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Sales is about more than making money or increasing market share. Fundamentally, it is about meeting the needs of the customer in a way that benefits both sides.  Good sales questions define the difference between mediocre and record-breaking results.

Most salespeople are able to pique interest, but may experience challenges when qualifying the customer or closing the sale.  Once the other party expresses interest, the types of questions posed will make the difference between closing the deal and walking away empty-handed.

Sales Qualifying Questions

Sales qualifying questions are those that explore whether the customer has the authority, interest, capital, and need to buy.  Use sales qualifying questions early in the process to determine if the customer is in a position to buy.  Qualifying questions help prevent prevents salespeople from investing too much time in a sale that will never happen, and it helps to build contacts that may turn into future sales.

Some of the most powerful sales questions to ask are qualifying ones.  They should never come across as scrutiny. Instead, sales-qualifying questions must always come from a desire to provide service and meet needs.  Qualifying is an excellent time to use open-ended sales questions.  Try variations of these to see if the customer is qualified to buy.

• Who else will be involved in deciding if this is the right fit for your company?
• How would your company use [product or service]?  What would it do for you?
• Is there room in the budget for this type of investment? Are funds available?
• When do you think you would be ready to integrate this [product or service] into your business?
• What types of options are you considering from our competitors?

Though everybody will answer differently, these open-ended sales questions help determine whether the customer is qualified to move forward and worth the time required to close.  If the customer reveals others are involved in the decision, it is usually worth the salesperson’s time to contact the other decision-makers.  If the customer reveals that money, need, or interest are not there, part on favorable terms, save the contact and follow up from time to time.

Sales Closing Questions

Once qualification and interest have been determined, it’s time to close the sale..  Closing is part persuasion, part accountability, and part charm.  It is the time in the sales process when final questions are answered, and the salesperson requests commitment from the customer.

Good sales questions cause the customer to think reflect on why they need the product and lead the  customer to feel as though they might miss out if they do not take action.  Try variations of these effective sales-closing questions to compel the customer to buy:

• What else would you like to know about this [product or service]?
• What benefits do you see to using this [product or service]?
• Have I earned myself a new client? (If rapport is good, a little humor can go a long way.)
• Which of these options is best for you?
• What do you think about taking advantage of this exceptional offer?
• What do we have to do to earn your business?

Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge to get the customer to jump into action, which is why sales closing questions are a crucial tool for any salesperson.  The most powerful are open ended sales questions that help the customer to formulate his or her own answer, rather than a simple yes or no.  If the options are yes or no, the customer will choose no more often than yes.

Delivery is everything, which is why some salespersons make it where others fail.  A professional knows good sales questions do not come off as pushy, needy, assuming, or demanding.  In fact, the most powerful are those that “lead the horse to water.”  Open ended sales questions lead a customer to form the conclusion that they in fact need the product or service.  They should be used throughout the entire sales process.

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One of the hardest cues to decipher is when a customer is truly ready to buy.  While it can be a bit of a challenge in person, it is considerably more challenging when communication is conducted via phone or email.  However, that is exactly how business gets done these days.  Sales professionals must learn to recognize buying cues, regardless of the communication medium.

Commonalities exist in language, and other cues, that come across in face-to-face, phone and email communications indicating when it is time to close.  With phone and email non-verbal cues are mostly removed from the communication equation; the sales person has to rely on instinct and subtle indicators that a person is ready to buy.

Non-Verbal Cues

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Most non-verbal cues are identifiable in face-to-face interactions, though some may come come across during phone calls.  Non-verbal cues are detected through the eyes and gut, through feelings and impressions.

• Engagement: If the customer leans forward, maintains strong eye contact, and smiles, they are using nonverbal cues to demonstrate they are highly interested.  Quick responses and eagerness in their tone are also clues that they are ready to move forward.
• Posture change: If the customer has been sitting back and suddenly sits forward, he or she has probably made a decision.  When accompanied by an upbeat tone, it is a powerful indicator the customer has decided to buy.
• Holding onto documents or samples, or continuously reviewing sales media: Even if it looks casual, the customer is contemplating whatever is in their hand or wherever their eyes are looking.  Having a hard time breaking away from it is a cue for you to open the conversation to questions or close the sale.
• Mood: If the customer is happy, smiling, and in a good mood at the end of the presentation, chances are good the customer is interested, if not ready to buy.

Verbal Cues

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Verbal cues may be picked up in person or over the phone.  They can be as subtle as a change in tone, or they can manifest as spoken word.  Verbal cues are heard and accompany non-verbal cues.

• Tone: During the early stages of the sales process most customers will be reserved, polite, and speak in a fairly level tone.  When a customer is ready to buy, tone will change.  He or she will sound more excited.  Vocal range may increase substantially.  Low tones or flat conversation indicates disinterest or distraction.
• Ignoring interruptions: If the customer tells their assistant to take a message, tells a caller they will call them back, or simply refuses to acknowledge an interruption, you have the customer’s full attention.  If the customer becomes increasingly irritated with interruptions, but not the presentation, it is a sign of intense consideration and interest in the product.
• Asking specific questions about installation, guarantees, and delivery: This means the customer already feels the product is valuable.  He or she just needs to know if the purchase itself will negate the benefits.  If they have asked you the same questions a few times, they are probably ready to buy.
• Responsiveness: If the customer is responsive to the conversation in general, specifically humor, the customer is interested.  If he or she is still highly responsive, even after going through the entire presentation in answering his or her questions, it is a clue that he or she is ready to move forward.

Written Cues

Closing sales through email is challenging, but it happens every day.  Just like face-to-face sales, recognizing the cues is crucial to success.  The interesting thing about email is that it taps into a different communication center in the brain – one that may not be consistent with verbal and non-verbal communications.

Customers will shoot off a “quick email” possibly revealing more than they intend.  You might get odd questions from customers in the middle of the night; sometimes they are rushed to send off a question.  In some circumstances, email makes customers who typically guard reactions a little easier to read.

If you get an email with cues that the customer is ready to buy, it is best to respond via email so the customer can reference the communication thread.

• Questions that are narrowing in focus: When questions become increasingly specific and narrow, it is a clue the customer is checking items off their list of “things to ask.” When the questions are down to guarantees, warranties, and set up, the customer is close to a final decision.
• Responsiveness: If the customer is responding quickly to emails and the tone is positive, or they are responding with questions, it is a good sign.  If the tone is positive and they remain responsive after answering questions, they are probably ready to buy.
• Possession verbiage: If the client talks about the product or service in terms of I, me, mine, and ours, he has already visualized ownership.  This exceptionally strong cue cannot be overlooked.
• Indications of supervisor’s involvement: If emails are suddenly copied to another party, the product or service is in the approval process.  Make sure to “reply all” to every customer sending an email.  A clue such as this is a strong indicator that a person or company is ready to buy.

