Mobile

• Over 550,000 Android phones are activated each day (worldwide).
• In the UK, 45% of Internet use is done on mobile devices.
• There are more than 3m mobile Internet users in London alone.
• In the UK, there are more than 15,000,000 smartphones in use.
• More than 21,000,000 UK mobile users can access the Internet on their phones.
• UK iPad users are more inclined to spend money on their iPad than any of their other devices.

Social

• Nearly half of all brand Tweets are negative.
• YouTube is the UKs third largest website based on UK usage.
• Over 15m people in the UK visit at least 1 blog per year.
• There are nearly 30m Facebook users in the UK, around half of the population.
• There are over 7.5m Twitter users in the UK.
• The average Facebook user has 130 friends.

We can break an SEO campaign into 3 main parts:

• Architecture
• Content
• Links

I know in the past I banged on about how mobile SEO is just SEO, and my opinion still stands, but if you want to solely focus on mobile for your SEO then you can do it all in your hand.

Of course you can’t do the in-depth technical analysis that is really needed when you start a campaign on an existing site (you could if you have the patience of a saint and are willing to edit files and read spreadsheets on a small screen), but imagine if you have a brand new site with no dubious looking links and no architecture issues. Let’s say a fresh WordPress install.

All you really need to carry out an SEO campaign is a smartphone and the willingness to get social.

If we look at the three parts of the campaign we can easily address them all on a mobile device.

Architecture

As I mentioned, get WordPress installed either as a CMS for your whole site or simply as a blog in a folder off your root domain.

Search engines like WordPress (especially Google) and the hide array of plugins make most functionality possible in some form.

Plugins such as All In One SEO and Minify will help tweek the code to be a little more friendly.

Also, WordPress is available as an app and the dashboard can be modified so it’s more conducive to a smaller screen.

Content

Pages and posts are easily added on a mobile device but don’t just stop at copy, remember – I mentioned social.

Use your phone to include pictures and videos, use services like YouTube and Flicker to host the files which can be uploaded straight from your phone. WordPress will even let you upload from your phone (you may need a file manager app such as OI File Manager).

Also remember to create content people will want to read, not just search engine fodder.

Links

This is where those stats at the top become relevant as social is more active on mobile devices than desktop and is only set to grow as the number of smartphones increases throughout the UK and also the World.

As we all know, links are a massive part of SEO so using only social channels to link build is not only a worthwhile practice but a necessary one. So being in the mobile mindset whilst using social channels will make your link building more natural and ultimately, honest.

Links from Twitter

Rank Fashkin at SEOmoz talked through getting links from Twitter on Whiteboard Friday and summed it up pretty well.

Remember, Twitter integrates really well with WordPress with buttons and feeds.

Don’t be a Twitter spammer because few, if any, real followers will not link to you.

Engage with people or companies in your field or related fileds, build relationships and tell relevant people about content you’ve created which is relevant to them. This way, there is a chance they will link to your content from their site or maybe retweet your content and expose it to all their followers and so the process starts again.

Don’t just stay within the confines of Twitter, look at your follower profiles, look at their websites and look at their followers websites. This will help you identify the influencers in your field and related fields.

Once you identify these people or companies see what kind of content they create and what they link to, create this content yourself and let them know about it. Links from influencers will probably be better links than from most of the others and are more likely to create more links as you’ll be seen as a trusted site.

Links from Facebook

Like with Twitter, Facebook integrates with WordPress really well allowing people to “Like” your content.

As we know, Facebook works on mobile really well too, either through an app or on their mobile site. So there is no excuse not to have a Facebook account for your business and start acquiring friends in the same manner as with Twitter mentioned above.

Now for the hook: when you added some great content to your site from your mobile post it on your Wall. This gives your friends the opportunity to Like it there or follow the link to your site and Like it there.

Let’s be realistic and say your post gets 10 Likes, that means that your post has appeared on 10 peoples Walls and as the stats indicate at the top, the average user has 130 friends. This means that your content could be exposed to 1300 people and if friends of friends then Like your content, the process continues.

