Add Mobile-Website Creation Into Your Service Mix!

[ijohnson]

Wouldn't it be best to purchase a .mobi domain, then all the redirecting wouldn't be necessary? A .mobi domain will already be optimized to give the best layout no matter what mobile device is used, right?

[Chris Sutch]

Wrong! .mobi is only a domain it has no bearing on how the content is displayed.

[dominicx]

Thanks Dexx,
I have been consulting a company here in Atlanta called www.Siteminis.com. They create mobile optimized websites for large "big box" retailers to add mobile sites to their e-commerce functionality. There are "tons" of mobile applications for small to mid-sized companies to add mobile as another platform to enhance all their "e-marketing."

I appreciate the link to the company and since I've been busy on other projects, I have missed some "happenings" in the space.

I recently came across a company that is in pre-launch (based in Atlanta) called www.iZigg.com. Now this is an awesome concept in the mobile space.
It uses the short code 90210 and customers choose their unique keywords to gather a list of "text" subscribers. It's an awesome addition to small to mid-sized companies and entrepreneurs to begin the process of developing a marketing program in a highly effective space.

NOTE: This is a MLM company. They charge up to $498 to be a "recruiter" and an option to be a sales associate for $99. Their compensation plan is modeled after Local Ad-Link, but the leadership of the company is younger and more financially stable. I met with both co-CEOs last Sat. and I have known one for over 12 years (since I had my local telephone company). One CEO is the founder of the Student Advantage card and had been using Text Marketing on college campuses for over five years (that's been his niche for a while). He's a young, sharp dude for sure: Dave Liniado.

While at SiteMinis, we had a working partnership with a company called EzEE Marketing that sold the back end text marketing software for a setup fee of $20k and a hefty monthly fee. I think that all offline marketers can take advantage of this type of service regardless of who they use as a service provider.

This tool with iZigg.com is probably the simplest and most affordable way for most businesses to get started in building their customer list. You can easily gather cell numbers and get immediate response to offers in an up an coming media.

Mobile Media Marketing is still in its infancy. Use what you can to add to the value you create for you clients.

There are not a lot of details on the site, but if you are interested in finding out more, I will meeting with the founders next week in Atlanta and will be glad to answer your questions as soon as I can.

Thanks,
Dominic X Carubba
dominicx@gmail.com

[sharp]

As per usual, this crowd is so generous with ideas and time. Good to see familiar names around here.

Mobile is great... do remember that if the client is already paying you $$$ to do the work in general that adding a mobile site is a very good idea to insure proper ranking in the 7box. (It is a lot easier to do well in that box with any site if the information that is 'key' (the service, the name, and the contact info/address) is accounted for.)

I suggest making the mobi site, or a different version of the main site, based on competition level. In low/mid. comp markets keep them separate to make sure you hold at least 2 of the 7 slots in the box (and/or 1 or 2 of the 3 slots on some searches). Higher comp, you'll need to focus the effort to insure your client is always there.

Anyway, just keep in mind the proper course might depend on what services you are already offering, and what the goal is. (I think what Chris does would be a dream come true to most folks... Nearly 'ongoing effort' free and nice money. Go Chris.) ...of course nearly any option will work if you a) understand it and b) do it. : )

Cheers,

sharp

[michael800]

Is it still possible to download a copy of theMobile Money in Minutes?

Also a question I had regarding the setup of the mobile website. I'm planning on setting up a new .mobi site (using mobisitegalore.com and their advance plan so that I can download the files and host it on my account) for a client. Now I need to upload the .htaccess file on the client's original website to do the redirect to the mobile if customer is using a mobile device. Is that correct?

So do we ask the client for access (username/password) of the ftp to the regular site so that we can upload the file or do we let the client know that they need to upload this file to their site (by us sending the file and them having their webmaster do it if they won't give me access).

By the way if you subscribe to their Advanced Package the "powered by mobisitegalore" will be removed from the bottom of your site. It's also available on the Professional pkg for $12/mo, however with that pkg you can no longer download the files to the site you made and use your own hosting. Only the $17/mo plan allows you to do that now.