Respect the Customer

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The customer is in the driver’s seat during the sales process.  With so many ways to communicate, it is usually best to follow the customer’s lead.  If the customer has sent an email, respond with an email.  If they left a voicemail, respond with a phone call.  If the customer sends an inquiry via email, he may not respond positively to an unscheduled face-to-face.  Be respectful of the customer’s time by scheduling face-to-face appointments when appropriate.

Regardless of whether the communication is taking place in person, over the phone, or through email, customers still provide cues that they are ready to buy or not.  No matter what communication mediums they use, responsiveness, detailed questions, and upbeat tone are powerful indicators that a customer is ready to buy.

Let’s step away from talking about how mobile is influencing the way business is done, and mention the changes to our personal life – specifically, how mobile is changing the way we capture life moments.

Did you know that today we snap as many photographs every two minutes as humanity as a whole did in the 1800s?

Or, for instance, these things would seldom be photographed before smart phones became mainstream:

• The sky
• Food
• Pets
• Feet
• Road signs
• Accidents

More on this in our new infographic - How Mobile Has Changed the Way We Capture Moments. Enjoy!

Whereas a typical post by a Facebook business page is visible only to people who liked that page, these “in-feed” ads are displayed to both the people who liked the page, and to their friends.

What’s so cool about the in-feed ads is that, unlike traditional ads, they visually appear less like an ad and more like an organically shared piece of content. Since many of us have learned to tune out ads, these in-feed ads are more likely to grab our attention and may be a great way for a businesses to increase awareness and engagement.

What’s so uncool about in-feed ads is that, if done incorrectly (aka – irrelevant to the user) they are perceived as spam. Aside from the fact that spam creates a negative impression of your brand, irrelevant ads can also harm your campaign rankings. Since, unlike TV viewers, Facebook users are able to get proactive, irrelevant in-feed ads will  get reported as spam (which drives the ad’s news feed impressions down to the bottom).

But let’s talk about a few specifics:

1. What can be advertised in Facebook news feed

2. How to make your ads more relevant and less spammy

3. The dangers to look out for

4. How do you manage your Facebook ads.

First, here is the type of content that can show up in a news feed.

1.  Sponsored stories

A “story” in Facebook terms is an action someone takes on Facebook. Examples of stories include posting a status update, sharing a photo, liking a status update or a comment, commenting on a post. With Facebook you can highlight actions users take to promote your business by creating a Sponsored Story type ad (which creates a broader reach and more impressions in a news feed). Here are some of the actions you can promote:

• people liking your page or your post
• people checking into your location
• people commenting on your post or posting on your wall
• people sharing your page post
• people engaging with your Facebook app (e.g. playing your game)
• and a few other actions.

2. Ads linking to your business page on Facebook:

• linking to your Facebook page
• linking to a post on your Facebook page
• linking to your app on Facebook (news feed on desktop only)
• linking to a Facebook event that you set up on your Facebook page.

3. You can also place video ads (linking to your Facebook page or a post) or set your ad to be mobile-only.

Here are a few ideas to consider to improve the relevancy of your ads (and decrease the “spamminess” factor).

First, and the most obvious, is – try make your ads relevant to your viewer’s interests and context. According to Facebook (specifically – the COO of Facebook Sharon Sandberg), Facebook’s vision is “to be the place where 70 million businesses worldwide go to offer personalized, relevant advertising.” Since the early days of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has been known for his unbendable unwillingness to sacrifice user experience for advertising profits, and it seems to have paid off for him : ).

Is your ad relevant to the viewers’ context?

People come to facebook for lazy and easy information consumption (to see what’s going on with friends and family), while we are standing in line in a grocery store or waiting for a friend at a restaurant, or to comment on issues we personally care about (politics, events, technology). What marketing message fits with your viewers’ context and expectations?

• Ads marked with a “Suggested Post” label have received quite a bit of negative feedback. Facebook users seem to have a hard time understanding why a promotion of a brand they’ve never liked or engaged with before appears in their news feed.
• Instead your ad can promote a story (a user action) – people liking, commenting on or sharing your Facebook page, or a post. Such sponsored stories will have a less prominent tag of “sponsored” next to them, and most importantly they will display a name of someone who liked or shared your ad.

Don’t Always Be Closing. 

Social media is about engagement and sharing, not direct selling. Promoting your Facebook page or a coupon in the news feed is not the best thing you can do. Instead, think of promoting something that may not be directly tied to revenue:

• A post with something interesting or educational, such as a recipe or  a “how to”.
• If you are out of ideas, you can even promote a post with an inspirational quote (quotes tend to get a good number of likes on Facebook).
• Promote a message that goes with your beliefs (fostering education, feeding the hungry, etc.). In today’s world we have many options for who we spend our money with. Choosing a brand that promotes a good cause makes us feel good.

Is your in-feed ad relevant to your viewers’ interests?

Facebook isn’t exactly razor-sharp when it comes to the demographic targeting options. You get the standard options of age and location, and the “Interest” category selection is rather limited. However, if you understand the persona of your customer (music your customers typically like to listen, what movies they might like), you can construct some pretty interesting demographic targeting.

Also, small local businesses have flexible and intelligent geo targeting not only by zip code or city, but also by radius around that city.

And here is something cool: you can even target people who have birthdays coming up!

Think of users’ privacy

When thinking of promoting checking into your location or likes, think of potential privacy issues. Your viewers may not always realize that their actions would gain a lot more visibility or are a part of a sponsored ad campaign. Would they be OK with it?

What are some of the dangers to look out for with Facebook in-feed ad campaigns?

People may comment on your ad, and sometimes it looks like this:

Probably not much of an issue for small local businesses, but whether you are guilty or not – certain larger brands should be prepared for the unexpected.

And finally, how do you manage your ads?

Facebook ads can be managed in a standard Ads Manager, and in a Power Editor. While the Power Editor may seem a bit confusing at first, it is more flexible and powerful, with options that are not available with the standard editor. With the Power Editor you can mass edit your ads and ad settings, and access additional targeting options.

You need to be using Chrome browser to access the Power Editor. On your Facebook business page click on the Ad Manager button, and then click on the Power Editor link on the left.

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In a nutshell, Facebook in-feed advertising, if done correctly, can be a good way for consumer-facing businesses to build awareness and loyalty. And the good thing is – you can experiment on a tiny budget, track your stats and see how it works out!

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As people become increasingly wrapped up in social media, networking is in danger of becoming a lost art. Networking is still the most reliable way to get promoted, land lucrative contracts, and find choice jobs.

Everybody should know how to be a good networker, both online and off-line. Network relationships are most powerful when based on real-world connections, and social media can help by keeping these connections alive. Read on to learn how to blend classic techniques with modern social media.

Cardinal Rules of Networking

1. Know Thyself

Some people refer to this as a personal branding. Your personal brand is the combination of your best skills, passions, and personality. Networking etiquette requires you to explain your brand in a few sentences without coming off as pompous or overzealous. In order to do this, you must know thyself.

To develop your brand, take a few moments to jot down your strengths and passions. Practice introducing yourself to strangers in front of a mirror or role-playing with friends and family. Use your new introduction when you meet people. Also incorporate your introduction into your social media headlines and profiles.

