5 Steps to make your site IPAD Friendly

Posted on November 24, 2010 by admin
Share

Introduction of Ipad has created lot of headaches for website developers ( and some extra work for companies like ours ). Noting down some learning from our experience of optimizing a site for Ipad.

1. Detecting IPAD and redirect to IPAD Version of website.

Optimizing your website for Ipad

Here we are assuming that the current site does not work in Ipad at all and required a totally new site. Mostly this occurs when the site has significant flash content. To detect visits from IPAD Browsers, We need to add a script as following

<script>

if ((navigator.userAgent.indexOf(‘iPad’) != -1) || (navigator.userAgent.indexOf(‘iPod’) != -1)) {

document.location = “http://www.inavista.com/ipad/index.html”;

}

</script>

This script will redirect IPAD visitors to a pre-defined page (Which should be optimized for IPAD).

Note : You can add more user agents using the same script if needed.( Eg. ‘iphone’)

2. Detecting Portrait and Landscape modes

As you might know, tilting ipad moves the screen from a portrait to landscape mode and the consequent realignment required to make the screen navigable.

If your website is not just a static website , You may need to use separate CSS Files for both Portrait and Landscape Modes for better performance. In some cases, even a different design will be required to show menus.

<link rel=”stylesheet” media=”all and (orientation:portrait)” href=”portrait.css”>

<<link rel=”stylesheet” media=”all and (orientation:landscape)” href=”landscape.css”>

3. Use Jquery or Other Javascript Libraries Instead of Flash widgets

Steve Jobs and Apple does not like flash. We have found Jquery to be the best replacement for flash effects.

Eg:

Flash Version : www.inavista.com

Jquery Version : www.inavista.com/ipad

4. Use percentage on CSS
It will be good to change all dimensions in to “Percentage” from ‘px’ / ‘em’.
Maximum width of an IPAD website should be 1024px and minimum must be 768px
5. IPad Testing
To test your site on Ipad properly, obviously you need an Ipad but its not always easy to get hold of one. Some alternative below.
Best option is to run the site on the simulator that can be download to mac but for those who don’t have mac either, the following options are worth a try. One can get a general feel of the issues with these.
Ipad geek : http://www.ipadpeek.com/
AIR IPAD: http://www.merhl.com/?page_id=58

Posted in IPAD, Solminds, Website Development | 2 Comments

Thought that went into our new website

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Ceejo Thomas
Share

If you have seen our new site, you would have noticed that the design is not typical of the websites that are out there today. In a nutshell we have tried to present to the user what they are looking for right at the top. Instead of flashy images and banner occupying the top space, we have put our key offerings there.

This design also helps when it comes to the presentation in mobile devices where the space is a premium and audiences might not have the patience to scroll down and read the entire page.

We also feel the best way to keep a website dynamic is to add elements that are updated regularly, like blogs and tweets and thats what we have done. For a business that runs on a remote development model, we thought it might help if some information is given about the people behind. So thats what you see in About Us.

Hope you like our new website.

Posted in Solminds, Website Development | 3 Comments

Get buying visitors to your site using google places

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Ceejo Thomas
Share

Google places is a relatively un-chartered but growing avenue for small business to make their presence felt on the internet. Google places’s strategy is to populate the listing using their own resources as an initial step. They take data from yellow pages, business directories and some time even use their own staff to enter the initial data. Then they promote the listing when people search google with geographically local keywords like Cochin etc . We would probably know that our listing exists only then, then they give us an option to ‘claim’ the listing so that there will be more authentic and updated data in the listings.

internet marketing

Apart from claiming, we ourselves can add a business to Google places. You can add your business using this link www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter. Google places is tied in closely with google maps and adding a listing involved marking our business spot on the map too.

The key things to note while adding a business are

  1. Using the business name – Try to have some where in the name the keyword that the potential customer might use while searching
  2. List all the applicable phone numbers. Make it easy for the customer to get in touch
  3. Category chosen should be the most appropriate. Try some competitors listings to make sure
  4. A picture of the business counts for a lot to get a potential customer interested
  5. Validate your business by phone or a post card .
Posted in Internet Marketing | Leave a comment

Marketing for small business – Measurable online advertising

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Ceejo Thomas
Share

Google’s revenues rose by 3 percent in the quarter ending June 30, 2009 when the rest of the advertising industry was going through its worst slump in a decade. Of the £13bn that google made last year, 97 percent came from advertising, either google adwords or google adsense. It’s clear that google is an advertising company revenue-wise more than a technology firm.

Internet Marketing

Google has essentially created a new advertising market for small and medium sized businesses. Businesses who never considered advertising before, or at best, advertised in the local directory. The key to this change has been the technological advances which enables advertisers to target customers very specifically. When the scatter-gun of traditional media advertising like print and TV is wasted on so much of the audience, search advertising has the advantage of being at the right place at the right time aimed at the right people.

This results in a wide range of advertising opportunities and competition becomes ( comparatively ) less which in turn lowers the cost of advertising to its potential clientèle. This advantage is magnified when we are able to precisely measure the result of advertising and see the increase in business due to a campaign.

The tools for business for advertising have been pay per click ( ppc ) like google adwords , advertising next to relevant content like the yahoo publisher network or the latest location based advertising in Google mobile. Google adwords depends on Google being the dominant search engine where potential customers searching for a specific query are presented with normal results as well as sponsored results relevant to the search. The sponsored results are as relevant as possible to the users taking into account their demographic and geographic profiles. Content based advertising relies on the quality of the content to match relevant advertising to the websites, so it’s seen only by the most interested parties. Location based advertising puts the power of the mobile network into the hands of the advertiser by knowing precisely where the customer is at the moment when they search Google.

For too long advertisers have been throwing money at traditional media hoping some thing will generate results. But now there is a viable, measurable and less expensive medium that works. Even when the recession is over, we will see Internet marketing be the main stay for small business.

Posted in Internet Marketing | Tagged , | Leave a comment