All Platforms Need Consideration

Mobile Wreaks Havoc on Marketing Sites . by Sandy Penny . http://writingmuse.com
Wow, this whole mobile web surfing craze has surpassed everyone's expectations. Even the mobile developers have fallen behind on offering solutions to problems that are arising from the shift to tablets and smarter all the time phones. 

I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, and I love it, being an avid reader, and I can web surf on it too, so I decided to take a look at my sites and see how they looked on it. Much to my shock and dismay, I found that none of my audio players and slide shows showed up.

I am an Amazon Affiliate, and I use Amazon widgets all the time to offer collections of books and other items on my sites. They have great scrolling slide shows, carousels that rotate and all kinds of eye-catching fun ways to share their products with potential customers. Guess what, none of those work on mobile. So, now hundreds of hours I spent creating them, selecting the books, etc. cannot be seen by the vast numbers of mobile phone users. Eeeek.

The problem was that Flash was used for all the slide shows and moving items, and Flash is not mobile friendly. In other words, it does not work. When you have a slide show on your site, and look at it from a mobile device, it's just a big white gap.

I searched the web to see if I could find an alternative that does work on mobile, and there really is not one at this time. We all know that Flash support has been discontinued now. Now users are pushing the technology as much as techies are pushing us to learn new things. So, back to the problems at hand. Here are some of my workarounds until new technology arrives.

Amazon product links:
Amazon now offers an image only link to products, and a bit of html code placed on the page shows a scroll-over drop down telling you it's an Amazon link and details of the product. However, the touch screen technology does not allow that to work on mobile either, but you can use the photos with their auto links. They work and look great. For the carousels and slide shows I wanted to keep, I just moved them to the bottom of the page, and above them put links back to the author's list of books. That way, mobile viewers won't know anything is missing because they won't see a blank space in an odd location, and they can view the same content by clicking the link. And, just so you know, those Amazon linked items will not show up on search engines, so you need to include a little bit of text identifying the item in order for it to be searchable.

YouTube Videos:
If your site offers YouTube videos, and you used a widget to link to that video (like on blogger), it won't show up on mobile. You can go to YouTube and click share below the video, there is a choice for embed code. Choose the size of the video you want to display (smaller is better for mobile browsing), copy the code and paste it into an html box on your site or blog. Then your video will show up on mobile and PCs.

Audio Players:
Many audio players offered on blogs and websites will not work on mobile. There is code that will fix the problem, but it has some glitches, and is complicated, so I won't share it. Yola's help desk gave me some code, and I chose everything correctly, and the audio works fine on mobile now, but the Firefox Browser now drops it out and just shows a white box, and Google auto plays the audio when you hit the page, even though the code is set not to auto play. If you have several audio files on one page, they all start playing at once, it's not a good thing. So, for now, I recommend you just put a note saying that the audio files are not yet available for mobile. Or, you can upload your audio files to I-tunes or similar.


It's a lot of work to make these changes, but if you want to offer full access to the millions of mobile users, it's really a must. And, if you just wait for a while, these glitches and bugs will get solved, but who knows how long that will take.

Don't be discouraged. This gives us a bigger market to sell to. Keep writing and marketing, and if you have any specific questions, drop me a note from http://writingmuse.com

Yola offers automatic translation for mobile devices and great easy to use sitebuilder tools:

Blogging Tips from My Marketing Perspective

by Sandy Penny

(30 years of corporate marketing with a specialty in company communications/newsletters/blogs.)

This is for business blogs:

1. Don’t beat around the bush and write a long intro to your post. Your readers came based on the title subject, get right to the heart of that information. Engage the reader immediately or they’re likely to close the window. Short attention spans and time crunches rule. If you tell a short life story, make sure it directly applies to the subject. Save those cute personal items for your personal blog.

2. Use the fewest words to say the most. Long, meandering sentences won’t hold the multi-tasking minds of today’s business reader.

3. Choose subjects that are important to you so that your passion and knowledge will shine through and set you apart from the competition.

4. Do use interesting visuals, photos, drawings, etc. Unless your blog is about pets, don’t post your pet’s pics. Unless your blog is about fashion, don’t post over-the-top photos of yourself. Keep it businesslike, in keeping with your particular business.

5. Always respond to those who comment on your blog, unless they are spammers, then just delete them and block them. Responding may open a dialogue with a new client, and it shows you care about your readers’ opinions.

6. Check your grammar and spelling and your facts. You readers will respect you more and come to rely on your correctness.

That’s it for now . short, sweet and to the point.

Click the book cover below to go to the Amazon info and book buying page.
Social Media Fundamentals

Yola offers automatic translation for mobile devices and great easy to use sitebuilder tools:

Create a Great Blog

Create a Great Blog . by Sandy Penny and others

I saw this great blog post today by Rachelle Gardener, 13 Simple Tips for a Better Blog

Focus first on improving the content of your blog rather than any fancy strategies for increasing traffic. The better your content, the more your blog readership will naturally grow.
Make sure every post contains a single main idea. It can be supported by related ideas, but do not ramble. One idea.
Keep your posts brief. As little as 300 words can make a good blog post. Try not to go over 500 words, occasionally 600 but don’t do longer posts too often.

Those were Rachelle's first 3 tips. For more, go to her blog, but first, read on for my 8 top tips to create a great blog. 
 
Decide why you're writing the blog first.
Are you just sharing? Do you want to monetize it and make some money?
Are you trying to get out important information?
Are you building your name and reputation in the marketplace?
The answers to these questions will change the approach to the content and change the layout you choose for your blog. 

Target your audience carefully. If you write for too broad an audience, it will water down your appeal and do little to establish you as an expert.

Only choose a subject you will want to continue to write about for a long time. If your subject is too narrow, broaden it a bit to allow you to explore more facets. 

Write several posts at one time and divide them into small chunks you can publish as a series. A series will bring readers back to the blog more often if it's a popular subject. And you get to write when you're feeling it, and if you're not, just grab something you wrote previously and post it to keep the flow going. 

When possible, tie your subject to a current event that people are searching already. Just be sure that the content is relevant to the current event, or it will just make the reader frustrated. 

Monetize your site for your own benefit. Become an Amazon (or other site) affiliate and post links to products that you truly like and recommend and share them with your community of readers who are likely to enjoy some of the same things and will appreciate your recommendations. If readers can rely on you to only share good products and services, they will look to you for future advice. Build that trust. Don't waste this opportunity for semi-passive income.  

Share your blog on Facebook and link it to your Twitter account, so every time you post on your FB account, it auto posts to Twitter. You get double the publicity for half the effort.  

Make sure your blog is smart phone friendly. This is the wave of the future, and now is the right time to ride that wave. Blogger offers a variety of templates that are flexible for the user, depending on how they're looking at the site. Websites need to consider this now as well.


... To be continued another day. Thanks for reading. Later, my friends.

Visit my other sites:

http://simplewebclasses.com
http://writingmuse.com
http://sandypenny.com

Sandy Penny is a senior marketing writer with more than 30 years experience in Fortune 500 companies. She now devotes her time to helping small heart-centered businesses launch online and market their products and services on the web. She teaches Yola sitebuilder to non-techie business owners.