2. Focus on People You Can Help

Networking is about more than just the people at the event. It’s important to remember that the people you meet know many other people they could connect you with. They won’t do that if they don’t trust you or like you. Rather than focusing on finding one or two people that can help you, focus on finding one or two people you can help. If you help them, they will open up their connections to you.

3. Take Notes

Take notes regarding who you meet. It can be much harder than you might think to remember important details when you look back at all of the business cards you collected. Excuse yourself to someplace private after every couple of conversations and take notes regarding pertinent details on the business card the person gave you. This will be invaluable as a reference tool when you contact the person in the following days.

4. Respect Limits

Limits come in many shapes and sizes. Understanding limits is critical, and a secret to how to be a good networker. For example, contacts made at a social occasion like a wedding or party may not want to “talk shop”. Pay attention to body language cues. If you feel like that person could be a valuable connection, politely ask to exchange business cards and follow-up in a few days.

Limits also manifest in attention span and patience. If your contact seems disinterested, distracted, or impatient, politely end the interaction. Tell the person you enjoyed meeting and thank them for their time.

5. Look the Part

Dressing professionally is one of the unspoken rules of networking. You never know who you are going to meet, which is why it is always helpful to look professional. This does not mean you have to wear a suit to the grocery store, but it is always wise to dress nicely and groom yourself. This is doubly true if you are attending networking events such as business association luncheons, office parties, trade shows, etc.

6. Use Your Manners

Minding P’s & Q’s will establish that you respect others which instantly increases credibility. Manners are one of the secret tools for how to network well.

There are lots of ways to demonstrate manners beyond the basics of “please” and “thank you”. One of the most important is to allow other people to speak without interrupting them. This demonstrates listening ability, discipline, and respect for others.

Gratefulness is a powerful element of networking etiquette. It is inadvertently overlooked as business relationships become more transactional. After making a contact, send them a thank you note – either through social media, email, voicemail, or even an old-fashioned handwritten note.

7. Use Professional Language

When connecting with somebody, use professional language. Avoid overuse of slang, cuss words, or off-color jokes. On the other side of the coin, avoid being overly technical or using company lingo. This goes for social profiles as well. Keep your language open, professional, and approachable so that contacts form positive impressions and feel like they can talk to you.

8. Set the Next Step

When you meet someone who you have a great connection with, set the next step. Ask them if they would like to go to lunch, coffee or meet at your office to learn more about each other. When they agree, tell them you will send them an email later that day (or the next) to solidify the details.

9. Stay in Touch

Social media makes it easy to stay in touch, which is at the heart of how to network well. After you meet in person, connect through social media. LinkedIn is preferred, but not everybody uses it. If using Google+ or Facebook, organize professional contacts in their own groups.

Exercise discretion when choosing what to share. Post things that represent your personal brand and provide value; interesting articles, professional questions, accomplishments, and resources.

It is okay to sprinkle in a bit of personal information, but be sparing and purposeful in the personal things you share. Avoid hot-button political issues, religious posts, and off-color humor. You may want to avoid sharing information about family status as a current contact could be your future boss.

How to Be a Good Networker? It’s all about relationships.

Networking is all about relationships. It is all about building rapport, trust, and name recognition.
Interpersonal skills and etiquette are at the heart of the matter. Being aware of the unwritten rules of networking will help you distinguish yourself. Mastering the unwritten code that is networking etiquette will make your efforts more fruitful and help you be successful in the long run.

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If you consider cold calling to be a useless sales technique, think again. Successful cold calling can open new doors, bring in new clients, and grow your personal network.

Making cold calls is not for everybody, but if you are an entrepreneur you already possess the drive and passion necessary for making cold calls successful.

What is a Cold Call?

A cold call is the old-fashioned technique of picking up the phone and calling a prospect – uninvited and unsolicited. It is one of the oldest sales techniques in the book, and it is time to reconsider it as a sales tool. Phone calls are becoming a novelty as social media’s influence expands. Calls are a refreshing way to boost business and get the word out about your company, one conversation at a time.

Utilizing proven cold calling techniques can help you overcome fear of cold calling, and eliminate cold call reluctance from your sales team. These cold calling tips will help you get started.

Think Big

Even if you are a small company, you have something valuable to offer. Think big when planning and making cold calls. Go after prominent companies. Use networking skills to gain access to executives and decision-makers. You may even want to attempt making cold calls to subordinates first to open the door.

Research is Key

Successful cold calling begins by knowing the prospects. Vet your prospects before placing calls:

• Who would your products and/or services benefit?
• Which companies have a need for your products and services?
• How do your product and services bring value to that prospect?

Be aware of trigger events. These are major changes that indicate a company is open to new products and/or services. Common trigger events include changes to product lines, restructuring, new leadership, expansions, etc.

Research the person you are targeting. If it is an executive it should be fairly easy to find out more about them through biographies, social profiles, news stories, and published works. Use what you learn to cater the script and follow-up communications.

Prepare a Script

You can eliminate cold call reluctance and reduce fear of cold calling with a script. Draft a script that includes an introduction and direction for 2 or 3 prospect reactions. The script should include a direction to go when:

• The client is interested and engaged.
• The client is interested but not engaged.
• The client is not interested.

Keith Rosen, CEO of Profit Builders, offers excellent tips for drafting a script to use when making cold calls.

Be Prepared to Follow Up

Successful cold calling techniques include prompt and relevant follow-up. Prepare an email or letter specific to that prospect in advance. Work from a basic template, but customize details within the letter to reflect your research. After the call, you may need to tweak a few details to reflect the conversation.

If your call went well, immediately send the follow-up letter to capitalize on the moment. Strike while the iron is hot!

Get to the Point

Make the most of the precious moment by getting right to the point. First introduce yourself and your company, get permission from the prospect to proceed, and then move right into the pitch. It should take no more than one minute to explain the offer and how it benefits the prospect.

Cold calling experts are united on the fact that getting to the point is the most effective of cold calling techniques. Prospects are busy. Respect their time and make the most of the moment by being precise and focused in your message.

Warm up Prospects

One of the hottest cold calling tips is to warm up prospects before the phone call. Sending an inexpensive promotional item – not a brochure or sales letter – is an excellent way to open the door. It gives you something to open the call and provides the prospect something tangible to relate to you.
Promotional items can be gimmicky, flashy, practical, or even silly. They should allude to what your company does, but should not let the cat out of the bag.

Ask for Appointments at a Specific Time

Successful cold calling means asking for a follow-up. State a specific date and time to follow up, rather than asking the prospect to offer a date and time. For example, saying “May I have 10 minutes of your time next Wednesday at 1 PM?” is more effective than “Can we meet next Wednesday?” Prospects are more likely to commit or offer an alternate time when presented with a specific date and time.

Be Professional

When making cold calls always be respectful, polite, and genuine. Never get upset when a prospect seems rude or disinterested. Respond positively and respectfully; remember that you are taking their time. Even if the call does not go well, genuinely thank the prospect for their time and express that you hope to connect with them in the future.

