Tonight I was looking at Google analytics for a client’s site and something jumped off the page in a big way. One of our client’s has consistently averaged around 12% of their traffic from iphone visitors. This is a high traffic site (for a small business) and they target mostly consumers and luckily we built their site without any Flash. Why does that matter? Adobe Flash, which is used to deliver 90% of the videos on the web (and other site content as well), doesn’t work on an iPhone.

Seeing this number I decided to do a random sampling of four other clients accounts and they had 1.25%, 1.5%, 4.4%, 11% of their traffic from iPhone visitors. Some of these sites have a large of amount of visitors from iPhones.

What does this mean to you as a business owner with a website?

• If you are using Flash on your site, find a way to make it work without it. ‘Degrade’ your site gracefully so iPhone (and now iPad) users don’t experience a big blank spot or are unable to use or navigate.
• Another option is to create a mobile version of your site so it works well (and more quickly) on mobile devices.
• If you are in the middle of designing or building a website, look at your audience and decide how many of them are likely to use your site from an iPhone, iPad or similar device. If the number is significant – avoid using Flash or make sure you have an alternative – your users will thank you and the numbers of iPhone and iPad users are growing.

Note: Since this site primarily is targeted to a marketing audience, I’m intentionally not getting into the HTML5 versus Flash debate. If you want to do that, feel free to post a comment below or via a reply to me on twitter.

Of the several sessions I attended at South by Southwest 2010, three stood out to me as an interactive director – all dealing with the same topic, in a different way – making websites attractive. This is post one of three, covering the first session in detail.

Lead! When was the last time you saw a statue of a committee?

Claiming your website is easy to use is like a restaurant claiming that their food is edible.

Cennydd Bowles

The first session was led by Cennydd Bowles of Clearleft, Ltd and was called simply Beauty in Web Design. This session was the first session of the first day of SXSW and included these wonderful quotes above. Cennydd’s point was that there are no works of art in web design, no truly revolutionary sites and as designers (visual or UX) we can all do a bit better.

Bowles talked through a bit of the history and psychology of good design. For instance, humans are always judging beauty innately, it’s not a learned behavior (it’s something you can watch a baby do) and the three types of beauty:

• Universal – everyone sees it
• Sociological (example of model’s now vs Milo’s Venus), changes with society preferences
• Subjective – personal opinions – beauty in the eye of the beholder

This session really emphasized how good UX design isn’t just making the site usable and Cennydd’s point was we should be pushing limits and trying to do something new. I agree completely with this sentiment and as you’ll see during the next post, I talk about one of the reasons why website design is becoming too consistent due to content management systems.

If you like fine print, you’re in luck. In the first major revision to product endorsement guidelines since 1980, the Federal Trade Commission now specifically requires online marketers to disclose any ‘material connection’ they have with a product or service they mention.

You’ve no doubt seen disclaimers in marketing efforts:

• not a real doctor

• past performance does not guarantee future results

• results not typical

Because social media, blogging, and word-of-mouth marketing make it especially difficult for consumers to identify paid endorsements, the new regulation requires that these relationships be made clear to the intended audience. If a company is providing free product or cash to someone to promote their product, the marketer must disclose it.

This is a good thing.

The FTC exists to (among other things) protect consumers and prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices. By holding ‘mommy bloggers’ to the same standards as traditional sources of advertising, the FTC hopes to make consumers less susceptible to unsubstantiated or false claims (looks like the acai berry diet’s days are numbered).

In full disclosure: as a writer I love to use purple, extra fine point Sharpie pens. The Sanford corporation does not pay me to say this…but if they’d like to, I’m available (Wait!?! Is that Mont Blanc on the other line…?).

Spoke Site Updates

We've made a few revisions to the Spoke Marketing site that we launched yesterday.  First, we switched the site to PHP which was fun for me since I'd never used it prior to last Thursday (yes – I know I'm a geek, but I always liked learning new languages).  That should make it easier to keep up to date.  Second, we add a new page for Spoke news and a page for our blog / twitter info. Third, we added some client quotes and a new client to our portfolio.  We'll keep the site fresh with new content as we launch new campaigns, websites and brands for our clients.

Spoke is featured in Small Business Monthly

Spoke is featured in the December issue of Small Business Monthly.  Jeremy Nulik sat all four Spoke partners down to ask us how to market in a down economy.  Humbly, I think we had some good insight in the article about marketing authenticity and finding a niche.  If you agree  / disagree with anything we said – please feel free to comment and let me know.  Honest dialogues are always fun.

From all of us at Spoke – Happy Holidays
Brian

You may disagree  – you may think to yourself: “I have things to say and people will want to read them”.  If that’s you, sorry, move along sir or madam, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to the other reader who doesn’t have things to say, but a consultant / friend / neighbor told them they should start a blog and post things because it will help their business. 

If you are considering blogging because you’ve either been told or believe that it will help your search rankings, it will help personalize your business or drive traffic to your site.  I’m telling you that you don’t need a blog. 

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