Posts tagged as:

blogging

Make an iPhone and Android Mobile Website with no coding and no money

by Todd Lucier on November 30, 2009

free iphone ready version of your blog or Website demo with Ocean View Hotel - Rocky Harbour, NLIn less than a day you can have a great mobile-ready Website that delivers all the content you need to satisfy the needs of your iPhone and other smartphone carrying guests before, during and after their visit to your region.

Why ensure your content looks good on a handheld?

  • 60% of the world’s population have a cell phone. (3.1 Billion cell phone contracts)
  • Cell phone users replace their phones every 18 months; the vast majority of new phones are smartphones.
  • 91% of cell phone users have their phone within arms reach 24/7; providing users with impulse access to Web content during the “in-between moments” in a day.
  • listen to podcast episode with Hilton VP on the explosive growth in handheld sales for the hotel chain.

WordPress.com blogs are automatically optimized for iPhone and Google Android phones; another reason why it’s time you started blogging with WordPress.

Make your WordPress blog a fully functioning  iPhone-ready and Android phone-ready Website without worrying at all about being a code monkey.

Create an account at WordPress.com and add a blog.  Treat your blogsite as a free iPhone-ready and Android-ready Web site.  Both phones use the Webkit engine that powers Safari Web browsers and these phones will co-rule the handheld landscape along with Blackberry.  Soon Blackberry is expected to join the Webkit/Safari browser handheld crowd too.

Get your mobile site started with the right content on a WordPress blog

Choose a Theme and Banner

It doesn’t matter what theme you choose, just pick one that has space for a banner image.

Banner Image: In the theme settings for your blog choose a banner image.  Give your Blog your Business Name as it’s title and include your main phone number in the Tagline setting on the General Settings tab for your blog.  Remember viewers may be looking at your site on their phone. Your phone number will automatically be a link, allowing your iPhone/Android site user to click the number to dial you with their phone!

Create Permanent Pages you think handheld device users and blog readers will appreciate:

  • About us:  Include Contact Info.
  • Check Availability: Consider using a page with a Google Webform.
  • Link to your TripAdvisor page:  Encourage guests to write a review from the road when they check out.
  • Map: Embed a Google Map on this page. (iPhone users can click on the map to link out of the blog to iPhone Maps app)
  • Seasonal Rates: iPhone or handheld specials?
  • FAQ’s:  Include things to do en route
  • Media: On iPhone, Audio Podcasts can play in iTunes app, Youtube Videos open in the Youtube app and photo libraries on Flickr or Picasaweb can open in their handheld media format.  Be sure to link to your favourite picture folder on Flickr.com or Picasaweb.com

Flickr Photo Page looks great on iPhone:
flickr on iphone

Turn on the Mobile Theme for your WordPress Blog

By default, the mobile version of your site is on, but check just to make sure.

On the Appearance tab click on Extras.

On the Extras page, Display a mobile theme box should be checked.
mobile version of site turned on

What happens now?

When viewing your WordPress.com blog on iPhone or Google Android device your new WordPress blog site automatically renders beautifully with WPtouch theme by BraveNewCode. W0rdpress.org (self-hosted blog) users can choose from a few plug-ins to render your site for iPhone (WPTouch among them).  A nice feature of WPtouch is that users can choose to turn it off and access the full version of your website simply by switching the mobile on/off switch at the bottom of each page.

Publicize your iPhone Page

As with the regular WordPress view of your blog, the site home page of your site shows the most recent posts first.  The permanent pages-list at http://YourURL.wordpress.com/?pages-list is a great page to link to from your existing Web site as the iPhone or mobile version of your Web site.   Consider treating this pages-list page as your mobile home page.

Ask your guests to bookmark the iPhone blog version of your Website on their iPhone.

Pages list view of your blog on iPhone:

The Drop Down list in the upper right corner of the iPhone site brings up:

  • a search box,
  • home page
  • links to permanent pages,
  • post archives.

wordpress screenshot on iphone

Special Pages for YOUR Ideal Guests:

No one knows the needs of your guest better than you (except your guests themselves).  Create pages you know your ideal guest will appreciate. Imagine for instance that bus tours are a key market segment for you. Consider a page dedicated to the guests traveling on the bus. Give the link to travel trade and have them include it in literature to your bus-traveling mobile phone toting guest so that they can view your content en route.

Get Blogging!

There you have it: A free iPhone-ready, Android-ready version of your Website; another great reason to have a free WordPress.com blog for your tourism business.