Use Humor to Start a Call

Using humor is one of the most powerful cold calling tips. If you can get your prospect to crack a smile, you have wedged your foot in the door and made a positive first impression. Some cold calling experts like Patty Glass of Art Company get results by admitting upfront that the call is a cold call and making a joke about it.

Do Not Get Discouraged

Every failed call is one call closer to success. If you have a string of failures, review the pitch and script. Perhaps there is something within that is a turnoff. Leverage your network to test your script and solicit feedback.

Do not let failure turn into cold call reluctance. Keep in mind that most cold calls will not result in sales, but those that do will be incredibly rewarding.

By staying positive and utilizing these proven cold calling techniques, you can grow your business exponentially by making cold calls. Successful cold calling is an art and a science. The art is being able to engage the prospect. The science is in the research, timing, and approach.

Differentiate yourself from the competition by picking up the phone and making a personal call to present the value of your products and services to a prospect. The results could take your company to the next level overnight.

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In a few previous posts on mobile SEO I talked about on-page optimization tactics (keywords/content optimization, dealing with duplicate content issues, etc). Today I’d like to make an attempt in addressing a question we’ve been asked a lot lately: “How to get this mobile site to show up on Google?”

In a nutshell:
1) Currently the best way to get your mobile site to show up on Google is to focus your efforts on desktop site SEO (with a mobile redirect in place).
2) Simply adding meta tags or optimizing keywords is not enough (unless the competition is very low).

1. Google clearly uses desktop (WWW) site rankings in mobile search results. For instance, open google.com on your smart phone, search for “Walgreens”, and you’ll see www.walgreens.com at the top of the search results. Even though Walgreen’s mobile site has been around for quite a while on m.walgreens.com, the WWW version is what shows up when you Google for “Walgreens” on your smart phone. In other words, Google is reusing the desktop site rankings in mobile searches.

If your client’s WWW (desktop) site ranks well, then the easiest thing you can do regarding their mobile SEO is do nothing at all, aside from telling Google that the mobile site is a duplicate (canonical version) of the desktop site. The WWW site will show up in mobile searches, and since you are adding the mobile redirect, the WWW site visitors will see the mobile site version. Essentially your mobile site will be benefiting from the rankings of the desktop site.

2. Since the desktop (WWW) sites are ranking in mobile search results, a good way to improve both desktop and mobile search visibility is to focus efforts on improving the desktop site SEO rankings.

In today’s world SEO is no longer about “tricks”, such as keyword stuffing or back links, and is all about good content that people read and share. Google looks at a number of social shares and other factors to determine the quality of content.

The best thing your client can do for their SEO is publish really good articles, infographics or videos that are interesting to their audience and are likely to be shared and read. Obviously, this can be hard work. However, the effort may not be not that bad, considering:

• Publishing something really good once or twice a month can be enough for most mom-n-pop businesses.
• When looking for what to write about, a business can think of common questions or concerns that were recently expressed by customers. Quality content addressing these concerns can also be reused for sales and customer service purposes: instead of repeating the same information over and over, a business associate can direct a prospect to a blog article (where a prospect can start reading other articles and then get on a mailing list to receive new information).
• All that good content accumulates. 5-10 articles are enough to combine into an ebook or a white paper (something your prospects will give out their email address for).
• It is worth mentioning that these efforts make a business appear an expert and help build loyal followers. For instance, we had hired a startup attorney to do our employee stock agreement simply because I had been following his blog on startup advice (information that most business attorneys know in their head, but don’t bother to expose in a blog to educate potential customers).

Since many small business owners may be experts in their field, but not writers, content generation is something you can help them with. Publishing quality content can be very beneficial for legal firms, service companies (auto-repair, electric, pool maintenance), gyms, schools, beauty salons – really any business where the prospect needs to trust your expertise in order to become your customer.

3. If your client’s desktop site is not ranking well, and if you don’t have any influence over their desktop SEO, then go ahead and do some on-page optimization on the mobile site. But keep in mind that on-page optimization alone is not likely to make any significant improvements in their SEO rankings, and that quality content and sharing still needs to be there for the site to show up on Google. A few relatively easy things you can do:

• think of ways you can encourage visitors to share mobile site content (add mobile coupons, contests or interesting videos that can help share the buzz);
• if a client does not have a WWW (desktop) site, a link to the mobile site can be added into their Google+ Local listing, as well as listings on other social networks or consumer review sites, and other quality sites;
• think of some other ways to bring mobile traffic: Facebook advertising or mobile Adwords.

4. In some cases your mobile visitors may be looking for different information than your desktop visitors (in which case it may be worth it to optimize your mobile site for mobile-only searches). However, this is more applicable to big companies, not small businesses.

5. And finally, it is important to make sure that your mobile site does not compete with your desktop site rankings. (Otherwise, a desktop site may suddenly “disappear” from Google, as we’ve seen happen). Make sure you submit a mobile sitemap and set a few canonical tags as applicable.

6. Lastly, remember that mobile SEO is evolving. Frankly, based on what we’ve seen, even Google’s recommendations are not guaranteed to work. Google has been rather vague about providing details on this subject, and this may be due to the fact that Google has no way of accurately determining whether the site is mobile-only, desktop (tablet)-only, or is based on responsive design, the fading differences between tablets and smart phone screens, and a recent comment by Google’s Larry Page on preferring to see a full site on mobile devices, conflicting with all the efforts Google has been putting into mobilizing the internet.

Clearly, Google is still figuring it all out. It is important to stay on top of the trends and set clear and realistic expectations with your customers that SEO is a joint long term effort.

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For any business, getting customers is a top concern. But are all customers created equal?

For a marketing agency or a freelancer, the best customers can become indispensable in growing your business. Your worst customers can suck up your time and energy, send your costs through the roof and jeopardize the success of their own projects while providing little in return in terms of referrals or testimonials.

Besides paying on time and other revenue-related advantages, your best customers do so much more for you.

First, they promote your business.

1. Sending you referrals.
No need to explain this. Referrals from existing customers is one of the least expensive and easiest ways to grow most businesses. Your best clients will recommend you to others, just because they are nice people, like your work and want to help you out.

2. Allowing you to use the work you did for them in your portfolio or as a case study.
Obviously, most prospective clients want to see examples of your previous work. When you sign on a client, you should think about how you can use the work you are doing for them in your portfolio or as a case study (a short story describing the work you’ve done for this client, or a problem you helped them solve). Adding a screenshot with their mobile site into your portfolio is good, but a little write up that includes their increase in traffic or conversions would show more value to your prospects.

In B2B marketing most small business customers should not have an issue with allowing you to publicize the work you did for them. When signing on a new customer, you can mention in the contract or a proposal that the work you do for them can be used for your marketing or promotional purposes. If a potential client has an issue with this clause, it probably means that they don’t want others to know who did all this wonderful work for them (treat it as an early sign that they may not be that interested in helping you with referrals either).

3. Great customers would be generous about giving you a testimonial. (You would need to ask for one, of course).

Second, your best clients are motivated to work with you to get stuff done.

