Mobile web traffic is exploding – if you are not aware of it, your website is probably already getting 5-10% of its traffic from mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.). How should you respond to this sea-change in the way your customers access your site?

I’ll be co-presenting on this topic with Tom Allebach (sitecats.com) at the Penn Suburban Chamber’s annual “Small Business University” event, February 1, 2013.

View SBU Flyer

Learn about the major web strategies for accomodating mobile visitors – including apps, “responsive design” and others. While preparing for this presentation, I was inspired to convert my website to a responsive design. It now renders reasonably well on all types of devices, without requiring multiple templates.

If you cannot attend this event, contact me and I’ll gladly discuss mobile strategies with you in relation to your business.

I just launched a revamped website, using a responsive-design template. What is that, you ask? Well, it means that the site should display well on any device – from a 20″ desktop monitor, to a smartphone screen. I believe many sites will go to this type of design going forward.

To see it in action, you can just take your browser and shrink it – squeeze it vertically, and see how the content shifts. Or load it in your tablet or smartphone. There are still some glitches to work out with the content / styling, but overall, I like the responsive capabilities.

I recently upgraded 2 clients to 4.3.5 – both went pretty well, with minor glitches to work out. The 4.3.5 version may be the final release before the big upgrade to 5.0, which is a complete rewrite. I expect that transition to be a challenging one for most stores, so they may hang out on 4.x for a while.

Many hosting providers are starting to push users to php 5.4, as support for 5.2 and earlier is dropped. 1&1, for instance, is giving customers until April to switch (they are forced to switch in April). For many applications, 5.4 will not be a big issue, but some functions are removed in 5.4, so you should test your applications in advance, if you can.