Create a Photo Gallery on Your Mobile Website

How to Add a Photo Gallery Page to Your Mobile Website

Squareberry's Mobile Management area allows you to add sleek photo galleries to your mobile website. Every photo gallery is optimized for mobile devices and is touch-friendly. Users will be able to swipe between photos and more on their mobile devices.

To start, you select "Photo Gallery" on the New Page screen. You will need to provide a name for the page and a menu icon to use. After adding these things, click "Create".

After you create the page you will see a "Photo On This Page" section. Here you will add new photos to your gallery page and reorder them to your liking. Click "Add Photo" to upload a new image to add to your gallery.

Images you have uploaded will then show up in the "Photos On This Page" section.

You can drag and drop the images you have added to change the order they display in your gallery. After reordering and uploading new images, make sure you click the "Save" button to save the changes you have made.

You can always come back, edit the page and add more images. You can redorder and add new images at anytime.

Reasons to Have a Photo Gallery

Many different organizations can utilize a photo gallery on their mobile website. It is always great to have a gallery showing off your location, parking, the front of your building etc. Things like this can help people more easily find your locations and get into your business.

It is also great to utilize photo galleries to show off your past events. You should take photos at every event or special promotion you have. Put these photos on your mobile website to show off how much fun people have at your events. Featuring media from past happenings can help boost attendance at your future happenings.

'Email Send' Mobile Page Type

Squareberry's Mobile management area offers a variety of page types to make building a mobile website easy and effective. The newest page type is called "Email Send" and it can be quite useful for many different organizations.

What it Does

The 'Email Send' page will do just that. It will send an email. It is essentially the same as creating a "mailto:" link in HTML. When an end user clicks this page on the menu it will call the default email program on their mobile device. The email subject and message you dictate will show up in their pre-composed message. This can be quite useful for getting people to share your site or information about organization.

Build Your 'Email Send' Page

First, create a new page in the mobile management area. Give your page a name and select 'Email Send' as the page type.

Next, select an icon for your page. In this example we have selected a heart since it is all about showing how much you love Maile's by sharing it with friends.

Then, it is time for the main content. You need to provide an email subject and the email body content. The subject would be something catchy that the end recipient will want to open and read. The person sharing your email will more than likely not change anything in the subject or message. They are more likely to add to it then alter it.

Save your page and you are ready to go.

The Result

Now, when someone selects this page on your mobile site, it will generate an email using the default mail app on their phone.

Make Your Mobile Website a Place to Come Back To

The key word in the title of this article is "back". Like your website, Facebook page and your actual business location, you want people to come BACK. One visit is good, but repeat visits is what you are looking for. Your mobile website needs to be an ever-updating hub of happenings, news and fresh content. Tell people to use it and keep them coming back.

Events and Promotions

For many businesses, special events and coupon promotions are what draw people in. Your mobile website should serve as the ideal location for people to find this information. Create calendar pages on your mobile site to show off your upcoming events and promotions. People, who are out and about, will be drawn in by your happenings.

Mobile News Source

News pages are a great way to keep your mobile website fresh. With Squareberry, you can feed in RSS (such as a blog) or publish your Twitter feed. These options give your mobile website fresh news content without the need to login and update the news page. Your mobile website keeps updated via your existing main news publishing tools.

Keep It Updated

The most important thing to do is keep your mobile website updated with fresh content. Squareberry's calendars will automatically hide past events/promotions, but page content needs to be maintained (if applicable). Don't leave a message about New Year's on your home page until March. Out of date content can turn off potential customers who will think nothing has changed at your business.

If you are a restaurant, keep your current menu updated/available on your mobile website. Squareberry offers an intuitive Menu/Catalog page type which allows you to easily create and update a full menu of items.

Tell People It Is the Place to Come Back To

Signs on your door and/or tables can go a long way. You are probably already featuring Facebook on your collateral, do the same with your mobile website. Tell people they can easily see what's going on, gets news and find promotions on your mobile site. Spreading the word helps get them on your mobile site. Fresh content, news and events/promotions keep them coming back.

