Step 2 - Know Your Users

The next requirement for building a successful smartphone website is to know your users, since you are going to be building the website for them. Start by making a list of anyone who could conceivably visit your site. For example, imagine you are a manufacturer of food products for pets. Besides providing information about your products, you may also want to provide information about pet nutrition and care.

Your potential users include knowledgeable pet owners, new pet owners with limited knowledge, people who are considering buying a pet, pet owners who are looking for food for their pets, and pet shops who may want to distribute your products. This list is a short but most websites will have a longer list.

For your potential users, ask the following questions:

• How important are they for your business?
• What information could they be interested in?
• Do I have the information?
• In what context will they visit my smartphone website? For example, a pet owner may be at the pet store and may want to learn more about your products before buying.

When planning a smartphone website, a very important source of information is your Analytics Software. Assuming you already have a PC website and you have Google Analytics configured, you can go to the reports section and filter by mobile visitors. You can see the number of page views, the top content, the content by title, etc. This information will tell you what content your mobile visitors are interested in.

Once you know who your visitors are likely to be, their priority, the content they may be interested in and have taken a look at your Analytics Software; you will have enough information to decide the content that is important to include in your website.

Once you’ve completed this section you’ll be ready to proceed to the next step in this blog series