We Changed Our Thinking on Website Design

Until now Yael and I would say emphatically that contact information should be on the right-hand sidebar of a website. In fact, we often did not recommend putting contact information on the ABOUT page.

But the widespread use of smartphones has dramatically changed the website design landscape.

Why?

Because that right-hand sidebar most likely does not show automatically when people look at a website from their mobile phone. Only the main area content shows.

Now we believe that the right-hand sidebar should only be used for duplicate information – information that appears elsewhere on the site – or information that is not high priority.

Because of this, Yael has been revising our site www.MollieSanders.com for the eBook publication this week of the novel LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. She has made layout changes in connection with our new layout design thinking.

The right-hand side of the site now contains duplicate info about buying the book because this info is now on the main content area of pages. And the contact info is on the AUTHORS page.

This is why we love WordPress websites so much. As things change on the Internet, we can easily revise our websites to reflect these changes.

And no matter what new online tools have become available, websites have to be periodically checked to make sure all the information is current.

Have you checked your own website recently to see if it is effective for the increasing use of smarthphone Internet access as well as ensuring all your information is current? If not, now is a good time to do so.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services at www.millermosaicllc.com/services/

Information about Phyllis' fiction books and ebooks is available on her Amazon author page at http://budurl.com/PZMAmazon