I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “hey, I don’t have an online store — so I don’t need a mobile application. You’re thinking: “Listen, I run a bar — I’ve got 15 drunk regulars on weekdays and a restaurant full of even drunker college kids on weekends — I don’t need no stinkin’ app.” If that is what you’re thinking (and my anonymous-internet-mind-reading skills have been on the up-and-up as of late), you’re wrong. Here’s why.

It’s 2014, and the preferred means of surfing the web, navigating strange cities, finding restaurants, checking prices, booking movie tickets, locating knick-knacks, and “liking” anything whatsoever, is through smart phones. You need to consider that when people need whatever product or service you offer, they don’t open the yellow pages anymore — they go to Google. So what does that mean for you?

Well as you may or may not know, Google employs advanced mathematical algorithms based on a variety of criteria in order to determine the order of search results. Because of the ever-hastening speed of the Internet, people grow more and more impatient with each passing megabyte. Thus, people won’t go much further than the first page of search results before they expect to find what they’re looking for — and if they haven’t found it by that point, then they’re starting their search over with slightly different terms. The more your marketing strategy meets the criteria of the search algorithm, the higher you get in the results.

Firstly: your presence online needs to happen on social networks like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter — because the amount of likes, +1’s, retweets and followers you have will all influence where Google’s fancy-pants algorithm decides to rank you. But that’s not all — you need to have a website, and ideally some reviews on other websites. All these things (including the amount of times people link to your website or Facebook page) are going to play a part in determining your place on the list of “bars in Nantucket” or “ceramic angels Albuquerque.” Get it?

So what kind of app could you possibly need if you’re a brick-and-mortar establishment? You need the kind of app that is essentially a website: i.e. an HTML5 web app. It functions just like a normal desktop-style website, except it shrinks and grows depending on the size of your screen, and you can change a lot of the functionality to work with finger tapping and Skype calling — instead of mouse clicking, you can also use it as a way to get the word out on promotions, engage clients, and mold them into a community.

When you publish your catalogue, menu, and show-times, online to make it available to the average smartphone user, you’re setting yourself up for success. In the end, it all boils down to common sense: if you fail to meet your users where they choose to go, then you will fail to meet them at all. They go on the Internet, and they go there through their Smart Phones.

So regardless of what you sell or which service you offer, get yourself a website, weave yourself a strategic tapestry of social networks, and make an (albeit simple) app. In fact, we can do that for you.