Perhaps even more staggering: the growth rate of their mobile traffic actually exceeded their US growth rate last year (17% vs 16%).

With US smartphone penetration now past 50% (likely to reach 65% by year-end), mobile devices are simply how your Facebook profile is consumed!

Meanwhile, for most of the 4 million businesses with Facebook Page profiles, Facebook’s mobile-friendly version acts as the only “mobile website” they’ll have to drive consumers to for the next 12 months or so.

So as consumers and businesses increasingly think “mobile first” about Facebook, here are a few tips to optimize your Facebook to drive more likes, friends, reach, and engagement with mobile users:

Mobile Organic Search

Pepsi's Facebook Profile on Page 1 of Google

Strange as it may sound, your Facebook page has to be easy to find in Google. Mobile searchers aren’t clicking through to Page 2, ever. You need to be on Page 1 for brand queries at the very least.

Here are some powerful tactics to try:

• You already link from your desktop site to your Facebook profile. Include your brand name as your link anchor text, instead of the usual “Find us on Facebook.”

• Include a few choice keywords in your profile name. This optimizes the title and URL of your Facebook profile for keyword matches. (Note: If you’ve got more than 100 fans, you can manually request a change to your profile. But be careful as this could backfire if you overdo it.)

• Take advantage of your Facebook profile’s text fields (like “about” and “description”) to add important descriptive keywords. Be human, not spammy.

  If you’re a local merchant, quote some reviews from your Google Places or Yelp profiles, and let that keyword-rich user-generated content start working to increase the relevance of your profile.

• Link to your Facebook profile from your other social profiles, like Google Plus, Linked-In, or Yelp. As above, always include your brand name in the anchor text on networks that will allow it (eg, Google Plus, Linked-In).

Even Pepsi's #1 Google Listing Drives Mobile Searchers to Facebook

• When linking between profiles, don’t link to your Facebook profile URL. Setup branded redirect “tracking” links instead (like target.com/facebook). Then you can measure how much activity each profile drives to your Facebook, and vice versa. You have no other way of measuring this across third-party sites. It’s especially useful for monitoring crawler activity on your Facebook.

• If you have a new or smaller site, you may be better off focusing on getting your Facebook profile ranking in mobile SERPs than your own website. Do a classic PageRank comparison between your Facebook profile and your website. There are other factors, but you might be surprised by how much more link equity your Facebook page already has at its disposal.

Expect a few bumps in the road though.

Sure there are 155 million “m.facebook.com” pages indexed in Google with more “m.facebook.com” pages being folded into the mobile SERPs all the time.

Yet, Facebook has not yet begun serving mobile-friendly content to Google’s Smartphone bot. And I suspect rollout of Timeline will have some negative impact on crawlable profile content, and organic listing descriptions.

Mobile Paid Search

M&M's Point Mobile PPC at Facebook Page

More and more brands are using their Facebook profile as a mobile PPC landing page.

See the M&Ms example to the side. I can’t comment on their objectives or results, but I assume the campaign is producing better results than driving mobile searchers to their Flash website.

Here are some ways to maximize mobile engagement:

• Connect to the right mobile landing page. Facebook redirects non-logged-in smartphone users to the m.facebook.com “info” page. This will likely change later this year as Timeline is rolled out for mobile users.

  To drive mobile users to some other Facebook landing page, append the appropriate path (eg “?v=photos” or “?v=feed”) to the “m.facebook.com” profile URL (you have to specify “m.”).

• Be aware, when driving searchers to your mobile Facebook, the links often require the consumer to type a login and password to take action.

  Most consumers abandon at this step, which increases your cost of acquisition and lowers quality score.

• However, Facebook is also the most popular app on iOS and Android, and if consumers have the app installed, they’re already signed-in. One method to address this is to open your page on the Facebook app for iOS or Android using URL schemes (Facebook’s is fb://).

  

• To access your brand’s app profile, simply view source on your Facebook profile, and find your “page_id” code. You can then open the app to your “info” page using the scheme fb://profile/{page_id}. Voila!

Here’s an example for Search Engine Land: fb://profile/7138936668.

As you can see, it’s not a regular weblink. To see it in action on iOS or Android, scan the QR shortcut I’ve provided. If you’ve got Facebook, it will open. (Be sure to “like” Search Engine Land while you’re in there!)

It’s a cool trick.

The risk? Some users don’t have the app installed, and some platforms don’t recognize URL schemes. For these users, this produces a worse experience, not a better one.

At Pure Oxygen, we’ve developed technology to help consumers cross over the web-app chasm, using a technique that’s like progressive enhancement for links.

If they have the app installed, it opens the app (signed-in) to the brand page. If they don’t, it opens the browser page instead. The technology is in beta, but these links have already been effectively deployed in PPC campaigns, QR codes, and as web links.

