In 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:
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.
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.
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
- Screenshots taken from Todd Whyte’s blog at Ocean View Hotel in Rocky Harbour, NL, Canada.
- Mashable’s Guide to Mobile Design
- Smashing Magazines’s Mobile Design Showcase
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