Mobile Web Tips For Businesses With Several Locations

Many small businesses and restaurants have the opportunity to open additional locations. Often times, multi-location businesses have a cohesive marketing strategy for their brand while allowing each location to host their own events and even their own promotions. But, it is unlikely that each location would have its own website. A single website for all locations is much more common and generally a more efficient and effective option.

Show Off Your Locations

Use Info Pages

Squareberry's mobile management offers a "Location" page type which allows you to simply show off locations and provide directions etc. But, utilizing the "Info/About" page type allows you to provide more details, links, images, text and more.

On your mobile website, you can create an Info/About page for each location your business has. Each of these pages can feature a phone call button, location, links to social media pages and a general content area where you can add text/images about that specific location.

Use Sub-Menus

If you have a lot of information, photos, videos and more about each location you can utilize sub-menus on your mobile website. Simply add a sub-menu for each location and then add an assortment of pages to each location's sub-menu. This means you can have an Info page, Contact page, Video page etc. for each location. Your mobile website visitors can select the sub-menu of whatever location they are interested in and find a plethora of information and media options about that location.

Events and Promotions

Your upcoming events and coupon promotions are an essential aspect of your marketing. The flexibility of Squareberry's Mobile Management Area allows you to lay them out in a variety of ways. Events and promotions can be featured on your mobile website in a variety of ways.

You can add a Calendar Page for each location featuring only categories of events and promotions relavant to that location. Alternatively, you can use topical calendar pages with certain categories that include events from all locations. This option helps in cross-promoting events from location to location.

The best solution always depends on your business and your customers. Make it easy for people to find your events and promotions while still communicating newly scheduled happenings and cross-promoting your locations.

Send Customers to Mobile Pages with QR Codes

The Mobile Management Area allows you to create mobile websites for your organization. Each page you create for your mobile site can be linked to directly using a QR code. QR codes allow people to easily and quickly reach your web page by scanning the code with their mobile device.

Utilizing QR Codes to Boost Your Mobile Brand

At the top right corner of the edit screen for each mobile page is a button "Link & QR Code to This Page". Click on this button to get a QR Code for the page you are currently editing. You can easily download the QR Code at that time.

Calendar Pages

Calendar pages are always great to utilize. Add a QR Code to your restaurant menu, in a local publication or on a mail-out. You can quickly send people to your events/promotions page on your mobile site to help draw them in to your location. Calendar pages help you carry people from printed material to mobile-friendly site, from mobile site to real world events and promotions.

Contact Forms

Your printed advertisement, brochure or mail-out can quickly be given an easy call-to-action by utilizing a contact form. Add a QR code on your printed material that links to your contact form. This allows anyone who sees your ad or brochure to instantly contact you via contact form/email. This can help generate leads, generate sales and get registrations.

Photo Galleries

QR Codes are perfect for enhancing printed materials. Local newspapers, magazines and publications can utilize mobile photo galleries and QR Codes to take their printed items to another level.

Start by creating a photo gallery page type. Upload photos related to the article or topic you are covering in the publication. The QR code can then be placed on your printed publication next to relevant information/articles. Now, people reading your publication can easily scan the QR Code and get a touch-friendly photo gallery on their mobile device to enhance their reading experience.

Adding Interactive Polls to Your Mobile Website

Listen&Count Polls

Listen&Count allows to to create interactive polls to ask questions, gather feedback and make your social/mobile marketing more interactive. With Listen&Count you specify keywords that will be tracked on Twitter, SMS and/or a Website Poll Widget. Any responses with one or more of these keywords are counted and tracked in your account.

Adding a Listen&Count Page

Start in the Mobile Content area, click "Add Page", and then "Create New Page". Select the "Listen&Count Poll" page type. You can name the page and change the menu icon, like any other mobile page type. For Listen&Count Poll pages, you have two options: "Use Current/Latest Listen&Count Poll" or "Use a Specific Listen&Count Poll".

The first option uses the current/latest Listen&Count Poll that you have created. This means, the page on your mobile website will automatically update to show new/fresh Listen&Count polls that you create. If you create polls that have an End Date, they will no longer display on your page after reaching the end date. A newer poll with a later end date will then replace it. If you have no dated poll created, it will then display the most recently created poll with no date range.

