In an article at The Register, “Google’s European sales chief says that desktop PCs will be “irrelevant” in three years.”.

Why should we care what the “European sales chief” says?  Well, considering the fact that Europe (and Asia) are 3 years ahead of the United States in mobile technology, we can safely assume that this “European sales chief” knows what he is talking about.  He’s already seen the amazing usage and expansion of mobile and tablet pc’s – he sees it every day.

The United States is just starting to get into that market but yet, I’m sure that even if you don’t use a mobile phone or tablet PC, that you know at least ONE person who does.  So, even though we are just beginning to see the impact of mobile Internet, as someone once said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

So, as a small business owner, as a website owner, how are you going to leverage your company to take advantage of this trend?  After all, if Google thinks it’s the wave of the future, the chances are it most likely will be.  So, what are you going to do?  How can you take advantage of it?  How can you use it?

Here are some thoughts…

1) Don’t wait any longer to go mobile.  If you haven’t yet made sure that your website is easily accessible by mobile users, don’t wait anymore.  Get your designer on the task immediately.

2) Think Global.  In many rural areas across the globe, mobile is cheaper and easier to get.  This means the number of people going online is increasing much faster with mobile usage.  If your product or service reaches a global audience, make sure you’re addressing the needs of each culture so that you can take advantage of global sales.

3) Think Local.  The benefits of mobile and local businesses is tremendous.  In order to take advantage of this you must position yourself in all the local maps and directories.  I’m talking about Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps.  I’m talking about Yelp and Foursquare.  If you want to be found my local customers, make sure they can find you from their mobile phones.  Again put your designer or seo firm on this task.

4) Go Social.  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are just some of the social media program you must take advantage of.  This is how you “go viral”.  One person talks about you and passes it on to their friends, etc.  The great surge of usage of social media programs is from mobile units.  Take advantage of this by putting yourself in front of all those people.

Mobile and tablet technologies are not going away, they’re coming and they’re coming fast.  Be pro-active and begin the process of getting your business ready for this technology.  You’ll be better off for it.

Why you should seriously begin considering adding a .mobi to your Internet campaign.

If you’ve been reading my newsletter, TheSEOLady for the last few months then you know that I’ve been talking and promoting that every website owner should have a .mobi website in addition to their regular .com or .net or .org websites.

Last week, in The Economist, there was an article titled The Meek Shall Inherit The Web. The article is about mobile web trends. To give you a summary, the article speaks of the growing number of mobile internet users in developing countries. In 2008, “…China overtook America as the country with the largest number of Internet users…”
The great majority of these users access the Internet via their mobile phones or other mobile units.

“…the number of mobile phones that can access the internet is growing at a phenomenal rate, especially in the developing world. In China, for example, over 73 million people, or 29% of all internet users in the country, use mobile phones to get online….China also has some 600 million mobile-phone subscribers.”

The numbers are so impressive that Google’s division in China is “…redesigning its products for a market where “most Chinese users who touch the mobile internet will have no PC at all.” Well, what can I tell you? If Google sees these mobile web trends as an important factor, who am I to argue? If I want my clients to survive on the Internet, one of the next steps in the Internet campaign process is to introduce their websites to the mobile web.

The article also stated, “It is not just China. Opera Software, a firm that makes web-browser software for mobile phones, reports rapid growth in mobile-web browsing in developing countries.”

Is your website mobile ready?

Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “It doesn’t matter to me, I’m not selling anything in China.” Well, the point is that USUALLY, the trend in technology or IT is that Europe and Asia begin the “new trends” and the rest of the world follows. So, in my humble opinion, it seems that it’s just a matter of time, maybe 2 -3 years, maybe less before mobile web in the USA is just as used or surpasses the use of Internet access via PC’s.

So, if you haven’t already begun the process of securing a .mobi domain name, do so or contact your web designer or SEO company to do it for you!
Then take the next step and develope a .mobi version of your website. Link to it from your regular website and you’re set. Ready for the mobile web!

If you have any thoughts about mobile web trends, let us know!