This sounds like a no-brainer (why would a client hire me and not be that motivated to get the project completed?). Yet, I can’t stress enough how difficult it may be to complete projects with bad customers.

1. Unlike your worst client, your best client cares about the important stuff.
Obviously, nothing in this world is perfect. Any platform or service will have missing features or limitations. A good client is practical about valuing his own time and will focus on getting the important stuff done, and disregard the trivial. A bad client will lose track of the goal and wear you out with polishing the little details.

Example? A few years back, our digital agency was building a website for a client who flooded us with infinite requests to change colors, fonts and elements on their home page. Some of his comments were constructive, yet most were simply based on the ever-changing personal preferences, and were likely to make zero impact on his bottom line.
Tip: in your proposal you can mention how many rounds of revisions are included. (The reasonable number for a simple mobile site is “2″). If your prospect has an issue with that – beware.

2. While trusting you to do the work, your best client shows responsibility.
With more complicated projects, the odds are that unexpected things will come up, and you’ll need your client’s assistance (in helping map out the plan, providing you with the needed information or coordinating with their other vendors or freelancers). The best clients are good about helping you manage aspects they have more control over.
Assuming responsibility also means making decisions quickly and pushing things forward.

And finally, best clients treat you like a human being. They realize that you are not God, and that while you are doing your best, not everything is in your control.

The moral of the story is: don’t forget to prioritize your best customers. Since they tend to be “low maintenance,” it is too easy to get pulled away in reacting to the demands of bad customers and become too busy for your best customers. It may sound unintuitive, but finding time for lunch or a phone chat with a good customer to talk about how they can improve their business is more important than putting out another fire for a dead-end one.

1. Mobile Campaigns module is now included with the White Label and Reseller Premium plans. If you don’t see it in your account for some reason, please contact support@pijnz.com and ask us to include it for you.
Also, here is more information about the Mobile Campaigns module, and a video.

2. Here is an article on how to create your own CSS classes in piJnz. Even though our website builder is very flexible, and you can do a lot without having to edit code, some direct CSS customization may come handy, depending on your requirements.

3. And finally, we are announcing the beginnings of our external widgets portal (we need to come up with a better name for it, I am sure). The idea is to build an “app exchange” of outside widgets to complement our platform. Our team has been building the first few widgets and will probably be building most widgets, but the idea is to also allow other companies and developers to participate.
That way we can keep the core of piJnz clean and straightforward, while offering additional features:

• If you are a company offering a web-based solution for mobile that our customers and resellers would benefit from (e.g. – a mobile loyalty program, an event calendar, or a social widget), contact us about integrating your solution with our portal.
• If you are a White Label or a Reseller Premium partner and would like to offer your own mobile widgets to your customers (exclusive to your customers) – you would be able to do so with this portal.

We’ve started the portal with the Facebook Like Locker - a plugin that allows you to lock your mobile offers (coupons, contests, or any other special content) behind a Facebook “Like”. Your mobile page visitors would have to Like your Facebook page before they can access your mobile page with the offer.

Facebook Like Locker is free, and anyone can register and start using it with a piJnz account (or an account of any of our resellers). Facebook Like Locker application is non-branded (no mentioning of piJnz anywhere in the control panel).
Currently you would need to register with the Facebook Like Locker separately (and manage it via a separate login). The single signon and tighter integration are coming soon.

Please register, and give us some feedback : )

Image credit: wikipedia.org

You’ve probably heard the terms “mobile landing page”, “mobile website” and “mobile microsite” a thousands times by now. What’s the difference between these three, and in what situations should each be used?

A “mobile website” is typically used to display general information about a business, and is targeted at a general mobile visitor who may be looking for anything related to the business.

A “mobile landing page” is designed to display specific information the visitor expects to see, and is used as a destination in a specific campaign and with one purpose. A landing page is typically one page (unless it is followed by a second “thank you” page displayed to the visitors after they take action).

Here are a few examples where a mobile landing page can be used:

• In an SMS campaign – the SMS message is “Get 30% off today! See more.”, where “see more” is a link to a landing page that contains the coupon information.
• A QR code with a call to action “Scan me to win an iPad!” taking the visitor to a mobile landing page with a form to enter the contest.

With a landing page, the information is very focused, designed with one specific purpose in mind (to get an interested visitor to fill out a form, call you or take some other action).

Why focused information? Because relevancy improves conversions. By eliminating informational distractions you guide an interested visitor on a focused path to buy, sign up or contact your business.  In a nutshell, your landing page should be a seamless extension of your ad, SMS message or QR code.

A “mobile micro-site” is very similar to a landing page, but typically contains more information, designed for a situation where an interested visitor may require a few more details before she feels comfortable to take action. For instance, a dentist may run a Google adwords campaign about a teeth whitening offer linking to a microsite built specifically to market their teeth whitening procedure. This microsite would contain a few pages describing the details (how the process works, how long it takes, testimonials, perhaps a video or two) to educate potential customers and make them feel comfortable, and a call-to-action to get the visitor to schedule a consultation or call the business.

Linking to a microsite specifically about the teeth whitening offer (versus a full site that lists all the other services) decreases the chances of the visitor getting distracted by clicking on an irrelevant link, or even worse – not finding the information promoted in an ad.

Mobile landing pages and microsites are about following the concept of “less is more”. Note that any rich features, such as beautiful image galleries, mcommerce or videos, can still be present on the landing pages, as long as they don’t distract from the desired experience.

To sum it up:

• a mobile website is for serving general information about a business
• a mobile landing page is for offering focused information, serving one specific narrow purpose
• a mobile microsite is for offering focused information, but in situations where more details are needed for a visitor to take action.

Note: the term “landing page” is also used to describe general website pages visitors land on when they come to the site from various sources.

Below is the webinar recording as well as some answers to the questions that I could not get to during the webinar.

Also, here is a link to the presentation deck on Slideshare.

SEO advice is very much like investment advice, unfortunately. These instructions and tips are based on what we’ve seen to work and not work in practice, as well as the latest from Google and SEO experts. But mobile SEO is a very rapidly changing field, and therefore a disclaimer is attached : )

Questions:

If you add the canonical attribute into the mobile page header and a alternate tag into the desktop page header, would the mobile SEO (ranking of that mobile page) be a mute issue since Google is not going to index the mobile page?

A great question! Yes, and Google should not index the mobile page in this case. (The SEO rankings for the page should propagate from that desktop page). However, don’t use the canonical/alternate tags on the pages that are not duplicates. For instance, the home page of your mobile-optimized site is probably not going to be a duplicate of the desktop home page (in which case there is no need to add the “canonical” tag to the home page of your mobile site).

How does the url appear on the mobile device – when hosted on pijnz?

The URL appears as “m.website.com” or “m.website.com/pagename” (if you decide to point the m. sub-domain to it), or www.website.mobi (if you decide to point a full custom domain to it), or website.inapp.mobi (if you decide to not point your own domain and instead leave it on a default URL).