M&M's Facebook on Mobile Web (Left) Requires Login to "Like." The App (Right) is Signed In

As their IPO filing clearly shows, mobile is not the future of Facebook – it’s now. Like water seeking its level, mobile consumers are already engaging brands that make their presence easy to find, accessible, and easy to engage. There’s a lot for mobile consumers to “like” about those that do!

During the game, mobile consumers stepped up, delivering record mobile search, social, and video activity. Yet most advertisers looked unprepared, seemingly without a mobile game plan. Many enabled Shazam users to tag commercials, but only a few ads targeted or even recognized mobile consumers.

Every advertiser had the same prime-time opportunities to connect with mobile consumers. Brands that did won big, during and after the game. Here are seven most missed out on:

Converting Viewers Into ‘Doers’

Mobile users are action-oriented. Altimeter reported after the game that 32% of Super Bowl ads lacked a URL, and only 16% integrated Twitter hashtags. The first spot to integrate SMS call-to-action was at halftime by the NFL (hailed an overwhelming success). The 2-minute warning came before viewers saw the first and only integrated QR code from GoDaddy (which drove new sales records).

These two both targeted mobile viewers by providing mobile shortcuts to help viewers take action instantly. Most missed this. Hulu, for example, promoted watching TV programming from the Hulu Plus mobile app. Great mobile innovation, but the ad failed to provide mobile links or QR codes to help mobile users find and download the app.

Dominating The Mobile Search Line

Google announced after the game a record 41% of ad-related smartphone searches were conducted. The most popular mobile searches were for advertisers like M&Ms and Acura – likely people wanting to replay the commercials.

This is mobile prime time! Mobile searchers should be seeing your mobile site links, Local listings, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube profiles and iOS/Android App pages on Page 1 of the organic SERPs.

H&M did better than most advertisers here, getting nearly all their assets on Page 1 of Google’s tablet and smartphone SERPs: Mobile brand pages, Local links, Facebook profile, Google Plus page, iOS, Android apps. Given their racy, hashtagged ad, it is a bit ironic that H&M’s two “MIA” profiles would be Twitter and YouTube.

Getting Mobile Fans In The Game

Twitter hit record levels of tweet volumes during the game. It’s likely that 60% or more were from mobile devices. Contrast that to just 16% of advertisers actively targeting mobile social users with integrated hashtags or Facebook pages (none promoted Google Plus pages).

Audi’s integration of the #SoLongVampires hashtag was so successful, it drove millions of incremental post-game ad views on YouTube. That’s prime time! MetLife and GE Appliances pointed viewers at Facebook pages to encourage likes and relationships. Make sure your Facebook profile can be easily accessed and engaged from smartphones and tablets. They may be forced to login first.

Delivering On The Mobile Web

What about when mobile viewers requested brand sites directly?

Mobile formatted content can reduce 80% of mobile site abandonment. Nearly all the retail and auto brands delivered here: Best Buy, Teleflora, Chevy, Chrysler, and Coke are just a few that made sure smartphone users were greeted by mobile formatted content.

Deeper site pages were another story. These pages get displayed as sitelinks in mobile search results and are shared more often on social networks. In my own analysis, mobile viewers had about a 50/50 chance of seeing mobile versions of deep pages. Kia, Met Life, and Coke are a few that missed this opportunity.

Avoiding iOS Fumbles

M&M’s and Doritos may had two of the most loved Super Bowl commercials, but Flash made both their websites anything but “sexy” for iOS users. With iPhone and iPad users now driving over 50% of mobile web traffic, this is a prime time fumble.

Coke’s “Polar Bowl” app was also great entertainment; fun, popular, worth socializing, perfect for dedicating a third device to – just not the iPad or iPhone. That’s probably due to cutting edge HTML5 streaming limitations. Still, with both bears updating faux-iPads or smartphones, mobile seemed more like a prop than an enabler for consuming and sharing the ad.

Even broadcast network NBC fumbled here, making the game’s commercials available for immediate replay online, just not for half the mobile world that uses iOS.

Getting Apps Off The Bench

Nearly 90% of Super Bowl advertisers have iOS and/or Android apps. Only 3% promoted their app. Like Hulu, none integrated active links, SMS, or QR to help viewers download the apps. But, GoDaddy, eTrade, and Cars.com at least made their apps easily accessible from their mobile home page.

Many missed the opportunity completely to let ad media indirectly drive app downloads, usage, popularity, and ROI.

Winning The Video Replay Challenge

Finally, 40% of mobile consumers responded to commercials. For weeks after the game, millions will view the spots at YouTube on multiple devices – desktop, smartphone, tablet, connected TV. The easier it is to consume these spots on mobile devices, the more likely consumers are to share across their networks, driving more search and social visibility, and more video views.

This highlights the real opportunity of integrating mobile calls-to-action, search, social, web, apps and video media: the football game can be over, yet the $3.5 million spend can continue paying dividends with more engagement, and more traffic to brand sites, apps, and social profiles, at no extra cost.

