The digital divide is steadily being bridged by cell phones.   According to Rick Joubert, founding chairman of the South African Mobile Marketing Association, South Africa has more than 10 million unique mobile Internet users per month, compared to just over 5 million unique desktop Internet users per month.  It is interesting to note that less than 30% of mobile Internet users have easy access to desktop Internet.

The reason for mobile Internet’s popularity is predominantly its accessibility and affordability.  Mobile web browsers, such as Opera Mini, have made it possible for users to view a compressed version of websites on their cell phones, and most new handsets are sold with Opera Mini preloaded.  This means faster Internet access and less data usage for mobile users, saving users time and money.

MXit reports over 14 million registered users and Vodacom’s Please Call Me messages reach on average 23 million unique South African users across all cellular networks on a monthly basis (source:  RickJoubert.com).  More and more cell phones with touch screens are being introduced, and an increasing number of handsets come standard with dedicated Internet push buttons.  Most South Africans access social network websites like Facebook.com via mobile Internet, as they are either blocked from social networking at work, or don’t have Internet access at home.

From April 2008 until April 2009, the number of South African mobile page views increased by 173.2%, and the number of unique mobile Internet users grew by 68.9%, according to Opera.com.

The top ten mobile websites accessed by South Africans are (April 2009):

1.    facebook.com
2.    google.com
3.    wikipedia.org
4.    yahoo.com
5.    my.opera.com
6.    zamob.com
7.    gmail.com
8.    gamejump.com
9.    waptrick.com
10.    peperonity.com

*Measured by the number of unique users

Source:  Opera.com

It was announced recently that cellular providers will cut prices in the near future and consumers will effectively pay ‘cost price’ for cellular services, which includes Internet usage. What does this mean for businesses?  Most importantly, they will need to ensure that their websites are compatible with mobile browsers and easy to navigate with a cell phone.  Whilst mobile website usability still requires much development, South African mobile Internet browsing is going to continue to grow, especially if the proposed price cuts take effect.

Nowadays, everything is instant.  Think about it:  instant messages, instant coffee, instant food.  Add the Internet to this mix, and you’ll find that most of us have an ‘I want it NOW’ mindset.  Information is easily accessible online, and if you can’t find it here, you will definitely find it there.  How often do you search for a key-phrase on Google, open pages that seem relevant, and then close them just as quickly until you find just one that provides the information you were looking for?

Finding information is what the Internet is primarily used for.  With billions of website competing against each other for attention, how can your website a) attract visitors, and b) make sure they stay on your site, by finding what they are looking for easily?

Certainly, one way to ensure quality traffic is through search engine optimisation (SEO), but SEO alone is not enough.  A website has to be developed well in order to ensure a rewarding browsing experience for visitors, and good SEO results for the site.

When developing a website, the most important thing to remember is:  don’t make your users think.  Tell them what you want them to do (i.e. “book here” or “request brochure”), and make sure your call-to-action buttons are clearly visible.

Keep in mind that Internet users rarely read content – they are more likely to scan through a page until they find what they are looking for.  Aim to make content clear and easy to read by bolding key-phrases and including links to relevant pages within your own website containing more information.

An additional key factor is a clear and simple navigation system.  Let your users know where they are on the website by using <H> (heading) tags and highlighting the particular page in the navigation pane.  A good idea is to include a search box on your website.  Tracking what users are searching for could give you an indication of what is missing on your website, or what information is not easily findable. It will also reveal what sort of information visitors would like to see.   What you think might be quite logical to find on the website might not be as easy for your visitors to source.  Consider testing the website on real users (even friends!), or make use of Google Analytics, which is a free tool that can help identify problem areas on your website.

Lastly, title and meta tags on each page are vital.  Title tags will not be seen by your visitors, but they contain keywords related to each page on your website and describe the page’s content to search engine spiders.  Meta tags are used by search engines as a search result description for your website, and hence play a big role in attracting visitors to your site

Good website development and design might not be the prettiest things to implement, but easy navigation, combined with high-quality content amongst other things, will ensure return visitors and higher ROI.

Facebook introduced a status tagging function on the 14th of September competing more directly with Twitter.  Since Facebook acquired Friendfeed they have been competing with Twitter more aggressively in certain areas.  Recently Facebook added real-time search to its functionality providing Facebook users with the option of searching through results of photos, videos, notes, links, groups and pages from the past 30 days related to their search query.

Unlike the Twitter “@” function you don’t have to remember the name of the person you want to tag as Facebook auto-suggest names in a drop-down box.  The status tagging is not limited to only friends and can also be used to tag groups, pages or events.  At this stage the status tagging functionality only works in your status updates and not when commenting on a friend’s status.  According to Facebook they ‘might’ consider adding the tagging functionality to other areas of Facebook.

To tag someone, enter the “@” symbol and type the name of the friend, page, group or event you want to tag.  The “@” symbol will disappear and the tagged name will remain with a link to the actual page you are tagging.  When you are tagged you will receive a notification and a post will appear on your wall linking back to the original page where you were tagged along with an option to remove the tag like Facebook photos.