A Pew Internet research update confirms that 45% of Americans own a smart phone, you can see the data here this shows how important it is to have your website optimized for mobile browsers. If you have your website on a blog platform like WordPress then it’s easy as there are many plugins that will allow mobile users to access a mobile friendly version of your site. WPTouch is one of the better ones IMHO.
Because Smartphones and tablets are becoming so popular, having a website that’s very complicated to navigate, relies on Flash or other ‘heavy’ technologies can be a drawback. having a dedicated mobile website is an option but is not always cost effective. You need to know how many people are visiting your site from a mobile device. If you have Google Analytics installed you’ll be able to see immediately whether spending the money on a dedicated mobile site is going to be worth it. After all if you only get 5 visitors a month out of two thousand, then you may not feel it is. A word of caution however, statistics show that mobile visitors are more likely to buy!
What is very clear from all the research done and still being carried out is that smartphone usage is here to stay and, because a consumer has their phone with them practically 24 hours a day they’re a marketing platform you cannot aford to ignore.