Selecting this option allows you to create pages like "Weekly Poll" or "Latest Poll' which will automatically update to show new polls you are creating in your account. There is no need to keep coming back to the Mobile Management Area, you can easily create new polls and they will automatically be displayed on your mobile site.

Use a Specific Listen&Count Poll

If you select the second option, a drop down appears allowing you to select any of your existing polls to display. The selected poll will show up from that point on and will continue to display until you change it. This setting is useful for permanent/ongoing polls with no end date, or polls you want to display for a long time without being replace by other polls.

Restaurant Menus on Mobile Websites

The Catalog/Menu page type in the Mobile Management area is perfect for building restaurant menus. This page type allows you to add items and organize them using "spacers".

Add Spacers

A "Spacer" is a simple displayed title that can be used to organize your menu. A common use for this is to organize your menu by food types: "Soups" "Salads" etc. Below each spacer you can add items (the actual menu items).

Add Items

Items are your actual menu items. This would be a specific soup, sandwich or salad that people will order. Items have 3 fields. First you add a name and then a price. The 3rd field is a content area where you can add a description, insert a photo or even add a video.

Menus Are Essential

One of the main reasons web users visit restaurant websites is to view the menu. They want to see what you have and find out how much it will cost them. Many people are unlikely to go to a restaurant with no idea what the food is like. Having some kind of menu, be it a sample or a full menu is essential to bringing in customers.

Best of the Year (part 2)

We are on week closer to the end of the year. Last week we looked at Part 1 of our favorite posts of the year. This week we are looking at Part 2 of the best tutorials and our favorite marketing ideas from this year.

Event & Promotion Automated Social Publishing

Automated reminders about your upcoming events and promotions are sent based on the settings you dictate in categories. This means Squareberry is automatically publishing messages to your social media accounts about the happenings you have scheduled in your Squareberry account.

Read the Full Post >

Boost Your Weekend Sales

Weekends rule for a lot of reasons. Football games. Free days. Alarm clocks are turned off. Sunday brunches. For many local businesses, weekends are the busiest time. Restaurants and bars see a huge influx on weekend nights and many retails stores are busiest on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons.

Read the Full Post >

Recapping Our Understanding Series

We ran a whole series if articles on understanding different aspects of your account. If you missed any of these articles we encourage you to take the time to read them. Understanding all aspects of your Squareberry account is important to getting the most out of the mobile & social marketing tools.

Read the Full Post >

Gift Cards During the Holidays

Gift cards are a great alternative gift and have become more and more popular over the years. If you are not selling gift cards or promoting your gift cards, you are missing out on a potentially huge market.

Read the Full Post >

There will be no Tuesday Tip the next two weeks due to Christmas and New Year's holidays. We will see you in 2014. Happy Holidays to all!.

Best of the Year (part 1)

2013 is coming to a close. This week we start a two part series of looking back at the best Tuesday Tips of the year. If you missed any of these great posts, now is the time to check them out. Can you believe this year is already ending? 2014, here we come!

Restaurant Promotions That Bring Groups

Instead of offering a 25% off coupon for lunch, try a 50% Off One Lunch Entree When You Buy Another or Buy Two Lunch Entrees Get One Free. These small changes mean two people are buying entrees (and hopefully more) for lunch instead of just one person.

Read the Full Post >

Mobile Website Tips for Multi-Location Businesses

Often times, multi-location businesses have a cohesive marketing strategy for their brand while allowing each location to host their own events and even their own promotions. But, it is unlikely that each location would have its own website. A single website for all locations is much more common and generally a more efficient and effective option.

Read the Full Post >

Consider the Wording in Your Scheduled Social Messages

Even when scheduling messages in advance you can include details in your posts. For example if you are having a live music night, you can send out messages with details of the band. Instead of a generic tweet like “Live Music Night is going great.” you can offer some details such as “John from ‘Grey Cycle’ is truly rocking it tonight! Get here soon to see the rest of their set!”

Read the Full Post >

Mobile Website Management Guide

Using these templates, you can create sleek and dynamic mobile websites for any organization. We have now compiled the various posts about mobile website management to create a complete mobile website management guide.

Read the Full Post >

Make Your Mobile Website Interactive

Squareberry gives you the power to broadcast your events and coupon promotions across a wide range of media. Your special happenings are sent on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, SMS, web calendars and on your mobile website. But beyond your events and promotions, it is important to make your mobile website interactive.

