New research shows that a good mobile Web site will extend the reach of your standard Web site (and brand) by as much as 13%. Maybe this thing called the "mobile Web" could be useful after all.

The results come from Nielsen. It says that mobile Internet extends the audience reach of many leading Internet sites by an average of 13% over home PC traffic alone. For some categories, such as weather and entertainment, the extended reach can be even greater. Nielsen's data shows that for many Internet publishers, mobile Internet increases the overall size of their audience.

This makes perfect sense. Half of the bookmarks in my mobile phones are for sites that I never visit on my regular PC. I am helping boost the overall traffic to those sites from my mobile phone alone. According to Nielsen, 87 million U.S. mobile users subscribe to mobile Internet services, and more than one in 10 mobile subscribers (13.7%) actively uses mobile Internet each month.

"The data demonstrate that the mobile Internet can not only increase the frequency of visits to a Web site, but also grow the overall size of the pie," said Jeff Herrmann, VP of mobile media at Nielsen Mobile, in a prepared statement. "Publishers can now monetize their total cross-platform audience, and advertisers will better understand the efficiency and incremental value of mobile Web traffic."

This should be a great motivator for Web site publishers to make better mobile versions of their sites. Mobile sites that are useful and to the point and help users accomplish goals rather than surf aimlessly can boost your traffic.