.• 44 per cent use it to read reviews or product info.• 54 per cent use it to find a retailer. And the good news for local businesses is that local information is the most common smartphone activity. • One in three mobile searches are local.• 61 per cent of users call businesses.• 95 per cent of mobile users look up local information.• 89 per cent of local info seekers take action within one day.• 58 per cent of users visit a business.• 44 per cent of users make a purchase. Your website on the goIf you think you’ve tapped into your technologically savvy audience by getting a dot.com.au presence, you’re only part way there. While websites (the good ones, anyway) often contain multi-tier navigation, drop boxes, high resolution images, video and an array of content to keep users engaged, the same rule does not apply for smartphones. The above statistics show it is necessary to engage mobile users with quick, simple content, which means your website must be adapted for this medium. You can check how your current website looks on a smartphone by typing your website address into the phone. Ask yourself the following questions: • Can you see the site?• Did the site load within five seconds?• Are there any broken images or links?• Can you read the text without zooming or scrolling?• Can links and buttons be clicked with a thumb?• Is your location and phone number visible?• Can the phone number be clicked to initiate a call? Most likely, if your site is not optimised for mobile, you will fall short on many, if not all of these questions. Tips for a mobile optimised site: 1. Keep it quick: Mobile users are on the move, and don’t like waiting for a site to load. Design your mobile site to load fast, with text and buttons easy to read and scan. 2. Simple navigation: Mobile is different. Users don’t want to be back and forth, clicking button after button, zooming in and out. Minimise scrolling and keep it vertical. Keep the navigation simple, with clear back buttons. 3. Be thumb-friendly: People use their fingers (especially their thumbs) to navigate mobile sites. Make it easy for hands to interact with your site. 4. Design for visibility. A mobile-friendly site gets its message across without causing eyestrain or zooming and changing screen size. Make it easy to read. 5. Make it accessible: Your ideal mobile optimised site works on any smart phone device. Make it easy for your customers, no matter what type of smartphone they are using. 6. Make the conversation easy: Your customers need to be able to interact with your site, without the aid of a keyboard. Make it easy by keeping information gathering short and relevant, reducing the number of steps needed, use lists and scroll bars for data entry and have automatic or saved logins. 7. Make it local: Make it easy to contact your store. Have a store locator on the landing page. Include your opening hours, address, phone numbers (with click to call), map and directions (with GPS) and other contact details. 8. Include mobile site redirects: A mobile site redirect is code that can automatically tell if visitors are using a mobile device and sends them to the mobile-friendly version of your site. You can include a link in your mobile friendly site to then open the full website. 9. Make it special: To keep the customers coming back in store and reward your regular customers, include loyalty, promotions, latest products, and news. Link with social media in a seamless, integrated way that is user focused and addresses what your users are looking for. Quick tip: Not sure how much traffic is coming from mobile? Use Google analytics to quickly review where your traffic is coming from.  This feature originally appear in Inside Retail’s bimonthly magazine edition. For a special subscription offer click here. * Raeleen Kaesehagen is a member of The Executive Connection (TEC), an executive leadership organisation helping Australian businesses grow through better leadership. Through TEC, Kaesehagen saw an opportunity to fill the void between free but unbranded mobile website development options and purpose built programs afforded only by very large companies. She recently launched in2loyalty.com to meet this demand.