Mobile Site:

A Mobile Site is a website which is specifically designed for optimum performance when viewed not on a regular computer screen but on a small mobile device such as a cell phone, a PDA etc.

Regular websites can be viewed on a mobile device with a mobile browser but it is not a very comfortable user experience. There are several distinctive differences between a full sized monitor and a mobile display which make adjustments necessary.

The major one is screen size and resolution. Regular screens are 1024 pixels, often wider whereas mobile screens typically have a resolution of 120 pixels. Websites designed for computer screens are usually in the range between 600 and 900 pixels. So even the "narrow" sites cannot be properly displayed on a mobile screen but the user woud have to constantly scroll not only vertically but also horizontally. Hardly anyone would be willing to stay on such a site for more than a few seconds.

Low bandwidth for mobile web access brings back a problem from the dial-up-age that seemed overcome with the advent of broadband connections for regular computers. A huge page size would not only make the site loading very slowly in mobile browsers, it would also cost the phone user more money as the fees for wireless data transfer to mobile phones are considerable. So every bite counts. As images contribute the most to a huge page size they have to be especially treated in Mobile Sites. One of several possibilities is, to substitute the image with a placeholder and let the user choose whether he wants to load the image or not.

In terms of contrast it is a huge difference to view a site in a room on a regular big sized screen or on a mobile display, outside on a bright and sunny day when it is difficult to see anything at all on the display. So the color scheme of Mobile Sites must be chosen to provide the best possible contrast for easier readability.

The Internet Marketing Dictionary converted into a Mobile Site as it would show on a mobile phone display. The changes to the layout of the regular site are obvious: The navigation menue on top of the main content, no left panel and pictures are not displayed but substituted by a link (here: "images/fav.gif"). The user can load the image by clicking the link.
The mobile version of The Internet Marketing Dictionary can be accessed under
http://mobile.internetmarketing-dictionary.com

Why should an Internet marketer bother at all to have also a Mobile version of his website available?

The answer is simple. According to studies already 250 million people world wide access the Internet via their mobile phones. And this figure is growing fast. A marketer ignoring this huge pool of potential customers is not farsighted to say the least.

[Mobile comes from Latin mobilis = movable, from movere = to move;

Site comes from Latin situs = place, position]

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