Google is preparing to launch a new service called GOMO to mobilize websites on demand. Access to the site is currently restricted with a password, but the header image depicts a smartphone and bears the caption, “Mobilize your site now.”
Mobile ads are an important revenue stream for Google, so much so that it offers a range of free tools to mobilize websites. Google has found that businesses lag behind on mobile content, and GOMO – based on its tag line – seems directed at solving that problem. Fusible discovered that Google had registered the domains howtogomo.com, howtogomo.net and howtogomo.org on September 1.
Currently, Google offers a limited service called Google Mobile Optimizer for crudely converting Web pages to stripped-down, temporary mobile views, but Google has a vested interest in building a more impressive, durable mobile site converter. It also offers a free mobile website builder for building mobile sites from scratch using a range of templates.
In addition to all these free services for mobilizing sites, Google is incentivizing good mobile content with its ad programs and even punishing sites that aren’t mobile-friendly. Google is rearranging its AdWords program to reward mobile-optimized sites and adding +1 buttons to mobile ads.
Despite the growing importance of the mobile Web, Google’s research is finding that consumers are way ahead of businesses in going mobile. But one business in that study increased its mobile business 12-fold after building a mobile site. The upcoming GOMO service, with its own branding and its insistent “now,” seems poised to address this problem.
Thanks again to Fusible for its incomparable scooping skills!
Do your favorite businesses offer mobile-optimized sites?