So what about links? Well, besides the Likes in open profiles having some SEO influence, the link worthy content you’ve created continues to be exposed to people who may have websites or blogs and might just link to you, 100% natural.

So yes, this could be classed as mobile SEO but it’s more of a case mobile devices as tools for SEO. One thing it does prove though is that you can carry out SEO practices anywhere!

Hands up anyone who wants to give this a go, anyone?

Let’s look at a market that really isn’t suited to mobile conversions and look at ways to make it work with your current SEO campaign.

As I mentioned in my last post, industries such as insurance can struggle to find an angle to offer their products through small mobile devices such as smartphones, but that really shouldn’t mean that you give up on mobile. After all, you need to keep in mind your SEO campaign as a whole and not just direct conversions from mobile.

At the end of the day, every business that has an SEO campaign has it to increase their website’s visibility and ultimately increase conversions and this is where mobile can assist, not with direct conversions but by lead generation as a means of “link bait”; one of the key factors of SEO.

If you’re an insurance company and you have an SEO campaign on car insurance, you’ll not doubt have these keywords in your list of terms:

• Car insurance
• Cheap car insurance
• Car insurance quotes

These are great for traffic, but aren’t going to have the best conversion rate and too many links that have keyword specific anchor text using these terms will only harm your campaign.

Let’s look at how mobile can help, since your mobile site is going to struggle to get conversions for people looking for car insurance due the amount of data you have to enter and the user may have to refer to other documentation that they probably don’t carry on them.

Combine this with the fact that a smartphone user searching for car insurance is probably doing so on the spur of the moment, but isn’t 100% ready to commit.

This is where you should take advantage of the users psychology and think about lead generation.

As mentioned above, you may choose to omit the “get a quote” or “buy now” parts of your mobile site, as they probably will not convert as anyone visiting your site from their phone is probably doing so on the spur of the moment and probably isn’t ready to convert.

So what to show them?

Well, you need to catch the visitors’ information in the simplest way and that could be either an email registration form or a phone number call back form. You’ll want to make your offers as prominent and simple around these form fields.

This is a very simple form of lead generation, but should give you an idea of how to manipulate your mobile site to make it pay its way instead of existing because you think you should just have a mobile site.

Using Mobile To Boost Your Link Equity

Let’s get this back SEO and those keywords, as the other part of your mobile site could be used for “link bait”.

Creating a linkworthy Web app with the sole purpose being to attract links and broaden your website’s back link profile will give it longevity as the links will be 100% natural and will dilute all those keyword specific links you “acquired”.

In other words, Google is helping us make the Web a better place by making us create quality content people want to link to. Remember, Google first looked at links as votes for a site / page, but when the waters became too muddy, things had to change.

So now, in order to have a high ranking for the term “car insurance” or the other term above, it may mean having less keyword specific links, and more brand-driven keyword anchor text links from relevant content and sites as well as relevant, quality linkworthy content.

Creating a Web app or mobile specific content that users want to use and share will build you relevant and natural links with diverse anchor text that is 100% natural and will ensure your link profile continues to look natural and avoid any penalties in the future.

An off the cuff idea would be create a car running cost guide which could use petrol price data in your vicinity, combined with car running cost data and approximate insurance costs to create a Web app to assist with people deciding which type of car to buy.

This would attract links that are relevant to auto insurance, cars and the general online automotive world, all the places which you would want a link from. This type of content will help you build natural relevant links which are all related to the keywords mentioned above.

Creating the content isn’t just going to get you links, it really isn’t a case of “if you build it, they will come”, they won’t. If you have a PR team, marketing team and link building team, they must be involved. These teams will seed links to app and target influencers who can publish a link to your site from places you would never normally be able to get a link from with high trust and authority.

If you’re serious about using your mobile site to attract links, you have to be 100% committed to creating something unique, linkworthy and preferably free, or you’ll find you’ve wasted a lot of time, money and effort for very few links.

