The rise of smartphones gave way to the rise of mobile SEO. With smartphones packed with impressive hardware and software, it is easy to see why consumers prefer doing mobile searches on their HTC, Android, iPhone, and Blackberry phones. Equipped with minimum requirements of 1Ghz processors, 4G connections, and browsers that can do Flash and JavaScript applications, mobile search may well be the next step to successful SEO campaigns.
With recent studies revealing mobile searches accounting for 10-15% of total searches, with Google dominating the lead with 97% of all mobile searches, a surprising increase of 130% has occurred in mobile searches in the third quarter of 2010 alone. Don’t be surprised if this rate increases in 2011 as telecommunication companies continue to improve the technical specifications of smartphones.
Now that consumers use their mobile phones to ask and have questions answered, research reviews on goods and services, and search for deals and products, what does this imply in terms of SEO efforts for businesses? Jill Kocher of Practical Ecommerce poses two questions for SEO practitioners: Do your websites appear in mobile organic search and what experience do consumers have when visiting your site?
First, it is important to know that doing mobile SEO is no different than traditional forms of SEO. The site has to offer a web design that crawlers can find, containing content copy writing that has relevant keywords which mobile users are looking for, as well as outbound links that can vouch for its relevance and credibility. With the advent of mobile SEO, even search engines have mobile versions too.
Do all businesses need a mobile site? While big companies will greatly benefit from doing SEO, the question is rather more pressing for small and local business owners. Is the cost of expanding SEO campaigns to do mobile searches worth it to gain an increase in online sales? The best way to answer this question is by analyzing visitor and traffic data. Conversion rates in mobile searches are drastically lower, which can be caused by how the visitors use the site. Though in general, mobile users are not really a large part of the audience, setting up a mobile website that is SEO-capable actually depends greatly on the goal of each business.
Stay tuned as we finish this 2-part series on the rising usage of mobile users and how important is it to have a mobile-friendly site for your business.
