Make Sure Your Mobile Site Is User Friendly

This article was published in the March 11, 2013 issue of The Business News, a semi-monthly newspaper related to business. The Business News serves Brown, Calumet, Door, Fond du Lac, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Marinette, Oconto, Outagamie, Shawano, Sheboygan and Winnebago counties in Wisconsin. Subscribe online at thebusinessnewsonline.com

Smart phones are everywhere!

We just can’t put them down! We feel lost without them and will drive miles if we leave them behind. We take them everywhere and do much more than make phone calls with them. Yes, our phones are as mobile as we are and they seem to get smarter with each passing year.

Over the last few years smart phone usage has increased dramatically. And why not? 4G (generation) technology and improved phone functionality have made web browsing from our phones much easier and faster.

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Is Your Website Smart?

A mobile website is not the same as your desktop website scrunched to fit your smart phone screen. A mobile website is much smarter than that!

To have a successful mobile website it must be designed for the small screen. That means buttons are made larger so they are easy to tap and information is limited. The mobile site must be streamlined and concise, with a professional, business-like look. A clear view of information and ease of navigation are paramount.

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Beware Phishing Spam!

I recently received an email from the Better Business Bureau which naturally sparked my interest, especially considering I had never received one from them in the past. The email told me they had received a complaint against my business. I found that particularly odd because this BBB was from New York. Furthermore, who would dare to complain about me? :)

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What Is a Mobile Website?

Web history is repeating itself — in the early days of the web when everything was new it was acceptable to have a somewhat shaky, experimental website. Many sites were crippled by misguided design advice and most companies didn't know any better. Now, people simply expect websites to work and to look professional.

In comes mobile. Last year, it was cool to simply have your desktop website show up on your smart phone. Now, expectations have gone up. It's time to improve your mobile site's usability and load time.

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How Can QR Codes Promote Your Business?

Quick Response (QR) codes are similar to barcodes used by retailers. The biggest difference between the two is the amount of data they can hold or share. Bar codes are linear one-dimensional codes and can only hold up to 20 numerical digits. QR codes are two-dimensional (2D) matrix barcodes that can hold thousands of alpha-numeric characters of information.

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7 Ways to Find New Customers On LinkedIn

If you own or are part of a business to business (B to B) company or even if you run a business to consumer (B to C) type business and you're looking for leads, there's likely more new business for you on LinkedIn (with its 161 million+ members) than you ever thought possible. The following tips may be helpful:

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I See So Many LinkedIn Users Making this Mistake – Are You?

I often wish I could reach out to everyone using LinkedIn because so many are missing this simple, little step. They are usually missing so much more but this one step is so simple, why would anyone not take the time? I suppose the answer is they just don't know. So share this with your friends and connections on LinkedIn who need a little help.

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Adventures on the Farm

Our farm has been an exciting place this summer. We have had record-setting heat and drought in Wisconsin, like so many other states. That's the downside. The upside is my garden looks great (I watered a lot) and I'm canning vegetables like I haven't canned in years. More on that later.

I decided I want to share my farm adventures on my blog even though it's way off topic. I could start a new blog and maybe I will in the future, but for now I will share my stories here.

I will begin with our chicken adventures. If you are an experienced chicken farmer, you will find these chronicles silly and a waste of time so please go to the other links on this site so you can learn about web design or blogging or LinkedIn. For those of you who don't know very much about chickens, I hope you find my adventures mildly entertaining and perhaps learn something along the way.

Chicken Adventures - A Little Background . . .

We are not strangers to raising our own chickens for meat. Both my husband Joe and I have helped our parents butcher chickens and Joe's parents had chickens for laying eggs on the farm for many years. However we had no experience actually hatching our own eggs. Our families always bought 100 - 150 two-day old chicks and raised them from that point. We had a few things to learn!

A few years back Joe's brother bought eggs, incubated, hatched, and raised them. A few of those chickens ended up on our farm. So for the last couple years we had 2 or 3 laying hens and 2 roosters. Several weeks ago we had an over abundance of eggs in the house so Joe decided to stop collecting eggs and let nature take its course. What the heck – let's see if we get babies. If not, it's only a few eggs lost.

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Yes - There Really is a Way to Pin Your Favorite Images from Facebook!

So you setup your Pinterest account, you have a few boards and several pins. You're really having fun finding cool ideas and sharing them with others. It's just amazing what you've been able to find on Pinterest!

Then one day you're skimming through your Facebook profile and you come across a really fun image like these cute little hugging carrots I came across the other day. You know exactly which board it should go on and you know other Pinners will appreciate it and probably want to re-pin.

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