Interactive Mobile Website Pages

Adding interactive pages makes your website more functional, giving it a purpose being simply providing static information. Interactive elements can include forms, sharing features and polls, all of which can be done with page types featured in the Mobile Management area of Squareberry.

The "Listen&Count Poll" page type allows you to add an interactive polls to your mobile site. You can add any of the specific Listen&Count polls you have created or set the page to always use the most recently created poll.

The "Email Send" page type allows you to create a menu option that allows users to quickly send an email, sharing information you dictate. This allows you to create a "Share" feature for mobile site visitors to send your site or other information to a friend using the native email functions on their mobile device.

The "Contact Page" page type allows you to utilize a simple contact form and phone call button. This can be used as a contact page, as an online ordering page or anything else you come up with. Not only is this an interactive element on your site, it gets site visitors interacting directly with your and your organization.

Media on your Mobile Site

Rich media, while not fully interactive, is much more engaging than just using text. Add videos and photos throughout your mobile site to better engage your audience. You can also take advantage of the Photo Gallery mobile page type to add touch-friendly photo galleries.

Create a Media Section on Your Mobile Site

You may be interested in creating an entire media section on your mobile website, rather than simply having a single media page. Rich media such as photos and videos are engaging and help keep people on your mobile site. This post will walk you through the easy steps of creating a "media section" on your mobile website in the mobile management area of Squareberry.

Start With a Sub-Menu

The first thing you need is a sub-menu. On the Mobile Content tab select the "Add Page/Sub-Menu" button. Then select "Add Sub-Menu on the popup. This will take you to the Add Sub-Menu screen.

On the add Sub-Menu screen, provide a name for your sub-menu. This will essentially be the name of your media section. You could call it "Media", "Photos & Videos" or anything else you want. Once you create this, it will be added to the menu structure of your mobile site. You will see the sub-menu on your Mobile Content.

Add Media Pages

Now you need to add media pages to the sub-menu you just created. On the Mobile Content tab, click on the sub menu you just created. This will take you to that sub-menu. Click the "Add Page/Sub-Menu" button to add a page to the sub-menu, which means you are adding a page to your "media section".

Squareberry's Mobile Management area has several page types which can be used in this scenario, including Photo Gallery and YouTube Video. Photo Galleries allow you to quickly upload multiple photos to easily make a touch-friendly photo gallery. YouTube Video pages simply show a YouTube video for quick and easy play.

Alternatively, you can use the Custom page type to add any combination of photos, graphics and videos you want. These pages will all be added to the sub-menu you created, effectively building a mobile media center.

Add a Photo Gallery to Your Mobile Website

How to Add a Photo Gallery Page to Your Mobile Website

Squareberry's Mobile Management area allows you to add sleek photo galleries to your mobile website. Every photo gallery is optimized for mobile devices and is touch-friendly. Users will be able to swipe between photos and more on their mobile devices.

To start, you select "Photo Gallery" on the New Page screen. You will need to provide a name for the page and a menu icon to use. After adding these things, click "Create".

After you create the page you will see a "Photo On This Page" section. Here you will add new photos to your gallery page and reorder them to your liking. Click "Add Photo" to upload a new image to add to your gallery.

Images you have uploaded will then show up in the "Photos On This Page" section.

You can drag and drop the images you have added to change the order they display in your gallery. After reordering and uploading new images, make sure you click the "Save" button to save the changes you have made.

You can always come back, edit the page and add more images. You can redorder and add new images at anytime.

Reasons to Have a Photo Gallery

Many different organizations can utilize a photo gallery on their mobile website. It is always great to have a gallery showing off your location, parking, the front of your building etc. Things like this can help people more easily find your locations and get into your business.

It is also great to utilize photo galleries to show off your past events. You should take photos at every event or special promotion you have. Put these photos on your mobile website to show off how much fun people have at your events. Featuring media from past happenings can help boost attendance at your future happenings.

Using the Catalog Page Type in the Mobile Management Area

Catalog/Menu Mobile Pages

One of our favorite page types in the Mobile Management Area is the Catalog/Menu page type. With this page type you can add a stylized menu or list of items. Each item has its own detail page with any type of content. The most popular use of this page type is for restaurant menus, but it can easily be used in other ways.

