The 2011 holiday season is shaping up to be the year of m-commerce. For retailers that don’t already have a website optimized for mobile, all is not lost – there are ways to get a site ready in time for the holiday onslaught.

These are tips that are applicable to any company – not just merchants expecting to make a sale via the web. Increasingly, web traffic is shifting to the mobile arena and customers expect to be able to access a site via their devices as easily as they can from the desktop.

Before you start, make sure your company can be located on such sites as Google Maps, FourSquare and Gowalla. Don't limit your efforts to such well known names as Yelp or TripAdvisor - keep an eye on local sites that cover reviews in your industry and target those as well.

Then, as you optimize your site, remember to:

• Limit the use of "heavy" content - Flash or long-to-download videos - for mobile users.

• Include phone numbers, email and SMS contact information in easy-to-find places on your mobile website.

• Check the final product on a mobile emulator to make sure it renders on all devices. Some to try include the Android SDK and the Opera Mini Emulator.

• Optimize ad campaigns to make sure they perform well on mobile devices. If your site is mobile, you will likely be advertising on other mobile sites as well. Not all ad campaigns perform well on optimized mobile sites.

For example, toy company Lego recently ran a mobile banner ad campaign in the Singapore market that experimented with two separate landing pages: a 30-second video running on Google’s mobile ad network and a mobile-optimized website. It was the former that appeared to perform better, Mobile Marketer reported, with the company noting a 1.3% CTR. Lego saw a 1% CTR for the mobile site.

Some 10.65% of users clicked to be taken to other pages when prompted to learn more about the products on the ad, Mobile Marketer also reported. In addition, viewers watched the 30-second video clip for an average of 23 seconds.

• Consider that you might want to optimize for a touch screen.  Retailers whose customer tend to use touchscreens the most, should consider a web site optimized specifically for mobile touchscreens - a process that calls for finger-friendly layouts and lightweight pages that are fast to load over cellular networks, Taptu said in report called "The State of Mobile Touch Web."

Something to consider, it said: shopping and services sites are more likely to develop a mobile touch website (20% compared to 3.6%). Conversely, content in the app store trends towards games (18% versus 0.9%) versus the mobile touch web. So, if you offer a specific service or experience, your customers might already be trained to expect an app or mobile touch friendly website.

Taptu also noted that mobile touch web sites run under any mobile browser built on open source Webkit components. "With support for HTML 5 features already being rolled out in these browsers, it's getting easier and easier to create rich touch screen user experiences with the browser without having to create platform-specific apps."

• Market it. Finally, let the world know you have a mobile website now, writes Sidney Angelos at All Things CRM. "In order to get closer to securing more sales as a result of ones investment in an optimized mobile website, a marketing campaign should accompany the site’s development."

Suggestions include using social media, including a link in email marketing messages and more traditional methods such as press releases.