True mobile SEO could only exist if you only have a mobile site and the only link building you do is from other mobile sites and pursue other SEO activities on only mobile based platforms. In other words, “mobile SEO” doesn’t really exist, it’s just another part of SEO, and should be treated as such.

I’m sure that statement will not win me any friends within the mobile SEO world, but it’s true. As search engine mobile and desktop results merge and the lines between mobile SERPs and desktop SERPs become similar if not the same; along with the fact that mobile devices now have virtually the same capabilities as desktop machines (apart from screen size), the lines have blurred.

We have to ask the question, how long will Google maintain mobile SERPs in countries such as the UK and US, where smartphone ownership is rapidly outgrowing the sales of “non-smart” devices?

With that question in mind, you now have to ask if you are investing wisely in “mobile SEO” or rather, is your SEO campaign up to scratch and are you making the most of your mobile offering so it benefits your SEO campaign as a whole?

Let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly – well, that’s a bit harsh, but here are two examples that show mobile considerations, but could be executed better and one that hits the nail on the head in terms of being mobile SEO friendly.

1. The Ugly – a.k.a. – The Shoe-horned In Solution

http://www.flatsinleeds.co.uk/

Although this site is a WordPress site (and we have to keep in mind that because of this, it’s probably never seen a developer) but for the type of site and potential mobile offering, it’s really missing a trick.

Since the site uses coordinates, addresses and maps to locate flats / apartments, it’s a prime candidate for an all singing, all dancing mobile site which can maximise the features of a smartphone.

When you browse the mobile site, either by clicking the link in the footer, on your mobile or by changing your user agent, you’ll sigh and probably feel the same as I did. What a wasted opportunity.

For a start, the site owners could invest in developing a mobile version of the site simply as a means of link building, after all, this is all about SEO and one of the best ways to build natural links is to offer something people want to share and talk about.

So, what better than a mobile web app or mobile site which makes people want to visit the site to use its functionality and then tell their friends to go and use it. Voila! SEO through mobile.

This mobile site is begging to utilise geo-location and social integration and not just the Wordpress plugin to display the posts.

2. The Bad – A Tough Industry To Find Mobile Opportunities

http://www.staveleyhead.co.uk/

Here’s the tough one which many businesses may relate to, an industry where you can’t really sell a product on a mobile device and in an industry which doesn’t naturally attract people until there’s an explicit need.

Insurance is an industry where the products are tailored to the individual and a multitude of forms are needed to capture the details of the user, and are therefore, not necessarily mobile friendly.

If you browse the mobile version of this site, you’ll see that they simply serve the newsfeed into a mobile-friendly template. Don’t get me wrong, this is a big tick in Google’s good boy box, but it’s not going to get you any links to assist with your SEO campaign.

So, what to do? Well, after a little digging and head scratching, I found that the desktop site has a petrol (gas) price index which has been bookmarked and Tweeted many times (linked from the homepage). This made me think, would it be worthwhile to build a mobile app which directed you to the cheapest petrol (gas) station using the phones built-in maps, navigation and gps capabilities?

Probably not, as it would have to be a free service and they’re an insurance company; but let’s say they did, they would possibly create a piece of link bait which would benefit both the mobile and desktop sites. As I said at the start of this post, there is no such thing as “mobile SEO” just SEO that can be applied to mobile sites.

What about conversions I hear you say, well to be fair, how many conversions are you going to get from a mobile insurance site where every user is going to enter unique information? You might as well just consider your mobile site as another tool in you SEO toolbox and tell Google you consider mobile users.

3. The Good – Or A Happy Little Accident

This is a tricky one, I’m not going to mention Amazon or eBay as I’ve mentioned them previously and their mobile sites don’t necessarily benefit their SEO campaigns, yet they have them because they make these companies money.

So who has a mobile offering that benefits the whole from an SEO point of view?

http://www.willitblend.com/

“Wait just a minute there!” I hear you say, “that’s not a mobile site and it’s definitely not mobile SEO”.