With piJnz we can display multiple collapsible sections on the same page. What if the desktop site has 3 pages (“Services”, “Products” and “About Us”), and instead of creating 3 separate mobile pages we copy the content into 3 collapsible section on the same mobile page?

This is a great question! We need to test it out and do some research, and come back to you.

When will the control panel be converted into HTML (from Silverlight)? Please give a time frame… 2 weeks or 2 months?

We are working very hard on the conversion and are getting pretty close, but this is also a challenging task. The goal is March for now. Most likely we’ll publish in two stages, with the first stage going live in a few weeks. If you are interested in being a beta tester and switching your account to the HTML version early (in exchange for a discount) – please let us know, and we’ll send you the details.

Image credit: www.zazzle.com

One of the common concerns some of our resellers have expressed is about a client’s web developer. What if after you’ve sold a prospect on a need to have a mobile presence, they hire their web developer to build it?

First of all, it’s not the “web developer” you should be concerned with.
If your small business prospect had hired someone in the past to build their website, the odds of them still actively working together are small.  Web development for a small mom-and-pop shop is typically nothing more than a simple one-time project, and there is little on-going work to warrant any sort of a contract. That freelancer is probably long gone and moved on to other things. Unless that web developer is part of a digital agency that manages your prospect’s online marketing on an on-going basis.

There are two typical scenarios here:

•  Your potential client is working with a digital agency that controls their main website as part of a recurring online marketing service. If this is the case, then most likely your prospect will try to coordinate with that agency, and hiring you to build their mobile site could be a tough sell. Since the agency drives their online marketing, they are likely to have a strong (and subjective) opinion on the value of your service, and/or will offer their own mobile web solution.
• Or, your prospect is in charge of their digital marketing and their main website (doing something, or doing nothing at all). With small mom-and-pop shops this scenario is more likely.

So it’s not the web developer you should be concerned with. It’s whether or not your prospect is sophisticated enough to hire an outside agency to manage their online marketing (or does it well in-house).

The first step would be to look at the footer of their main website to see who it is “powered by”, and start the conversation by asking the prospect if they are working with any digital agency for their online marketing needs, and if yes – are they happy with the results, and what are their plans for mobile marketing.

The rule of thumb is too keep things as easy as possible (and that applies both to explaining the options as well as covering as much work as you can for your client). Often this means taking a little risk, making a decision for your client or applying a bit more effort. However it is all well worth it in the end.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. When selling, try to explain the options in terms of value to your client and not in terms of your cost or effort. Number of pages included with the site can be a good guideline, however a “page” has little value to your client. (And some may not even know what a “page” is). If a client already has a desktop site, then that should give you a good idea on the amount of content that would need to be made mobile-friendly and how many pages you’d need for that. If a client does not have a desktop site, then they probably would follow your guidance and let you decide what should go on their mobile site anyway.
(With piJnz you get unlimited pages with any premium account, and you don’t have to worry about additional recurring costs for extra pages).

Instead of explaining your price options based on pages, mention features instead. Mobile coupons, multiple locations, image galleries, custom high-end design – all of these options have value to your customer and therefore have a reason to be priced higher.

2. Try to eliminate the amount of information you request from your customer if you can. Logo, images, social links, information about their business – all this could typically be found on their desktop site or the internet. Asking your customer to send you information means delays and even project abandonment (a situation where you did the work but never got paid because the client disappeared before looking at the finished site).

3. If the client has a desktop site, most certainly you’d need to help them handle the redirect of the desktop site to the mobile site, which means you’d need to get the FTP information from their hosting company or their web developer.
Many small business owners may have forgotten who their hosting company is, and since figuring it out seems “too technical”, they may procrastinate on providing you with the access. If the mobile redirect is not set then the mobile site is not likely to get any visitors and has little value to your client.

To make the process easier, you can look up who the hosting company is by going to http://www.whoishostingthis.com and typing the URL of their main website. For instance, if the hosting company turns out to be GoDaddy, you can ask your client to send you their GoDaddy login. (Since they see “GoDaddy” on their monthly credit card statements, it is likelier to ring a bell than the term “hosting company.”) If they don’t have the login, then you can ask them to search through their email for a statement from GoDaddy to look up their account number, and then call GoDaddy to get the login.

The hosting login should be for their control panel where you can get the FTP information, possibly get to the domain’s DNS settings and contact support if you can’t figure out how to get to that information. (Once you log into the control panel, you can typically submit a support ticket with a question and often list your email address so that they can reply to you directly).

If your customer prefers to host their mobile site on the m. subdomain (e.g. m.company.com), you would also need to handle the custom domain setup for them. The m. sub-domain is configured in the DNS server for that domain. You can look up who their DNS server is by using this tool: http://network-tools.com – simply pick the “DNS Records” option there, then enter the domain into the textbox and click on “Go”:

In the above example the primary DNS server for golocal.mobi domain is ns12.domaincontrol.com. Now if you Google “ns12.domaincontrol.com” (or “domaincontrol.com”), you can see that the records point to GoDaddy. That’s where you’d need to set up the m. subdomain. (Note, further instructions on how to point the m. to a mobile site on a piJnz platform are provided in your piJnz account. And we can also handle the whole process for you for a small fee).

In some cases you may need to work with your client’s web developer to set up the mobile redirect and the m. sub-domain. (More on that in another article).

4. If your client has no desktop site at all and they are a local neighborhood business, considering that a good chunk of their visitors are on mobile devices anyway, you could recommend that they use their mobile site for both desktop and mobile purposes. Here is an example of what this looks like on a desktop:

Note: this is certainly not ideal, but better then no website at all! Even with a Google+ Local listing a business should still have a website for additional information, custom lead generation forms, slideshows or anything that can’t be included in a Google+ listing.

To help generate some site traffic, you should assist your client with claiming their Google+ Local listing (if they’ve not done so already), and adding the website link in the listing.

Image credit: Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) and Wikipedia

The question we get asked a lot is “How much to charge for a mobile site?”

Just like with traditional web development, prices charged for setting up a mobile website vary greatly depending on the type of client’s business, the requirements, the value of the site to the client, and the agency or freelancer doing the work. In this post I’d like to mention a few things that may help in developing your pricing guidelines.

Based on what we’ve seen, the bottom price for a managed mobile site development services in the US tends to start at around $300 (e.g. $295 or $297), and this is for a very basic cookie-cutter no-frills mobile website with 5-10 content areas (pages, text or image sections), perhaps a simple mobile form that emails the lead information to your client, and a few images.
If you consider the minimum time you would spend on this project (a couple of hours to contact the client and close the deal, an hour to build the site and another hour to review it with the client and make a few changes), then $300 is probably the absolute minimum you can charge. (And that doesn’t even cover the time you’d need to spend on marketing and business development).

Most resellers we’ve talked to charge $500 and up for setting up a mobile site, and also an on-going monthly or annual maintenance and hosting fee.

