Mobile browsing has been bubbling away in the back ground for some time. There is no doubt the smart phone revolution is bearing down on us. Long gone are the days of phones merely calling and messaging, as their functionality has grown, as have our needs as users. With 4 billion mobile users worldwide, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the opportunity for growth in mobile SEO is massive.

Mobile browsing is going to present some small local businesses with great opportunities, and maybe take us back to the importance of customer service and brand management. Users are going to be looking for real time location based searches and with the recent unveiling of Google Hot Pot and its “location based recommendation engine” it all adds a whole new dynamic to mobile browsing.

Big businesses are already capitalising on mobile browsing through the use of “apps” Auto Trader,
Ebay, Facebook to name a few. I recently read Jelly Beans identified they were losing sales through mobile browsing and have adapted their site to suit mobile users, leading to an increase in sales through that avenue.

Mobile SEO is not going to suit all businesses but personally I can see small local businesses thriving in the long term, restaurants, taxi firms, locksmiths, emergency services such as plumbers and electricians could easily do well by adapting their sites to take advantage of mobile SEO.

It’s something worth pondering…

It is estimated that around 40 million Brits have a mobile phone, this roughly equates to 85% of the UK’s population. The developments in mobile technology has given mobile users the opportunity to browse and buy online through their mobile. I can’t imagine how many hours are whittled away by weekday commuters browsing the net, keeping up to date with the latest news, and catching up with friends through social networking sites.

We are now at the stage where not only does your website need to be search engine friendly, but its also time to think about ensuring it is compatible with mobile searches.

Traditional search results are much more comprehensive than those for mobile search, and different mobiles will deliver different results. To ensure your site does well in mobile search it is important to implement traditional SEO techniques:

• High quality W3c compliant website coding with small file sizes.
• Improve your page loading speed, as mobile browsing tends to be much slower than on a PC, and high bounce rates will effect your listing.
• WPTouch is a free plug in and will reformat your WP blog/website for mobile browsing.
• Create a style sheet specifically for mobile browsing (I am not a designer so that is far as I can help with that one).
• Create a mobile sitemap and add it to your Robots.txt along with your websites sitemap.

When adapting your website for mobile phones you need to consider the limited area you have and choose carefully what you want to display, copy should be short and concise, bare in mind the mentality of a mobile searcher they want no thrills information and they want it quickly. It will be interesting to watch mobile search develop, with real time information and an increasing amount of local search results, including the integration of click to call numbers on mobile listings it is all going to add a new dimension to how we approach SEO.

Over at WebProNews they have reported that there is a ’70% chance’ that Apple will build a search engine in the next 5 years. The article goes on to say that Apple will be in a unique position to utilise data harvested from it’s App Store to create a mobile search engine. Interesting stuff methinks…

I am beginning to realise that the next big change (well it’s already happening, perhaps acceleration is a more apt word?) in SEO will be the mobile market. This is definitely the way forward for SEO, there is a whole new market emerging that is just waiting to be utilised. Mobile search may be a small section of the current market, but I can foresee (in my crystal ball, no less) that this is set to grow, and grow, and grow.

How can an SEO move into the mobile market?

• The first thing to consider is that location is a big factor in mobile search. People on the move looking for products and services. So, get your Google Maps profile up to date.
• Make sure your code validates. When I was a web designer it was a pride issue more than anything else that my code validated, but there still seems to be a lot of sites out there that don’t validate.
• Follow Accessibility best practices. This makes sense for SEO anyway. Watch my (somewhat embarrassing) Video, SEO vs Accessibility, I did with Nick last year for more info…
• Use ‘traditional’ SEO on-site techniques – Keywords in headings, easy navigation, internal linking etc etc.

So, even if Apple don’t set up their own mobile search engine it’s well worth dipping into this market now before the inevitable explosion happens – that way you’re at the top before it gets difficult to be there.