Responsive Design vs Mobile Websites

Mobile websites and sites that can be seen on a mobile device are not the same thing. Although mobile devices can display any website, that doesn’t mean all sites will look good on a mobile device.

If you are a mobile surfer yourself, you know how frustrating it is to look at some sites that require you to pinch and zoom all over the screen. The text is too small, the menus don’t display well, the buttons are too close together, and worst of all, you can’t find a way to contact anyone on the page for help.

If this is the case, the page is not mobile friendly. The way to fix it is by installing a responsive design into your website or buying a low budget app from the internet.

Responsive design vs. mobile website: What’s the difference?

A mobile website is simply a version of your private investigations website your customers can view on a mobile device. This site might look different than your regular company page. Some apps allow you to create your very own mobile page–for a fee. Often, these apps are clumsy and don’t allow you full access to your pages. Additionally, the styles many times come out looking like a stitched layout made in a Lego factory. They are branded by the native app and, more often than not, require you to have a subdomain like mobile.companyname.com or m.companyname.com—which ultimately hurts your SEO score.

A responsive design is a version of your website that looks just like your current pages. Best of all, the pages don’t need to have third party applications or subdomains. The sites are automatically formulated in your browser window and can adapt to any browser setting.

To see what I mean by this, shrink your browser from full screen to an area the size of a smartphone screen and click on this link (open in new window). You’ll notice that no matter how small you make the browser area, Investigator Marketing is coded in a way that it will respond to the size and automatically adjust the layout depending on the size of your browser window. The page continues to be clearly readable, regardless of the screen size. Because it can “respond” to the sizes, this type of coding style is called “responsive layout”— which is ultimately very mobile friendly.

Why should my private investigator website be mobile friendly?

privateinvestigatorwebsitesmobile-300x200The main reason? To get more work. Think about it: When a user is browsing the Internet at home, everything on the page is organized and easy to read. But when they’re on the move, in distress, and in need of immediate assistance, they don’t have time to pinch and zoom across the page or search for the information they need.

Mobile visitors will opt for the website that best fits their needs right there and then. Everyone is open to the market – they don’t have preferences.

In our profession, convenience is king. Whether it be an attorney who just discovered he needs to serve papers immediately, an insurance adjuster who just discovered her claimant is leaving town, or a person who just discovered his partner is cheating, your clients need assistance fast. If they’re at home, you’re in luck. If they’re out and about, do you honestly think they’ll have the time and patience to say, “I’ll just wait until I get back to a computer to see if they’re the investigators I need?”

Is making my private investigations website mobile-friendly worth it?

In 2012, Google conducted an independent survey called “What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today.” They found that 67 percent of users surveyed would be more likely to purchase a product or service from a business with a mobile-friendly website and that 61 percent of users said they’d leave a site that’s not optimized for mobile. Check out these numbers:

  • 28% of Internet usage comes from a mobile phone.
  • Mobile Internet usage is projected to overtake desktop Internet usage by 2014. (Source: Microsoft Tag)
  • 46% of consumers are unlikely to return to a site if it didn’t work properly during their last visit. (Source: Gomez)
  • 91% of smartphone users have their phone within arm’s reach 24/7 – (Morgan Stanley, 2012)
  • 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. 70% of online searches result in action in one month. (Mobile Marketer, 2012)
  • 9 out of 10 mobile searches lead to action, over half leading to purchase. (Search Engine Land, 2012)
  • 61% of local searches on a mobile phone result in a phone call. (Google, 2012)
  • There were a total of $241 billion mobile transactions in 2011.

 

If you optimize for mobile devices, this means that your private investigations company can tap into the 28% of traffic that is surfing the Internet on the move. Most of the mobile surfers are looking for services that they need right now. And often, if the website is appealing and informative and the page is easy to read and access, they will click on the call button.

How do you get a mobile website?

If you’re looking for a mobile website, make sure that you don’t purchase a service from an app that claims they can turn your current website into a mobile page. More often than not, the app will copy and paste a lot of the information into a cookie cutter theme that sends out the wrong message about your professionalism and attention to detail.

At a minimum, your page needs to contain the basics: information about your company, who you are, what you do, and how you do it. It needs to be easily navigated from point A to Point B without hiccups. Perhaps most important of all: your page needs to match your company’s brand.

If you need help determining whether your website is mobile friendly, or if you want to move forward with creating a mobile friendly version of your site, contact a professional web designer and coder who can make your site look great on a computer screen or a mobile device…so people on the move can find you quickly and easily.

9 Reasons Investigator Websites Should Not Have Background Music

Question: What’s the quickest way to lose a potential client surfing your private investigator website?
Answer: Putting background music on your page.

The general thought is, everyone loves music. And while it is true that a lot of us enjoy music, music has its time and place. If your client is looking for a private investigator in the comfort of their home when music starts playing in the background, they might be in trouble with their partner. If they’re an attorney with a client in their office, and they’re pulling up your information for a recommendation, your music might startle them and serve up an embarrassing moment. The same can be said for insurance adjusters who are surfing the internet in their offices when suddenly the “Cops” song starts to blare in the background. Do you think any of these three people will call you after that? Probably not.

