Many brands are reporting that an increasing number of all searches are coming from mobile devices. Mobile based SEO is driving the travel and hospitality market and a recent report says that 88% of hotel brands in the U.S. have a mobile-optimized site. Even Shopify, a leading ecommerce platform, reported that it expected around 40% of all its e-commerce traffic to come from mobile devices by September 2013. All this goes to show that in addition to optimizing your web content for desktop search, optimizing it for mobile search will help you reach out and connect more easily and quickly to a much larger group of potential customers.
Using Social Media on Mobile Phones
The 2012 Nielsen report says that the time spent by consumers on social media via mobile devices increased by 63% during 2011-2012.
Social media plays a crucial role in SERP ranking, especially after Google included social media posts in their search results. This makes it very important for businesses to provide mobile-friendly versions of social media pages and posts to improve traffic. Mobile search engine optimization strategies help you build such pages and create easy to read and push buttons for touch screen devices. Incorporating 'Like' and 'Share' buttons for the posts on your mobile device optimized website will allow mobile visitors to share your posts. The result is enhanced search engine rankings, higher social media traffic and more conversions and sales.
Enhanced Local Search through Mobile Phones
comScore Local Search Usage Study 2013 reveals that around 56% of mobile phone users use their browsers for local search. The study also found that local search through mobile apps increased by about 87% increase during the past two years. Another study comScore study, 'Trends Shaping Local Search in 2013', found that in 2012, about 86 million Americans interacted with local business content using their mobile phones and that tablet searchers are becoming even more demanding of the depth of local content. Local businesses should therefore focus on gaining geo-specific visibility with local SEO strategies for mobile devices. A well-implemented mobile-based SEO strategy can optimize a business website with location apps, geo-targeted PPC, local pages in online directories and review sites, and more.
Optimize your Website for Mobile Devices
Usually, mobile users look for specific information while they are on the move and they want to access that information quickly. Businesses can use Google Adwords' keyword tool to search out terms that are being used on mobile device. This tool allows you to find even location-specific keywords. In other words, it’s important to find the right mobile specific keywords for successful mobile SEO.
Companies should also know that their websites should be optimized for Google search. In June 2013, Google announced forthcoming changes in search engine algorithm for penalizing sites which are not configured for smartphone users. Google also cited most common mobile errors such as faulty redirect (a desktop page redirects the searchers who use smartphone to an irrelevant page in smartphone-optimized website) and smartphone-only errors (some sites show error pages to smartphone users and content to desktop users while accessing its URL (404 page errors, incorrect handling of Googlebot-Mobile and Unplayable videos)). Google recommends that businesses follow industry best practices such as using responsive website design and serving content using different HTML (if not responsive web design) to avoid such errors.
Providing a good user experience on mobile devices is important if you want your SEO campaign to work. The best option is to get professional help. In addition to responsive web design, an established search engine optimization company can offer strategies to ensure quick loading, easy-to-scroll web pages, mobile specific content, and everything else that would make your mobile SEO campaign a success.