Here are some things you would typically charge extra for (as they have an additional value to your client and also can take up some extra time for you to set up):

• M-commerce (selling products or services on the mobile site)
• On-page SEO (adding keywords and meta tags, image ALT tags, etc)
• Custom design (besides the basic color-matching to maintain the same brand identity as the desktop site, you can put a bit more effort into design uniqueness with custom graphics, backgrounds or gradients)
• mobile surveys and contests
• mobile coupons
• setting up multiple locations (for a business that has more than one store) with a store-finder for detecting the closest store. Obviously, the more locations the business has, the more value there is to the client (and possible, more management work for you as well)
• And, of course, any additional services you may offer on top of basic mobile website development (e.g. additional marketing and promotion, SEO, advertising management, newsletter management, blog writing, video creation, SMS, etc.)

Packages or custom pricing?

Two common approaches to mobile website pricing are packages and custom bids. With the first approach, you would typically offer several pricing options for the client to pick from. You can break your packages by the features included, and the number of pages.

A good tactic is to “discount” the cost of the mid-range package, to make it look like a really attractive deal so that customers looking at a lower plan have an incentive to upgrade. (For instance, you can price your packages at $395, $595, and $795, and discount the middle package by $100 as a current promotion).

The main benefit of the package approach is that it makes it easier for the client to understand the options and what is included. The downside of this approach is that a similar project can offer different value to different types of businesses. For instance, a high-end beauty salon could pay you a lot more than a mom-n-pop pizza shop, however a high-end business is also likely to be more demanding. So the alternative here is to go with the custom pricing approach, and instead of disclosing any prices ahead of time, you would discuss the requirements with the client first and offer to come back with a recommended solution and budget.

What to charge for on-going maintenance and hosting?

At a minimum you should charge a small on-going hosting and maintenance fee ($10/month should be the minimum) for hosting your client’s website. However, most small businesses want to make sure that they are covered in case any site updates are needed. You can either give your client access to their account and train them to update the site content. But since the updates may be relatively rare, your client may not remember the instructions by the time they are needed, and many will want you to handle the changes anyway since this is what you are good at and they are not. Therefore it makes sense to either increase your monthly fee to include support and website updates, or charge for the updates separately as they come in.

You can also offer an annual payment option (with 2 months free if they prepay for the full year).

In a nutshell, a monthly fee of $35-40 that includes hosting, support and a few updates, as well as a monthly report on visitors and conversions is reasonable for many small businesses. (A stats PDF report for the mobile website can be easily generated in your piJnz account). Including a report as part of your monthly service adds value – after all, the numbers is what your client ultimately cares about.

For more ideas on offering mobile websites, download our free eBook!

We’ll be posting a few articles on different ideas and things you can do with CSS on our platform, and here is the first one. In this post we’ll show you how to:

1. Add a semi-transparent background under the main content area

2. Remove the background under the headers and add a custom font

3. Add a glowing animation

4. Style an RSS feed widget

5. Create a cool “Hot Deal” button.

(Please note that we won’t go into any CSS or HTML training here. I am simply trying to give you a few ideas of what can be done.)

For comparison, here are a few before and after screenshots. (You can also take a look at the live mobile page here).

Note, the best way to add CSS to your mobile pages is by dragging a Custom HTML widget to the top of the mobile page, and then copying and pasting the CSS there. (You would write the CSS code in your favorite CSS editor first). You can add the custom HTML widget into your widget library if you plan on using the CSS on multiple pages on your site:

Next, when you are adding the style to any specific widgets on the page (and not to all elements, such as – all headers, or all buttons), assign a CSS class to that widget (and you can reference that CSS class in your CSS definitions). In this example, CSS class “grumpy-wizards” was assigned to one of the Text widgets, and CSS class “hot-deal-button” was assigned to the button:

Here is what we did on the above example:

1. Added a semi-transparent background under the main content area. (Sometimes the background image has too much contrast between color elements, which can make the text on it hard to read, and a solid color semi-transparent overlay can be useful to make the text more readable.)

And here is the CSS code we used to add the white semi-transparent background:


body .content-mobile > div {
margin:-30px 18px 0;padding-top:30px;
-moz-box-shadow: 0 0 30px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.43);
-o-box-shadow: 0 0 30px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.43);
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 30px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.43);
box-shadow: 0 0 30px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.43);
-moz-border-radius:0 0 30px 30px;-o-border-radius:0 0 30px 30px;
-webkit-border-radius:0 0 30px 30px;border-radius:0 0 30px 30px;
background:rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2);
}


2. Removed the blue background under the headers and added a custom font:


body .content-mobile .block .block-head.default-theme .wrapper, body .content-mobile .block .block-head.default-theme { background:none; }
body .content-mobile .block.grumpy-wizards .block-content .text-box p span, body .content-mobile .block .block-head h2 span {
font-weight:normal;font-family: 'Oleo Script Swash Caps', cursive !important;
}


Also, in the “Header HTML Insert” setting in the “SEO, CSS and Options” section, add the reference to Google’s web fonts library:


<ink href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Oleo+Script+Swash+Caps' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Denk+One' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>


3. Added a glowing animation to the headers:


body .content-mobile .block .block-head h2 { -moz-animation-iteration-count:infinite;-moz-animation-duration:2s;-moz-animation-name:glowing;-moz-animation-delay:0;-moz-animation-timing-function:ease-in;-o-animation-iteration-count:infinite;-o-animation-duration:2s;-o-animation-name:glowing;-o-animation-delay:0;-o-animation-timing-function:ease-in;-webkit-animation-iteration-count:infinite;-webkit-animation-duration:2s;-webkit-animation-name:glowing;-webkit-animation-delay:0;-webkit-animation-timing-function:ease-in;animation-iteration-count:infinite;animation-duration:2s;animation-name:glowing;animation-delay:0;animation-timing-function:ease-in; }
@-moz-keyframes glowing {
from {
text-shadow:none;
}
50% {
text-shadow: -1px 1px 8px #ffc, 1px -1px 8px #fff;
}
to {
text-shadow:none;
}
}
@-o-keyframes glowing {
from {
text-shadow:none;
}
50% {
text-shadow: -1px 1px 8px #ffc, 1px -1px 8px #fff;
}
to {
text-shadow:none;
}
}
@-webkit-keyframes glowing {
from {
text-shadow:none;
}
50% {
text-shadow: -1px 1px 8px #ffc, 1px -1px 8px #fff;
}
to {
text-shadow:none;
}
}
@keyframes glowing {
from {
text-shadow:none;
}
50% {
text-shadow: -1px 1px 8px #ffc, 1px -1px 8px #fff;
}
to {
text-shadow:none;
}
}


4. Added our own style to the RSS feed widget:


body .block-feed ul h3 {
padding:3px 5px 4px;
background:rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
-moz-border-radius:5px;
-o-border-radius:5px;
-webkit-border-radius:5px;
border-radius:5px; }
body .block-feed ul h3 a { color:#003;text-decoration:none; }
body .block-feed ul .date {
margin-top:0;
padding:2px 5px 1px;
-moz-border-radius:0 5px 0 5px;
-o-border-radius:0 5px 0 5px;
-webkit-border-radius:0 5px 0 5px;
border-radius:0 5px 0 5px;
background:#003; }
body .block-feed ul li, body .block-feed ul li a, body .content-mobile .button-holder-image a span span span {
font-weight: normal;font-family: 'Denk One', sans-serif; }


5. Create a cool “Hot Deal” button.


body .content-mobile .block.hot-deal-button .button-holder-image a {
padding-top:10px;width:200px;
height:190px;
background:rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
border-radius:100px;
-moz-box-shadow:0 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.6);
-o-box-shadow:0 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.6);
-webkit-box-shadow:0 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.6);
box-shadow:0 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.6); }
body .content-mobile .block.hot-deal-button .button-holder-image a img { display:none; }
body .content-mobile .block.hot-deal-button .button-holder-image a span span span {
font-size:50px;
text-shadow: 0 0 4px white, 0 -5px 4px #ff3, 2px -10px 6px #fd3, -2px -15px 11px #f80, 2px -25px 18px #f20; }


But is it so?