How to Use the Catalog/Menu Page Type

To start, you select "Catalog/Menu" on the New Page screen. You will need to provide a name for the page and a menu icon to use. After adding these things, click "Create".

Now, the page is saved and you can get started with adding content. There are two types of content you can add: "Item" and "Spacer/Title". A Spacer/Title is a display only element which has a different appearance than items and can be used for categorizing items on your menu, or as a heading.

Items are the main function in this page type. Each Item has a name, a "price" and content. You can add text, add images, embed videos and more in the content area. The Item name displays on the menu page. When a user selects that item they are taken to that item's page where the content details are shown and the "price" is shown in the top right corner.

Click Here to See an Example >

Alternative Uses

Though this page type is ideal for restaurant menus and retail catalogs, it is not limited to these uses. For example, the 'Price" field is labeled as such, but the word "Price" does not appear anywhere on the front-end mobile website. You can easily use this field for any other type of label.

A great example of an alternative use is to use this page type for a staff page. Each member of your staff would be added as an item with their job title in place of a "price". You can use the Spacers to categorize your staff into groups.

Another great example is to use it as a portfolio. If you offer professional services, you can use spacers to divide things into service categories. Items will be used for each example of services you have offered, be it a case study, customer testimonial, visual examples etc.

The Catalog/Menu page type if powerful and flexible. It allows you to quickly and easily create an organized and effected area of your mobile website. It has a variety of uses and possibilities.

Using the News Page Type in the Mobile Management Area

The Mobile Management Area in Squareberry allows you to create dynamic pages for your mobile website in a variety of ways with different page types. One of these page types is the "News - RSS/Tweets" page type. Using this, you can easily add fresh content to your mobile site that is constantly updating without you having to go in and update it.

Creating a News Page for Your Mobile Website

Start by going to the Mobile Management Area and clicking the "Add Page/Sub-Menu" button at the top of the Mobile Content area. Then click "Create New Page". On the New Page screen, select the News page type from the drop down, give your page a name and select a menu icon. There are two options for a News Source: Show recent Tweets or Show Recent RSS Posts. If you want to show Tweets, you will be asked to provide a Twitter ID. Recent Tweets from this ID will be pulled and shown on your News page. If you want to use an RSS feed, you will need to provide a direct URL to the RSS feed online. Recent RSS feed posts will be displayed on your News page.

Not Just Your News

The most common reason to implement a News page is to share your brand's news and updates. This means your blog's RSS feed or your Twitter account's Tweets. But, a News page can be used to share other people's news to further enhance your mobile website. For example, if your have an organization that offers professional services of some kind, you can create a full "News" section on your mobile site and pull in various sources. Here is how you would do this:

• 1 - Create a Sub-Menu called "News"
• 2 - Identify Twitter/RSS news sources that offer tips, ideas, updates and information about the type or services you offer or your industry.
• 3 - On the Sub-Menu, create a "News" page as discussed above. Use one of the sources you identified and name the page accordingly.
• 4 - Repeat step 3 with more news sources until you have a nice assortment of news pages.
• 5 - Review and look at what you have created. Make sure all the news sources are working and showing up on your mobile website.

With the steps above, you can create an entire News section of your mobile website. This can help take your site to the next level. It will be a resource and a destination for information. It will also help boost your brand and help your organization appear stronger and more in-tune with your industry.

Use Listen&Count for Customer Feedback on Social Media

Ask Questions on Social Media

Social media is not a one way channel. To fully utilize the power of social media, you need to start conversations. Conversations help you get people talking about your organization and allows you to receive feedback from them. One of the best ways to do this is by asking questions. Questions encourage your followers to respond, and asking questions on social media is easy, fast and monetarily ideal.

With Squareberry, you can easily schedule social media messages in advance to ask questions and get feedback. With the social conversation area, you can monitor and manage replies and comments that people make in a centralized social inbox. This makes viewing and responding to your followers' comments fast and easy. But, you may also want to track what kind of responses you are getting. The new Listen&Count polling system allows you to do this.