Links

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A conversation about bloggers and their networks

by Todd Lucier on February 10, 2009

In this delightful conversation with @SEKeener, director of Boots N All Travel Network, @Elliottng VP of Marketing for Uptake.com and @KimMance editor-in-chief of gogalavanting.com and founder of TravelBlogExchange.com discuss the importance of travel blog communities and how tourism businesses can connect with travel bloggers.

If you are a tourism business looking to connect with new media don’t miss this insight-filled conversation about bloggers and their communities.

Download the mp3 (22.2 M)

Background:

  • Boots N’ All Travel Network – 6-7 year old blogging community connecting people.
  • Uptake – 1.5 year old travel information site / search engine just launched a travel blog network that helps promote the search engine and promote richly tagged search.
  • TravelBlogExchange – over 400 bloggers have joined in less than three weeks forming small groups discussing all kinds of issues relevant to travel blogging

The value of networking – connecting bloggers has many benefits:

  • bloggers get exposure that may lead to exposure in many different locations including high profile publications
  • community participation leads to comments and feedback on content that a blogger can’t get without connecting via networks.
  • cause-related issues – Passports with a Purpose and blogging networks can move issues.
  • bloggers can help one another by focusing on their strengths and helping one another grow their skills and abilities.
  • travel blogging networks provide more visibility for individual bloggers
  • coming together like the mom-bloggers gives the community more power and influence
  • The social side of blog networks can be difficult to monetize or at least measure, but the power of stories to influence travelers decisions is huge.

How does a tourism business get their story told by a blogger?

  • experiment with all kinds of media, don’t try to follow others
  • connecting with folks in social media – connect with the people who care the most about your destination
  • search the Travel Blog Exchange to find bloggers to tell a story
  • It’s all about relationships: Why should a blogger care about your business?
  • foster relationships with bloggers to get exposure for your business
  • connect with bloggers in their medium, using the social networking tools they use
  • be personal and transparent- don’t hide behind your business brand
  • be interesting

Kim’s 3 Tips to connect with bloggers:

  1. Email the blogger by name and reference something relevant that you have seen on their blog
  2. Provide and link to great photos.
  3. Develop a database of customized discount codes for the blogger to use to promote their story.

Twits you might want to know more about that were mentioned in this podcast:

Other Websites of interest noted in this podcast:

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New WordPress.com 2.7 How-to Guides Available

January 23, 2009

Natalie has redesigned the free How to Use WordPress Series of pdf’s for WordPress.com (version 2.7). If you want to get started with your WordPress Blogsite: Getting Started Using WordPress Putting WordPress.com on your domain: Get your own dotcom ps. the pdf’s don’t cover importing your existing blog, but rest assured you can easily bring [...]

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It’s time to look outside the tribe

December 15, 2008

It’s time to go beyond our tribe to establish a presence within other tribes. We need each other. I started thinking about this after reading a post about building a small powerful network by Chris Brogan. It reminded my repeated efforts to build bridges between content creators and the tourism / travel industry. Not only [...]

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Why blogging matters to Tourism? podcast with Chris Brogan

November 24, 2008

On this version of the Tourism Keys podcast @Todd Lucier chats with @Chris Brogan about blogging tourism. Ideas Chris Brogan and I discussed: Why blogging is good for getting your content more views. Bloggers and other content producers have link equity and audiences that can generate views for your social media. Blogging with two perspectives [...]

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“We can do this!” Al Gore Addresses Web 2.0 Summit

November 8, 2008

Al Gore addressed the San Francisco audience at the Web 2.0 Summit with an urgent appeal to assign a purpose to Web 2.0 tools. His address focussed on three themes: the democracy crisis: television has removed the democratic view of truth, and interactive Web TV – (Current tv) has the potential to restore it. the [...]

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Travel Blogging with Keywords

October 10, 2008

Getting bloggers together with Tourism businesses is a great way to grow tourism in your region with keyword-relevant story-telling. Develop new experiences and at the same time introduce specialists in audio and video production and story telling bloggers and photojournalists to tourism businesses in your region. On Manitoulin Island, we’re growing tourism experiences with a [...]

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Blogging with iPhone

July 23, 2008

I was quite excited when the wordpress app was launched for iPhone yesterday. I’m not sure that I’ll blog a lot with my phone because frankly I’ll likely be having too much fun with the 20 or so applications I’ve already started to feel I can’t do without. To call the iPhone a phone is [...]

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