Not so much, if you look at a couple of factors:

1. Big consumer brands (Macy’s, Target, Walgreens) opt for a separate smartphone website, served on an m. URL. Coca-Cola’s Tom Daly argued against the responsive design during his presentation at the Mobile FirstLook conference:

“If you get into this HTML5, hybrid mindset and start pretending that a screen is a screen is a screen, you starting forgetting about the customer experience,” Mr. Daly said.

Instead, marketers should be focusing on delivering a differentiated experience in mobile that focuses on what on-the-go consumers are looking for.

2. If you monitor the mobile thought leadership sites like www.mobilecommercedaily.com, there’s been quite a few discussions around the fact that simply repurposing desktop content for smartphones is no longer an option, and serving custom content for smartphones generates better experience and conversions.

3. With Google’s latest focus on rewarding the best user experience versus SEO tricks, it would be weird if Google were to punish companies striving to make things easier for their on-the-go visitors.

When is responsive design a good fit?

In many cases it makes sense to go with the responsive design route. With RWD you are serving the exact same content to all devices, simply formatted differently via style sheets, which makes it much easier to maintain. For sites that offer content mostly for consumption (news sites, blogs) and content that updates very frequently, RWD’s benefit of easy management is a huge plus.

However, for sites that are conversion-oriented responsive web design may not be the best choice, as it feeds too much content and makes it hard for the visitor to navigate to the needed information. Often responsive themes stack content on top of each other, so your important desktop sidebar areas (calls to actions or sign-up forms) end up being buried underneath long paragraphs of text, print coupons, a link to a job application, or other information your mobile visitor does not care about. (And yes, you can hide and rearrange certain elements, but that content will still always be downloaded. Besides, with so many device screen variations, the content need to be tested to make sure the end result is what you want).

In addition, mobile users often search for different keywords than the desktop users. Optimizing the content of the mobile site to emphasize the mobile keywords makes sense.

In many cases, a combination of both would be a better choice (e.g. serve a separate smartphone-optimized home page and conversion pages, but keep your blog and articles on the responsive design theme).

Another popular confusion is that responsive web design is a must for SEO. While RWD makes it easier to manage SEO by eliminating the need to worry about duplicate content or consolidating the link equity from two separate sites, it is certainly not a requirement for improving mobile search rankings. See this article for more detail on how to use the switchboard tags to avoid the above issue by telling Google that the desktop and mobile sites are part of the same online entity.

And finally, here is Google’s take on it in recommendations for smartphone sites:

Google recommends webmasters follow the industry best practice of using responsive web design, namely serving the same HTML for all devices and using only CSS media queries to decide the rendering on each device.

If responsive design is not the best option to serve your users, Google supports having your content being served using different HTML. The different HTML can be on the same URL or on different URLs, and Googlebot can handle both setups appropriately if you follow our recommendations.

As SEO expert Bryson Meunier noted, the solo reason for this responsive design rave could be simply due to the fact that “Google Recommends Responsive Design” makes a far better blog headline and tweet than “Google Recommends Responsive Design But Supports Whatever Configuration Is Best for Your Users if Responsive Design Isn’t It.”

With Google noting that responsive design is the “preferred” method for developing smartphone sites, there’s been a popular assumption that the “preferred” is turning into a “must” for mobile SEO.

A separate mobile site (on its own m. or .mobi URL) creates a couple of challenges for Google:

• duplicate content, and
• consolidating link authority. If there are two different sets of links going to the mobile and desktop sites, the link equity is split (meaning that each site would get less “authority” than if there was just one set of links going to the same site).

However, the above issues can be solved if you give Google a little help in making it clear that the mobile and the desktop sites or pages are part of the same online entity. And you do that by adding “rel=canonical” to the mobile pages, and “rel=alternate” – to the desktop pages.

From Google’s guide to Building Smartphone-Optimized Websites:

1. To the desktop site, add this to the header section of the pages that have a corresponding mobile page with the same (or almost the same) content:

<link rel=”alternate” media=”only screen and (max-width: 640px)” href=”http://m.example.com/page-1″ >

This tells Google that there is an alternative page with the same content for screens with the resolution 640px or less, and that the URL of that alternative page is “http://m.example.com/page-1″.

And add this to the header section of the mobile pages:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/page-1″ >

where “http://www.example.com/page-1″ is the corresponding desktop page.

(Note, on piJnz you can add this attribute to the SEO and Access section on your page edit screen).

The above needs to be added to every desktop page that has a corresponding mobile page (or vice versa) with the same content. For a typical neighborhood business website this should not be a lot of work (considering that if the business does have a blog or a site section with lots of frequently updated content, you would probably want to use the responsive design for that section, while implementing a custom site for the home page and conversion pages).

What about Google? Wouldn’t all mobile visitors go to google.com by default, when they need to look up some local information?

Not necessarily. Recent studies show that close to half of all mobile searches are already happening outside of the major search engine. We are getting used to using other information sources, such as social business apps (Yelp, Citysearch, etc.). According to the recent article by Roger Barnette (the president of IgnitionOne – a global marketing agency), there may be even a bigger shift in how we use search engines. Users are moving away from traditional search engines, and ComScore and Hitwise are reporting lower year-over-year search query numbers.

• Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the company is in process of developing their own search tool, that has a potential of offering deeper and more meaningful search results based on the social graphs and interaction history of the users. While it may be an entirely different animal than Google’s search engine, Facebook certainly has a potential of deeper results personalization based on what our friends have recommended or visited.
• Apple is continuing to distance itself from Google (at least has attempted to) by dropping Google maps and YouTube apps. (Looks like the Google Maps app is back, but this may be only temporarily).
• When it comes to product search, many of us are already skipping Google and go directly to amazon.com to look for items, compare prices and and see consumer reviews.

The point is that both on mobile and desktop devices we are getting more and more used to turning to other sources other than Google (and more so on our mobile devices). A option of a local mobile-friendly directory offering the right information quickly and reliably is certainly a viable alternative users can turn to, given the opportunity.