Track Descriptive Words to Measure Response

Listen&Count is flexible enough to allow you to track any keyword mentions, regardless of the context. Because of this, you can use it to gauge the opinions of your followers and see how people choose to describe your organization, services or products.

For example, if you have a restaurant, you can create a new Listen&Count poll and add keywords like "Great", "Good", "Okay", "Delicious", "Tasty", "Perfect", "Pretty Good" etc. Then, over the course of a few weeks or a month, you can schedule various messages asking about different food items you offer on Twitter. Your followers/customers will respond with answers to your questions and you can track how many positive and mediocre responses you get based on the keywords mentioned by your followers.

In person surveys or long forms are no longer ideal and take too much time. With social media and Listen&Count Polls keyword tracking, you can easily gather and monitor customer feedback.

New Features - Interactive Polling Features

Run Interactive Polls with 'Listen&Count'

The Squareberry Team is very happy to announce the launch of Listen&Count Polling Features! With Listen&Count you can run interactive polling campaigns and track keyword responses mentioned by your followers.

Listen&Count Polling Features Include:

• Create Polls, Add Keywords & Alias Terms to Listen for & Track
• Get Responses on Twitter, SMS*, Website Polls & Mobile Pages
• View Results Charts on Your Account Dashboard
• Embed Charts as Widgets on Your Website to Show Off Results

Listen&Count Polling Features Availability
Listen&Count polls are available in all paid account types and marketer solutions. At this time, the Listen&Count area and features are not available in the free version of Squareberry.

If you currently have the Free version of Squareberry but want to try the new Listen&Count Polling features, email us at squareberry@squareberry.com and we will get you started with a free trial!

*SMS Polls - To gather and track responses to a Listen&Count Poll on SMS text messaging you need to have an active Twilio connection for sending SMS. Tracking responses to Listen&Count polls on SMS only works in accounts connected to Twilio and using SMS. Twilio connection is only available in Mobile + Social accounts.

Make Your Mobile Presence a Helpful Tool for Your Customers

There are so many companies, mobile websites, mobile apps, online tools and resources out there. When you are competing in a cluttered market, you need your presence to stand out as much as possible. Your mobile presence should be a useful resource and tool for your followers and customers.

Provide Helpful and Informative Mobile Content

The easiest way to make your mobile presence a resource is by feeding in useful and relative information. Squareberry offers a "News" page type in the mobile management area that allows you to stream in a Twitter user's tweets or RSS feed. Using this, you can instantly make your mobile website/app a source of valuable news and information.

Instead of one large RSS feed or a single News page, you can break things up into more detailed pages to offer a more comprehensive experience. Start by adding a Sub Menu to your mobile content. You can call it "News", "Resources" or whatever else works for you. Then, add News pages to this sub-menu, each with a different source. For example, if you are a financial consulting company, you can have news pages for Stock Market, Retirement, Investment, Financial News, etc. You can grab a different RSS feed for each of these topics and create a more extensive news sections of your mobile presence.

Quick Mobile Tools

It is easy to add elements to make your mobile website a useful tool. A financial firm can add or link to mobile financial calculators, provide tools for quick quotes etc. A restaurant can have a simple form for placing an order for pick-up.

The more useful your mobile presence is to your customers and followers, the more likely they are to keep coming back and utilizing your mobile presence. This keeps your organization at top of mind. When your organization becomes a useful resource and tool, you are associated with and instantly thought of when the topic, type or need or geographic area is on the mind of the customer.

Making Your Mobile Website a Place to Come Back To

The key word in the title of this article is "back". Like your website, Facebook page and your actual business location, you want people to come BACK. One visit is good, but repeat visits is what you are looking for. Your mobile website needs to be an ever-updating hub of happenings, news and fresh content. Tell people to use it and keep them coming back.

Events and Promotions

For many businesses, special events and coupon promotions are what draw people in. Your mobile website should serve as the ideal location for people to find this information. Create calendar pages on your mobile site to show off your upcoming events and promotions. People, who are out and about, will be drawn in by your happenings.

Mobile News Source

News pages are a great way to keep your mobile website fresh. With Squareberry, you can feed in RSS (such as a blog) or publish your Twitter feed. These options give your mobile website fresh news content without the need to login and update the news page. Your mobile website keeps updated via your existing main news publishing tools.