I think Mobisitegalore is a better option since you can develop as many sites as you want, download the files, and just host them yourself compared to MoFuse Premium where you have to use their hosting and the price per month is for a 1 site. What do you guys think?

[Sheila]

Since mobile sites are "hot" right now, I think using Template Monster and charging the client for the site makes the most sense. Template monster will give the client a professional looking site, without another provider's logo at the bottom. Hmmm, selling plr mobile templates might be a good wso offer to get into, for all you graphics/tech people out there . . . I'm just saying, find a need and fill it :-)

Use a .mobi, since Google has a separate search engine for mobile sites, the client will be in ahead of their competitors. Sell the value of this - wouldn't we all have liked to have purchased walmart.com, jello.com (or whatever) years ago? The same is going to happen with .mobi sites. Get them listed now in google's mobile search engine for their keywords or business name. They'll appreciate you looking out for them, and be more open to your other services ie. you conducting a social marketing campaign for them would fit in perfectly here.

Host the mobile site yourself, and charge $5-$15 for basic hosting with an upgrade to $97/month with you making x amount of changes to the site for them - adding coupons, special oto's, menu changes, etc.

But don't give the ownership of the .mobi away to the business owner - by you retaining ownership of the domain name, you will insure you have a client for life. Even if you're only charging $5 a month for hosting - that will add up to a nice residual income over time.

[ijohnson]

Thanks, Sheila!

You've provided some very good information and ideas to consider. There are a couple of folks offering WSOs on mobile templates now. Most I've come across tend to be designed for the restaurant industry.

I'm in favor of registering .mobi domains, too, because I think they get more juice and a good boost from Google. Registering and retaining ownership of the domain would be smart for the very reason you mentioned >> recurring/residual income.

I'm in search of a very good mobile site creation tool that pumps out very good-looking sites, no xxxxxxx.com branding for their product, meeting all the best-practices and allowing me the option to host the mobile site myself.

Sheila, are you currently creating mobile websites or offering mobile marketing services?

~ Iris

[Debs]

Template monster has some very nice templates but I don't see how you would incorporate things like 'click to call' ,directions,google maps etc?

[ramprof]

For everyone wanting to build a mobile site I have been testing WPtouch and am very impressed (it's installed on my site www.emarketinggeeks.com - pull it up on your smart phone to see). This WordPress plugin will make your site look (and act) like an app! Much better than the other mobile plugins or themes I have tested.

There is a free version (1.9) and a premium version (2.0) which sells for $29 for 1 license or $59 for a 5 pack (I am currently using the free one, but will probably upgrade).

Check it out at http://www.bravenewcode.com/products/wptouch-pro/

-Ross

[Steve]

Hey guys - great stuff in here and thanks for all the excellent ideas that have been shared so far!

I just wanted to share a mobile site creator I haven't seen mentioned before that has lots of potential, especially since the folks at .mobi are behind it.
See http://gomobi.info/ for all the details and some excellent sales copy/video ideas to help sell the service, and for a trial you'll need to visit http://www.name.com/services/gomobi

Unfortunately they seem to be the only company offering the GoMobi sitebuilder for now, but at $4 - $6 per month I think it's reasonable for what you're getting, and I don't think reselling this to businesses for $20 - $30 a month would be too difficult. Took about 5 minutes for me to setup a demo website and I love the icon based navigation (similar in looks to an iphone app) that they use.

ROSS - I used to live in Randolph, just south of the college on Sussex Tpk before moving to Wharton and then winding up here in PA a few years back. Great place there!

All the best,

Steve Solem

[ijohnson]

Steve,

I love the look of goMobi's mobile website creation tool, also. I have sent several emails requesting information but have not heard from anyone. On their .gomobi.com site, there is no reference to their price points. I will try the link you posted above and see what I find. I feel VERY confident going with them because they are the ones behind dotMobi.com and they are industry leaders.

Good luck, everybody, in your pursuit of knowledge and opportunities in the mobile marketing arena!

~ Iris

[Jiminopks]

Great thread Dexx,

I have been missing in action for a few months.

I too, am very interested in building mobile websites and have a couple of questions.

