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First, the good news: If you have a website, then you have a site that can be accessed by any mobile device with a browser. Now, the bad: Chances are, that site looks pretty crappy on said mobile device.

If you’re worried about this, you’re not alone. Just as companies realized, circa 1996, that they needed to create a website to remain relevant to consumers, history is repeating itself in mobile. By 2013, more people will use mobile phones than PCs to get online, according to Gartner. In mid-2011, we also reached the point at which consumers were spending more time on their mobile devices than on their PCs.

In such an environment, a site designed to be viewed on a desktop PC comes across as woefully lacking. Say you’re accessing such a site from the Safari browser on your iPhone. The first thing you’re likely to notice is that it takes a relatively long time to load. The second thing is that the type on the page is pretty small. It might take a lot of zooming and pinching to navigate the site as well. If you have Flash on your site, it’s not going to come across at all on an iPhone.

At that point, your potential customer may start looking around. According to a recent surveyfrom Compuware, 40% of users have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience.

Yet currently, most businesses haven’t optimized their sites for mobile. Jesse Haines, group marketing manager for Google Mobile Ads, says the company canvassed its large advertisers early in 2011 and found only 21% have launched a mobile site.

If you’re among the other 79% or so, take heart. Optimizing your site for mobile or creating a mobile site from scratch isn’t a big deal.

In part, that’s because Google has stepped in. The company is eager to expand its online advertising empire further into mobile. With an eye towards “growing the mobile ecosystem” as Haines puts it, Google last month launched GoMo, an initiative that aims to help businesses go mobile.

Google’s howtogomo.com is a clearinghouse of information on the topic and even includes a feature that lets you see how your site looks on a mobile device.

For those looking for a quick fix, Google provides a list of companies that will build your mobile site for you, and you can specify what you want to spend. Haines says that you can get up and running for as little as $100 a year.

Dennis Mink, VP of marketing at DudaMobile, one of the vendors Google lists on GoMo, says he thinks the average price for a decent mobile site is more like $200 to $500. If you’re comfortable with website design, though, DudaMobile offers DIY tools as well, which are just $9 a month. While the company’s web-based software is free, the fee goes toward hosting and site analytics. (Yes, if you’re running a mobile site, you have to pay two hosting fees — one for your traditional website and one for mobile.)

One recent DudaMobile customer is TriStar Automotive, a Santa Rosa, Calif., repair shop. Jim Dadaos, the owner of the shop, says his web developer told him a few months back that he needed to get a mobile site “because that’s where everything is going.” Dadaos’s developer contacted DudaMobile, which created the site “within a very short time” and it’s been up and running for six months. During that time Dadaos says he’s seen a 20% spike in business. “During these times, the auto repair business is sucking, so that’s significant,” he says.

Mink and Haines offer a few tips for building a good mobile website. One thing to consider is whether your site is what Haines calls “thumb-friendly.” What that means in practice is lots of big, fat buttons. Another thing to keep in mind is font size and navigation. The first should be fairly large, and the second should be fairly intuitive.

Haines says one site that renders especially well on mobile is 1-800 Flowers, which, as you see below, is both thumb-friendly and intuitive.

Another site Haines singles out is from PacSun, the teen-focused clothing brand:

Incidentally, if you’re considering a mobile app rather than a mobile website, Haines says to go for the website. “It really depends on the brand,” she says. “We think a mobile website is a must-have.” Haines says that for some brands, like news sites for instance, a mobile app makes sense, but otherwise, most users are going to look for you via their browser.

Mink agrees: “If you’re going to search for any type of business, you’re going to search the mobile web, not an app store,” he says. “People don’t look for apps that will give them information.”

Though businesses based in Dubai have been a little late in waking upto the possibilities of Internet marketing arena when compared to their counterparts in the west, they are starting to embrace this burgeoning media in a big way. The buzz around Internet Marketing among small and medium enterprises gives the impression that Dubai is trying to make up for lost time. So is it just a trend that will pass on soon or is something that’s here to stay? A deeper look at the way the Internet Marketing field has evolved will confirm the belief that the adoption of businesses all kinds to the online media in some form or the other will only strengthen in the years to come.

Marketing over the years and even more so recently has shifted away from a one-way broadcast to a multi-point conversation. People depend on online resources to make buying decisions and recommendations. So an overwhelming majority of the connected world, which by the way is 75% of the population, uses Search engines to research for products and services. The growth of online social media has been such that people seek and make recommendations for products, services & experiences for friends & followers over the social media. This dovetails perfectly with the largely young and cosmopolitan populace of the city (close to 2 million people and around 200 nationalities and makority of them under the age of 50) and it is not tough to understand why online social media is gaining such popularity in these parts.

So when your prospects & customers are using social media in such huge numbers, it makes sense to use them as well isn’t it? So marketing online is no longer
just about having a Web site where people come to find your business; It’s about being where they are online and setting-up stalls there. It is all about being in front of your target audience and internet provides a whole lot of avenues in achieving that and then engaging and following up with them to gain their trust and confidence. Truly the combination of better visibility and higher credibility is all that you need for increased leads, sales, customer and fans.

So if you have a business in Dubai, then having an online marketing strategy is no longer a nice to have option. It is absolutely mandatory. You need to have broad online marketing strategy online that is customized to suit your business requirements, start by taking small steps and build an ongoing marketing strategy incrementally. You can visit (Internet Marketing Consultants) or see this (Online Marketing Intro) video to get you going.