Well, no it’s a mobile site and no it’s not mobile SEO, or is it? What Blendtec has done, intentionally or not, is create content which has the “down the pub” factor. The content is just the kind of thing people, especially men, will show their mates when they’re down at the pub on their phone.

And, what do people use their phones for besides talking? Social networking, and what is an influencing factor in SEO these days? Social indicators such as Likes, Shares, Tweets and now +1s.

Bingo! A great link baiting idea that was conceived way before mobile capabilities are what they are today and before social signals started influencing the SERPs like they do now. So what Blendtec has  inadvertently done is to create a great piece of mobile based SEO without it even being mobile SEO.

Come on Blendtec, it’s also time for an update to take full advantage of videos being viewed down the pub and shared between friends.

So to sum up this post, “mobile SEO” doesn’t truly exist but creating great mobile content (or not!) should still be part of your SEO strategy.

With mobile, we have to be looking to the near future and thinking how the search engines will adapt to cater for this quickly developing niche within an industry that is developing at a million miles per hour.

Since over a quarter of the world’s mobile phones are now smartphones and mobile Internet use is set to overtake desktop use in the next 4 years, it’s even more important to have a mobile strategy or mobile offering.

In recent times, Google has started to open up about how they crawl, index and use mobile sites. One example of this that there is no longer a need to have a mobile site on a sub-domain or in a folder, you simply need to have mobile friendly pages with the same URL. This was mentioned by John Mueller in a recent Google Buzz Q&A:

John Mueller - @Paul If you have “smartphone” content (which we see as normal web-content, as it’s generally a normal HTML page, just tweaked in layout for smaller displays) you can use the rel=canonical to point to your desktop version. This helps us to focus on the desktop version for web-search.

When users visit that desktop version with a smartphone, you can redirect them to the mobile version. This works regardless of the URL structure, so you don’t need to use subdomains / subdirectories for smartphone-mobile sites. Even better however is to use the same URLs and to show the appropriate version of the content without a redirect.

Has This Put An End To Mobile SEO?

I’d say no, it’s just opened a better way to target your customers and offer them what they’re looking for.

In the UK, nearly half of mobile phones are now smartphones and the number is growing fast and the browsing capabilities are nearly that of a desktop machine. So generally speaking, your current SEO strategy together with a site that works on a smaller screen and is lighter for 3G networks will fit the bill.

This market is now ripe for a mobile SEO strategy using social engagement as its basis as over 90% of mobile use is used to socialise.

But let’s look at the other end of the spectrum, there will always be people who have no interest in smartphones and are happy with their more basic WAP enabled phones. If you offer any services or products that appeal to this demographic, then you have to consider this in your mobile SEO strategy.

Since the desktop Googlebot will crawl and index pages targeted at smartphones and the mobile bot will crawl pages built for WAP devices, there is a place to create or change mobile alternative pages to target these users.

It is now recommended that your URL structure remains the same and you offer different versions of each page to cater for differing device capabilities, site relevancy and power will be applied to your mobile pages.

Once you have created your targeted WAP pages, your pages should then apply the usual SEO practices them, both on page and off page. If you consider part of your user base in the category of WAP phone users then this is simple piece of targeting.

Another way in which you should apply this strategy is in international SEO; as previously mentioned, nearly half of UK phones are smartphones, but this is not the case in all territories.

If you offer services to countries where smartphones aren’t as common or countries with a high population where there is a broader mix of devices, then you must consider offering targeted content that is applicable to the user and their device.

One main reason for this is that the idea of searching on your phone is outgrowing the means to search on your phone.

In other words, people around the world know you can use a phone for search, but might not have the full capability to get the information. As it is, many in the UK take for granted with smartphones and the ever increasing speed of mobile data transfer.

To sum things up:

• Use your current SEO campaign to feed power into your mobile offering.
• Created target pages or versions of to fit your demographic.
• Create a micro-SEO campaign to promote the tailored pages for you demographics searches.