1. Has anyone seen a script that will dial a phone number?

Dexx, you said we can build a site for $8 at mofuse.com I believe,
but at that price you don't get the "click here to call button".

To have that funtion, it cost you $11.50 a site.

If we have a script, all we have to do is load it on the moblile index page.
It will do the same thing and save a lot of money in hosting fees by hosting it ourselves..

Using .htaccess the site automatically knows which index page to open.

I have seen scripts on regular websites that say click here to call me. Wouldn't they work?

I searched Google for "scripts that call a number" but did not find anything.

Anyone know where to find such a script, please let me know.

2. One man said he made $16,000 in 14 weeks selling mobile websites for $217 a piece.
16000 divided by 217 = 73 sales or 5 sales a week.
What is everyone charging, or what do you plan to charge, and charge for hosting?
This guy charges $14 and pays mobisitesgalore.com 11.50, so he is not making much residual.

3. What have you found to be the most effective way to market mobile website creation?
He uses emails.

4. Has anyone built a website devoted to this niche?
He has a site where you can see what a site looks like when it is designed for mobile
and when it is not.

Well that is all I can think of for now.

Thanks

Jim

[Steve]

Hi Jim,

Was looking for a solution for the click-to-call question you had tonight and thought I'd find it looking at the mobile version of the gomobi test site I created in a regular browser, but that just shows up as a javascript alert and I'm guessing the mobile phone browsers handle that much differently to enable click to call.

While researching that though I ended up back on the gomobi site and saw this interesting system they are now offering for free through MANY registrars like http://www.godaddy.com/tlds/mobi.aspx?

Supposed to create a mobile version of your site just by giving it your URL to work with, but the tests I ran didn't give results I'd ever want to use. I guess it's good that more attention is being paid to mobile sites by the major players here, but I won't be happy when sites like Godaddy start offering mobile design and hosting for $9.95 a month!

2. One man said he made $16,000 in 14 weeks selling mobile websites for $217 a piece.
16000 divided by 217 = 73 sales or 5 sales a week.
What is everyone charging, or what do you plan to charge, and charge for hosting?
This guy charges $14 and pays mobisitesgalore.com 11.50, so he is not making much residual.

3. What have you found to be the most effective way to market mobile website creation?
He uses emails.

Jim

That WSO was one that really got me hooked on the idea of mobile websites. While I'm waiting to wrap up a few things over the next month before jumping into this with both feet - my thinking is I'd like to find others to do the selling and give them almost all the upfront fee, then charge $30/month for hosting and get a nice residual monthly income there. Just thinking out loud here, but if I could sell a site for $220 and pay $200 as a commission, that leaves $20 I could use to outsource the design of the site, and actually I could probably pay someone local $20 and have them design 4 sites in an hour since these are so simple to setup.

Is $30/month too much for hosting? Sounds crazy to me since I pay less for my reseller account with gigs of storage and transfer, but I'm sure their are many businesses who pay much more for a simple website and someone they can call with questions. Dotmobi through name.com costs about $5 a month so that's $25/month coming in for hosting - multiply by just 200 accounts and you've got a nice 5k/monthly income there with very little work. My thoughts are to require a years contract for the hosting and while they'd most likely continue, if they cancel after that, I've still made a nice little income for managing an easy project.

Of course I'd plan to sell other things like mobile (SMS) marketing (has that been discussed here before?) to try to provide as much value and make as much money from each client too.

You can see what a site looks like using that new mobi service at the link above, or try this too http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN

Cheers,

Steve

[Jiminopks]

I did find a script that will make your phone ring on a mobile phone

http://www.scriptygoddess.com/archiv...mobile-phones/

Jim

[kelvin brown]

signup for google voice, you can add a click to call button to your sites for free. At least for now.

[easycash]

If you wanna impress someone but with no money down you might try out this baby here

http://www.onbile.com/

That's a great service IMO, just bad that it is accessible for everyone, as well your clients.

Let you put logo, phone number, email contact and Google maps into the "site".

G.

[Steve]

If you wanna impress someone but with no money down you might try out this baby here

http://www.onbile.com/

That's a great service IMO, just bad that it is accessible for everyone, as well your clients.

Let you put logo, phone number, email contact and Google maps into the "site".