Keep It Updated

The most important thing to do is keep your mobile website updated with fresh content. Squareberry's calendars will automatically hide past events/promotions, but page content needs to be maintained (if applicable). Don't leave a message about New Year's on your home page until March. Out of date content can turn off potential customers who will think nothing has changed at your business.

If you are a restaurant, keep your current menu updated/available on your mobile website. Squareberry offers an intuitive Menu/Catalog page type which allows you to easily create and update a full menu of items.

Tell People It Is the Place to Come Back To

Signs on your door and/or tables can go a long way. You are probably already featuring Facebook on your collateral, do the same with your mobile website. Tell people they can easily see what's going on, gets news and find promotions on your mobile site. Spreading the word helps get them on your mobile site. Fresh content, news and events/promotions keep them coming back.

Mobile Website Page Type Alternative Uses

Mobile Website Management

For this week's tip, we will take a look at the various page types in the Mobile Management Area of the Squareberry platform. Many of these page types are straightforward, but have alternate uses you may not have thought of previously. Let's take a look.

Mobile Website CMS Page Types

Mobile Menu/Catalog Page

This page type allows you to create a catalog of items or a restaurant menu. But, it could also easily be used to create a staff page. Each staff member could be added as an item and even be organized using the spacers. This is the perfect example of using a page type for an alternative and useful function.

Mobile Website Contact Page

A contact page's function can change by simply changing the name of the page. If you are a restaurant and you make a Contact Page called "Order Now", it instantly becomes an order page. Simply have the contact info be sent to an email inbox that takes orders.

Mobile Calendar Page

This page type shows upcoming events and promotions from the categories you select. But, try making it more specific. You could make a calendar page called "Daily Deals" and have one category called "Daily Promotions". Then you can schedule a single promotion for each day.

Mobile Info Page

The Info page type can also be used as an interesting "Contact" page. While it does not have a contact form, it offers a phone call button, links to social media sites, location features and a content area for adding any text and media you want. This page type can easily be used as your page for providing contact info to mobile site viewers.

Think Outside the Box

Management systems always have specific functions and features. Thinking outside the "standard" use case is a great way to make interesting and effective content. The above examples are just a few ways you can use a mobile website page type for an alternative function.

Mobile Website Sub Menus

Sub-Menus are pretty much what they sound like. Instead of having all your pages on one large menu, you can have lower levels of navigation that allow users to move through your site in organized areas. Sub-Menus on a mobile website can be equated to a drop down on the main menu of a standard website.

Utilizing sub-menus on your mobile site can improve navigation and increase the time people spend on your site. Sub-Menus can be used strategically in a few specific areas. Here are some tips for utilizing sub-menus on your mobile website.

Restaurant Menus and Product Catalogs

This is a great place to use sub-menus. Instead of plopping your entire catalog of items or your entire restaurant menu on one large page, you can use sub-menus to break it up and organize. For instance, a restaurant could make a sub menu with 3 pages: "Breakfast", "Lunch", and "Dinner" - each of which are their own distinct page outlining the food items for that meal. The sub-menu in this situation divides the content in an organized way, so you do not have too much on one page.

A retail store with a plethora of items could implement this same strategy to break up their catalog into departments or types of products. The degree of specificity you take it to is up to you. You could have 4 levels deep of sub-menus to clearly organize everything, or keep it simple with a 2 level structure.

Photo Galleries and Media

You can also organize media on your mobile website with sub-menus. The simplest way to break this up is by media type. For instance on your main menu you have "Media" which opens a sub-menu. This sub-menu then has "Videos", "Photos" and 'Audio Clips". Each of these pages feature media of that certain type.

You can also break your media up more categorically. Let's say you are a non-profit organization who does a variety of activities. You could have a sub-menu called "Media" and a photo gallery on that sub-menu called "Building Projects". In this gallery you feature images of various building projects. You could have more galleries, all featuring images of their own distinct activity type.

Mobile Website Sub-Menus

No two organizations are the same. No two mobile websites are exactly the same. It is important to figure out what works best for your mobile site. Sub-Menus can be very useful, but be sure to not overcomplicate your mobile website or make your navigation so complicated that users get lost.