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As you know, Adam is a featured blogger over at iPhone Life. As an all-things-Apple guru, he gets to test out and review truck loads of gadgets and even more apps. But Adam is not the only one here who gets ears deep into them!  We design apps at GLAD WORKS and so we are always looking at the design and functionality of the various apps that are out there on iTunes right now. We are well versed in the ways of the app, so you know if one of us likes a certain one, it’s gonna be a winner.

Read on and you just might find your new favorite among them!

Last week we defined mobile optimization for you and talked about what’s involved in creating a mobile optimized website. Today, we’re going to finish up that discussion by giving you all the reasons why you should care if your site is mobile friendly or not. We grabbed a couple of screenshots for you to illustrate what we mean, and we gathered a few statistics to put some real numbers out there.  By the end of this post, you’ll be calling us. Operators are standing by!

Prettyful pictures (and some not so prettyful pictures…)

Having a mobile friendly website is one of the most important things you can do for your business. An increasing number of your customers are accessing your website from a mobile device. If you don’t provide a satisfying user experience, your business could dry up. It’s a harsh reality many businesses are facing right now, but trust us when we tell you, there’s no way out of this one!  So, let us school you on the ways of the mobile optimized website. You can’t afford to miss this post.

What is a mobile optimized website?

Last week we talked about five of the most common issues we see with websites that didn’t get proper attention when they were being designed and built.  Sometimes business owners resort to less than ideal solutions in order to save money, and sometimes they just don’t realize what their choices are. Today we’re going to talk about your two most viable and safe options for a clean and user friendly website. Your budget will play a big role in which option you choose.

Custom designed websites

A few months back, we wrote a post on quality assurance. In that post, we talked about how important it is to test and test and test before letting a project leave our hands. Since we’re so careful to make sure that things are working perfectly before they launch, we have to wonder how the failure of HealthCare.gov, the massive federal healthcare e-commerce website, could have happened.

Last week we talked about web hosting providers and the different flavors that web hosting comes in. This week, to finish up our series on all things website, we’ll tackle the topic of domain names. Many people underestimate the importance of putting thought into it, but it’s not a small detail!  Your domain name has a huge impact on how people and search engines see your site. Here are the basics of what you need to know.

What is a domain name?

Last week we talked about domain names, hosting and websites. So as promised we are going to go into more detail on all of that over the next two weeks. Today we’ll address web hosting and what you need to know before choosing a web hosting solution that’s right for your needs. Did you know that web hosting comes in a million different flavors?

What web hosting does

In the past we have written about how your website is designed and built. But what is a website exactly? What happens after we design and build your site?  Do we have a sparkly “Internet button” that we press which magically publishes you on the web? We wish we had such a thing, but sadly, we don’t. It’s a bit more complicated than that, so for the next couple of weeks we’re going to spend some time explaining domain names, hosting services and websites for you. Today we have a brief overview of all three before we go into more detail later on.

Let’s dig in!

Domain names

At GLAD WORKS, we love to champion a good cause. When a client comes to us with a project that strikes our hearts, we get deeply involved. Their mission becomes our mission. We bring it home with us, we think about it on the weekends, we talk about it with our friends.

Every year we see headlines declaring that it’s “The Year of Mobile!”  Seems like it’s been “The Year of Mobile” for a long time now, hasn’t it? Clearly, mobile isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s taking over in a very big way and it grows every year. Recently, we got a super handy little book called Mobile Fact Pack: A Guide to Mobile Marketing that was put together by the folks over at AdvertisingAge. It explores everything from mobile ad spending and social media marketing to mobile OS market-share info and consumer behavior trends.