QR codes are everywhere . . . and you’ll be seeing more and more of them everyday. They are on business cards, magazine ads, signs, t-shirts . . . even tattoos!

What are QR codes?

A QR code is a two-dimensional barcode that is readable by smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices. It allows the encoding of over 4000 characters in a two dimensional barcode. QR codes may be used to display text to the user, to open a URL, save a contact to the user’s address book or to compose text messages.

To read QR codes, you require an appropriate “app” (software) installed on your device. These apps are now ubiquitous and, usually, free. (For example, among many, many more, for Android devices, there is “Barcode Scanner”. On iOS devices (iPhones, etc.) there are also many QR code readers available on the App Store, such as “i-nigma”. On Symbian devices, you can use “Mobiltag Barcodes Reader”, among others.

We recommend that you publish the QR code for your mobile site on all your marketing materials – brochures, signs, print ads, business cards. There are now companies making rubber wrist bands, imprinted with your QR code.

(If you’re interested in reading more about QR Codes, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code , however, there’s more information there than you need or will want to read).

For example, here is a QR code for this blog:

There are scammers out there who are charging customers to create QR codes for them. Don’t be suckered in. Generating your own QR code for free couldn’t be easier. Just click on the QR Code Generator tab above. You can embed your contact, text, SMS, URL, email, or phone information into a code.

A feature that we offer that I have not seen in other free code generators is the ability to select the foreground and background colors of your code.

QR codes are an essential tool, if your restaurant, hotel, bar, real estate company, or other business has a mobile website. (If your business doesn’t have mobile website, you can generate your own and have it hosted for only $10 per month at Elm Twig Mobile Site Generator.)

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