Investigator Websites & 007 – What’s The Hype?

I surf the internet on the regular basis looking for website ideas. In the last week, I found 9 private investigator websites that had music playing in the background. 4 of them had the exact same song – The intro to 007. I don’t know what the hype is between 007 and private investigators, if you do, please let me know in the comment section below.

From what I’ve been able to gather, a lot of private investigators feel that background music on their websites adds a bit of class, uniqueness, and fun to their pages. Some claim the music enhances the experience of the user- they couldn’t be more wrong. Music in the background of a website, regardless of the genre, is a bad idea. Here are 9 reasons as to why you should avoid putting background music on your investigator website.

1. Music is not part of design.

As I stated in the intro of the article, many people think that music really brings  private investigator website together. What you’re telling me is that your website is so badly designed that unless you have music playing in the background it’s not worth my time.

2. You destroy the “zone” for music listeners.

How many times do you browse the internet listening to a calm and relaxing song in the background? Now imagine if you you’re browsing the web for a service provider listening to Mozart. Suddenly, you come upon a website that adds heavy metal beats into your concerto at 5x the volume. I can guarantee you that hitting the back button is faster than finding the stop button on your page. Even if they find it, the button is all the way to the bottom, which means they scrolled through the entire page without reading a thing. The chances are that you will never see that visitor again.

3. You’re violating traffic habits… come on.

It’s 2013. Your browser can handle up to 25 different tabs at the same time on the same window. If you’re anything like me, I like to go to a search engine and click on all the results and open them in a new tab. I then browse through the tabs to find the one I need. If your website starts to play music in the background, the first thing I do is find which page it is and close it. Especially if I click on three different websites with sound: one plays a video, the other plays music, and another plays an intro sound. Now I have a 1st grade concerto playig in my office. Clicking the [X] is faster than opening my sound panel to mute the chaos.

4. Follow the leaders – They’ve done the research.

Take a look at successful websites, how many do you find that have music playing in the background? Does Facebook? Does Google? Does Amazon? What about RIAA (The Record Industry Association of America)? What about national PI companies? The answer is no. Because it doesn’t work. These giants have teams of marketers and developers that are constantly trying to research what works and what doesn’t work. When they find something that works for their advantage, the capitalize on it. These teams of researchers costs them millions of dollars – isn’t it awesome that you can benefit from their research without paying a dime? They already cut out the path, use that to your advantage.

5. Not everyone finds your taste in music enjoyable.

If you have music playing in the background, you’re going to have one of two things happen when a visitor lands in your site. They’ll love it, or they’ll hate it; that’s it. Your song will cost you 50% of your audience within the first 10 seconds of them visiting your page. Website visitors actively  look for reasons not to use you, don’t add musical taste as an extra reason to leave your page.

6. It destroys your page ranking in Google.

Google has been taking visit lengths into the equation of SEO for some time now. If your visitors are coming to your page and leaving in less than 10 seconds, Google keeps this measurement on their files. If they visit your competitor and they actually browse through their pages, Google ranks both companies and serves up the company that receives the most time.  How do they do it? They first categorize your pages. Both are about Investigation Services, both offer the same type of services, both are investigator websites, one get’s 10 seconds of traffic, the other get’s 2 minutes. That means that the 2 minute site is more important (at least in their eyes) and the 10 second page is trash.

7. Websites with music receive less shares.

I care about my friends, I especially care about my friends when they’re in quiet places. I don’t want to send out a link to a website that has music in the background. I don’t know where my friends are. I don’t know what they are doing. I don’t want to be called a jerk for sending them a page with loud music in the background when they’re in a library. I also don’t want to send them a link that will annoy their colleagues in a business meeting, or worse still, their boss.

8. Copyright violations, fines, and possible jail time.

If you’re using it for a commercial gain, someone is going to want a piece of the pie. If you didn’t record the music yourself, you better be sure to have a lot of money on the side when Sony sends in a lawsuit. You remember the RIAA from 2009 right? They didn’t go away, they’re still out there searching for copyright infringes. Are you sure you want to spend $10,000 on a lawsuit just to make your website “fun”? I wouldn’t.

9. The website is expensive to maintain.

Your website hosting provider charges you for bandwidth, this is the amount of data that is sent across the internet. Songs take up a lot of bandwidth. Unless you’re prepared to pay for the data, save those extra bills and use them where they matter the most – your company.

Overall, background music on any website is unprofessional and should not be practiced – ever. Ever. EVER. Take a look at your competition, do you wonder why they don’t have any music on their investigator website? The answer is because it’s no longer cool. If you have music on your page, understand that you will receive less clicks than your competitor. If you must have music, at least make it an option to play and don’t start it automatically when the page loads. Music in the background of your investigator website is the easiest way to turn a possible client into simple site visitor that will never come back. Never share. Never call. And never use your services.