G.

Thanks for posting! That looks like a neat service, but their terms are a concern especially when they reference the possibility of advertising on your mobile site.

The Services that Onbile provides are always evolving and the form and nature of the Services that Onbile provides may change from time to time without prior notice to you. In addition, Onbile may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally and may not be able to provide you with prior notice. We also retain the right to create limits on use and storage at our sole discretion at any time without prior notice to you.

The Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information. The types and extent of advertising by Onbile on the Services are subject to change. In consideration for Onble granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Onbile and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.

[easycash]

Thanks for posting! That looks like a neat service, but their terms are a concern especially when they reference the possibility of advertising on your mobile site.

Actually I would use this to go into a meeting to show to a client how his site SHOULD look like in a mobile phone, as they have no clue about this when you talk first time to them.

Use this to show something that actually WORKs, play around and show him the features and then make the agreed minisite with a safe service.

G.

[mobilequeen]

Hi,
I see that this thread is pretty old, but I just joined this forum the other day.
I am currently selling mobile websites to local businesses here on the Oregon coast.
Here's my regular website:

http://www.CoastalMobileWebsiteDesign.com

If you look it up on your mobile phone it will automatically redirect
you to my mobile site. I put a code in the .htaccess file.

I have only sold 2 sites so far, but have several appointments this week.
I made my sites at www.BuildMyMobi.com which is $2.00 a month for hosting,
but I'm not real satisfied with the service, so won't be using it anymore.

I highly recommend Matt Bush's WSO on mobile site creation over at The Warrior Forum.
He recently updated it with videos on how to make mobile sites using Wordpress.
He even includes how to put the Click to Call on there and Driving Directions!
Here's a shortened link to his WSO. You can mention me if you order it if you
want to! :-) He's a really nice guy and offers great support.

http://bit.ly/9rFUFZ

I'm glad I found this forum and look forward to learning a lot
and contributing what I can!

Thanks Dexx!

Kathy

[MrPhelps]

You might want to consider joining these guys. At least take a look and let us know what you think vs. what you're already doing.

http://www.mobilesitesbusiness.com/

-David

[mobilequeen]

Hello David,
As a matter of fact I'm already a member of Mobile Web Expert! They have a good platform
for building mobile websites. It's like MobiSiteGalore, but they have more options. They will
even create the sites for you for a fee of $159.00. You can edit the site as needed. You
can very easily create your own sites for a hosting fee of $65.00 a year.

It cost me $97 to join for a year because I joined through the Warrior Forum. I think it's now $147.
They have marketing materials and a forum, etc. The forum didn't seem to be very active the last
time I was in there, but hopefully it's better now. I'll go take a look soon. I'm not sure if I'll renew
my membership next year.

To be honest, I'm very excited about building mobile sites using Wordpress. I've seen one that a friend
did for an attorney and it looked really good....more like a regular website. I already have a Host Gator
account so I could host the sites myself and charge my clients something....I'm not sure what though!

I have a meeting tomorrow with the owner of a very popular restaurant here. They don't have an
autoresponder or a Facebook Fan Page, so I'm going to put together a proposal for him. They definitely
should get a mobile site because theirs looks pretty bad on a cell phone. I don't know what to charge
for the autoresponder set-up or fan page. I think I'll look around this forum to see if I can find any
threads on that!

Have a fabulous day!

Kathy

[MrPhelps]

Their forum is quite inactive for whatever reason. I find the site a jumble of stuff and very disorganized. I'm not sure what the annual fee buys you other than access to more stuff you can buy, including their site designer + hosting.

I've messed with mobile plugins for Wordpress, and frankly, you need something more than just "reformatting" existing content to fit a smaller display. You need to re-think the entire page layout and navigation system. You need to be very sparse on images and instead use text attributes more consciously. You also have to design for "big fingers" rather than a tiny mouse pointer -- it's challenging and time consuming to have 5 clickable links crammed into one vertical inch of display space on a mobile touch-screen display.

I took a social media course from Maria Gudelis and she charges a boat-load for SMM stuff. I just wish I could find some folks in my neck of the woods who have any decent money to spend.

-David