<div><p>Remember when you became aware that you should be marketing yourself on the web?&nbsp;&nbsp; Hopefully someone told you an truth about advertising and marketing: That first impressions are almost everything.&nbsp;&nbsp; The old Head &amp; Shoulders ad said it best, &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t get a second chance to make a first impression.&rdquo;</p><p>If you...</p></div><div><p>Remember when you became aware that you should be marketing yourself on the web?&nbsp;&nbsp; Hopefully someone told you an truth about advertising and marketing: That first impressions are almost everything.&nbsp;&nbsp; The old Head &amp; Shoulders ad said it best, &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t get a second chance to make a first impression.&rdquo;</p><p>If you are a savvy marketer or if you work with savvy marketers, then your web site makes a competitive first impression that, much like a successful ad, causes someone to stop.&nbsp; Just like a direct mailer, a billboard and a radio ad, a web site has about 5 seconds to make someone stop, look or listen.&nbsp; Fail to do that and it just got 1000X harder to reach that person.</p><p>So, let&rsquo;s assume your web site doesn&rsquo;t have a lot of bounces (visitors who look at the home page then leave or &ldquo;bounce&rdquo;).&nbsp; Good.&nbsp; How is that working on mobile devices?&nbsp; Because if you are anything like our clients, you have watched mobile traffic on your web site skyrocket over the past 24 months.&nbsp; Now, most of our clients are experiencing mobile traffic at between 20%-35% of their visitors.&nbsp; And, the numbers keep climbing.&nbsp; This is not unusual, most web traffic these days is conducted on mobile devices.</p><p>So, you have to ask yourself what kind of impression your web site makes on mobile devices.&nbsp; Because you might be making this sort of first impression:</p><p>- Flash does not show, thus video does not show.&nbsp; Instead, users see a blank spot.</p><p>- Everything looks way too small and users have to resize, turn the phone to a landscape orientation, then resize, scroll a lot just to see all the content or menu... basically, the site does not fit.</p><p>- Due to all the graphics, the site loads slowly and navigation becomes difficult.</p><p>There is more.&nbsp; Those are just the highlights.&nbsp; There is a big difference between a site that is visible on mobile devices and one that works well on mobile devices.&nbsp; The hands-down answer is to have a mobile web site that is formatted for smartphones.&nbsp; If you have a lot of iPad traffic, then you should have a site that is formatted for iPads.&nbsp;&nbsp; You do not need to redesign your site, you simply need to add a mobile and/or iPad site to your server.&nbsp; Dog Star Media has been doing appropriately sized and priced mobile sites for clients for two years now, making us one of the first in cosmetic surgery and cosmetic dentistry to address this issue.&nbsp; Now its a major issue and I encourage you to address it this summer... or you may be making a poor first impression on a lot of new users who you have spent good marketing money to attract.&nbsp; If you are ready to discuss a mobile web site please email me at <a href="http://dogstarmedia.com/index.php?option=com_contactenhanced&amp;view=contact&amp;id=1&amp;content_title=ZDcyZmM4NWU5M2IzZWNjYmFiMTRmYTk3ODc2YzM1MTRUR0YwWlhOMElHSnNiMmNnWlc1MGNtbGxjdz09&amp;content_url=ZDcyZmM4NWU5M2IzZWNjYmFiMTRmYTk3ODc2YzM1MTRhSFIwY0RvdkwyUnZaM04wWVhKdFpXUnBZUzVqYjIwdllteHZaeTlzWVhSbGMzUXVhSFJ0YkQ5bWIzSnRZWFE5Wm1WbFpDWjBlWEJsUFhKemN3PT0=&amp;encodedrecipient=7fa72b6b5f412f526f71e480bb777c86&amp;tmpl=component&amp;" class="ce-modal mailto2ce" rel="{handler: 'iframe', size: {x:800, y:480}} nofollow">donald@dogstarmedia.com</a>.</p></div><p><strong>Read more</strong>&nbsp;<a class="rssreadon" rel="external" title="First Impression on Mobile Devices" href="http://dogstarmedia.com/blog/entry/first-impression-on-mobile-devices.html">http://dogstarmedia.com/blog/entry/first-impression-on-mobile-devices.html</a></p>