Since many websites could provide an added benefit users with a mobile offering, the only question is – when it comes to the build and what content to offer, what is the best option for your website?

Let’s look at three types of websites and what types of content they should be offering through their mobile site, and an introduction to which technology to use.

News / Blog Mobile Website

If your site is a vehicle for delivering content and information such as Search Engine Land, then you can offer the entire site with a simplified layout and navigation by simply serving a mobile style sheet through a user agent detection.

There would be no need to have a separately indexed mobile site, as search engines are (hopefully) smart enough to figure out you are offering mobile support and also, the mobile search results and desktop mobile results are virtually the same.

Furthermore, as mobile connection speeds are increasing as well as the processing power of mobile devices, you could even argue that it’s only screen size that is starting to differentiate desktop and mobile devices.

Travel Agent / Travel Services Mobile Sites

If your company sells holidays, then you may want to consider what content you offer on your mobile site , trying to book a holiday (vacation for those of you state side), would pretty much prove to be far too time consuming on a smart phone with the amount of forms and drop downs involved in that process. “But not on a tablet!” I hear you say… well, I’ll discuss the solution to that later.

So back to the holiday (vacation) website, I would recommend to my clients that if they are going to invest in a mobile offering, it has to be of worth to their user base and potential user base and provide a return on the investment.

First, we need to put ourselves in the user situation: why are they looking for your services on their mobile device? Probably for the same reason someone might read Search Engine Land on a mobile device. We need to assume that the user is looking for information while on the move, therefore we need to give them what they are looking for and not go for the hard sell and expect them to carry out a transaction there and then.

By offering the answers to a users question quickly and efficiently through your mobile site, you will be their first stop when they want either more information or and proceed with a booking.

So what’s the solution? I would recommend giving your visitors all the information they would be looking for on a mobile device such as locations, hotels and special offers along with telephone details should they wish to proceed straight away. As far as any e-commerce and travel booking systems, the ability to book flights is probably as far as some users may want to go on their phone, as this can be done relatively easily with minimal form filling.

By hosting the site on a mobile subdomain, you will send clear signals to users and search engines that they are on the mobile site and that is not the full offering. To cater for users on tablets where screen size does not limit capabilities, you could consider using a more comprehensive user agent detection script, but with new devices being launched practically every week, keeping on top of the script will be an ongoing job – which, if forgotten, could come back to bite you.

Another solution could be to detect the screen resolution of the device, but as this would entail using JavaScript, you might find that some mobile browsers either don’t support it or might have it turned off by default and you will serve the wrong data to the devices. My recommendation would be to simply have a link on each page to the main site which allows the user to navigate to the main site and by means of a user session, allows them to stay on the full site.

Mobile E-commerce Sites

This is a fairly simple format to get right, as some of the biggest ecommerce companies have already set the standard.

Amazon is the first that comes to mind; I often buy books on my phone as I’m aware of how easy it is to do on Amazon and also because a book is a low value item and any information on the product to support your purchase can easily be found and read on a mobile device.

Along with simple ordering options such as quantity and delivery times and the fact that I already have and account with one click ordering, makes the process just as quick if not quicker on their mobile site.

In my opinion, Amazon has set the benchmark for mobile ecommerce, but let’s not forget that they have the money and know how to be able to develop a system that might look simple, but likely has taken many man hours developing.

Since duplicate content issues have been discussed on several occasions on Search Engine Land, I won’t talk about this any further, but would just like to say that search engines are getting smarter each day and I believe that they are becoming intelligent enough to know you have mobile content and that if you send clear signal that a mobile site is a mobile site, then there shouldn’t be any negative effects.

To conclude this post, I would only say this, put yourself in your users position and think why, how and when they will be coming to your site on their mobile device and consider whether it is necessary to offer your full online service. Next time around, I’ll discuss mobile SEO around these three types of sites and how your SEO campaign should encompass your mobile offering.