were recently made available for everyone in GA. This post by Hessam gives a useful list of things to consider annotating.
Most business websites are unreadable. You don’t need to “dumb down” your content, you just need to make it readable
Oliver talks us through how an intranet folksonomy and taxonomy can work together. Combining their respective strengths can compensate for the other’s deficiencies
The information about you that is discoverable online is a potential time bomb for many. Once something is out there, it’s not always straight forward to wipe it away.
Graham argues, backed up by search data, that reading the news online is a work-time activity, and that workers reading news as a distraction from other tasks won’t be prepared to pay for it.
Another week, another good post from Jesper. The days of the fast lane to SEO optimisation have passed. You need good content, good analytics, and a good understanding of what your target audience wants.
Google will be using on-site microformats increasingly often to produce rich snippets in search result pages. This is a great walk-through for those wanting to implement the hReview microformat for reviews on their site.
The hype and popularity of iPhones (as well as Blackberrys and Android-based devices) has thrown smartphones and the mobile internet into the mainstream. For most, if not all, of the previous decade the mobile web was an niche thing, something that most companies completely (and safely) ignored. It’s no longer a niche market, and for a increasing number of markets it can’t be ignored.
In Quantcast’s 2009 mobile web trends report they show that mobile web usage has again more than doubled, just as it did in 2007 and 2008. Mobile internet usage still only accounts for 1.26% of global web usage, but at the rapid rate it is increasing many web sites will be seeing 1 in 10 visits being made via handheld devices in the not too distant future.
The explosion in mobile web can be further underpinned by Google Trends. Here is a graph generated from the number of searches made for five leading smartphones related keywords (iPhone, Android, HTC, Pre, Blackberry).
When your target audience comes into contact with your web presence via a handheld device, it’s a significantly different experience for a number of obvious reasons - the most significant two being screen size, and in many situations and applications; speed.
Technological limitations aside, the entire surfing process is re-written forcing mobile internet users to adopt different searching and browsing strategies to those they would employ when browsing via their regular Internet connection.
One such change to the surfing process is the use of applications to deliver content that would normally be viewed on a website, accessed via a web browser. Given Apple’s market share, It’s not bad thing, but It’s worth highlighting that fulfilling your mobile web strategy by an iPhone application alone, may not be cost effective or optimal. A more open and generic solution may suit your target audience(s) better. Globally, 40% of mobile web page views are not from Apple handheld devices. That’s a big chunk of the market to ignore.
In some regions, the size of the non-apple mobile web is even greater. In India, where there is a lower penetration of fixed line telecommunication services, Apple are in a distant second place to Nokia in terms of share of mobile web.
Once in contact with your web presence, mobile web visitors will also want to achieve different things compared to visitors to the full-blown version. Some content will be more relevant, perhaps content such as opening times, price comparison, location based information. Many of these trends have been highlighted in a recent report from Compete.
Given this difference in what visitors want to achieve, even if you have provided a carefully crafted mobile web version of your site - how will they find it? Your site is almost certainly optimised for (non-mobile) visitors and their associated goals. This raises the issue of balancing mobile and standard SEO and SEM.
That is a whole new blog post of it’s own.2010 is the year that the mobile web will reach tipping point. The iPhone is the catalyst that we’ve spent a decade waiting for. But whilst the iPhone is a trend, the wide-scale adoption of the mobile web is a permanent change. Start planing now! 1.26% of the browsing-world is probably already ahead of you.