In football, no team is guaranteed a spot in the big game. Defending champions? Best record in the league? Doesn’t matter. It’s earned. Mobile is like that. Take those opportunities for granted, and your competitors will take them from you. (Just ask the Green Bay Packers.)

Here’s to the brands who were ready to deliver in prime time to win Mobile Bowl I.

Happy (belated) New Year. Let’s face it, 2012 isn’t the first year someone has christened the “year of mobile.” But it is the first time consumers have done so – and continue to.

Still in the market for resolutions? Let me suggest 10 that’ll charge-up your brand to set pace – and lead – with mobile in 2012:

Think Mobile First

Smartphones most likely rang in 2012 by blowing past 100 million US subscribers. That means there’s a 50% chance your customers are now holding a smartphone; and 80% are using it to change how they shop. Plus, 2012 forecasts call for a 73% rise in m-commerce sales and 60% rise in tablet sales.

Resolution number one: challenge yourself to see your brand as mobile consumers do. Align marketing strategies with these expectations.

This may require difficult change – like relaxing desktop-biased ROI requirements that impair mobile resourcing. (The same “innovator dilemma” that trapped RIM!) Just do it.

Listen To Mobile Searchers

Google mobile query volume is up 400%. Smartphone and tablet keyword data is a goldmine for quantifying mobile impact and understanding intent.

Google began stripping this from organic search results in 2011. But they’re not yet stripping smartphone or tablet keyword data. (Read more here).

This will change (probably later this year), once marketers are more vested in mobile content. For now, resolve to take advantage: listen to what smartphone and tablet users want from you, while you can!

Invest In Mobile Pages

Consumers expect every desktop web page to have a relevant mobile equivalent.

In fact, lack of mobile content decreases mobile PPC quality score, drives 80% of mobile site abandonment, and forces nearly 20% of consumers to seek your competitors. Ouch!

Armed with data (as above), challenge yourself to prioritize and create mobile formatted content, starting with those that get traffic from smartphones and tablets. And don’t stop there! Continue optimizing smartphone and tablet pages for mobile SERP keyword rankings.

Connect With The Long-Tail

Mobile content needs to be accessible from any entry point. Last year, we found 81% of retail web pages fail to direct mobile consumers to relevant mobile pages.

We called this the invisible Web of mobile content. It’s a mobile ROI killer! Forge these connections between deep desktop and mobile pages. You help people buy more across mobile channels (Display, SMS, Email, Social, PPC).

With Google’s new smartphone bot, you also increase rankings in mobile SERPs for long-tail keyword searchers. Bonus!

Make Local Connections

Mobile users search with local and immediate intent. 60% visit a local business. 88% take action within the day.

Google Maps is the second most used app across iOS and Android. So claim, and optimize, business/store profiles to display at the top of mobile SERPs for your brand.

Go beyond Google Places/Maps and Bing Maps. Optimize for social networks that provide location information through apps too, like Facebook Places, now Foursquare, and others.

Simplify App Discovery

You’ve got iOS and Android apps. Discovery is the challenge. Fortunately, app profile pages can act like additional “sitelinks” in Google’s mobile SERPs. (See last month’s column on App SEO tips.)

Searching the app stores stinks. Help brand searchers discover your apps easily! If your apps are already ranked on the first page of mobile SERPs, try showing up for head terms.

Turn Searchers Into Followers

Mobile helps us be social. Devices already drive 55% of Twitter traffic, and 33% of Facebook’s. Like apps, social profiles also present opportunity to monopolize the first page of your mobile SERP listings.

So help motivated searchers find your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, or other profiles on page 1 of mobile SERPs. Measure increases in follows, likes, and subscribers that result!

Don’t Ignore “App-tribution”

People prefer apps over web when using popular Social and Local services (Maps/Places, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare). The problem is, apps aren’t “referrers” (read more here).

As these apps increase in popularity, more of your clicks get classified as “direct” traffic. Challenge yourself in 2012 to be accurate with mobile attribution.

One method gaining traction among retailers: seed Local and Social profiles with branded redirect links that populate web analytics. By giving ROI credit to the right channel, you can optimize your marketing spend!

Give Thoughtful Shortcuts

You may have a complete digital presence (web, mobile, apps, social, locations, video, etc). Make it more inviting for mobile consumers to navigate!

Consider how QR technology can help. QR isn’t just for print; it can actually provide the perfect “screen-to-screen” mobile link that consumers expect for faster access and deeper engagement with your content. Here are a few cross-channel ideas:

• Mobile apps: Don’t make people search app stores. Displaying app QRs on your site increases downloading, engagement, and popularity.
• Store locator: Don’t make people type your address into the Maps app. Displaying QRs on your desktop page can launch a location on the device’s Map app.
• Product videos: People prefer to watch videos on their device. Displaying QRs on product pages can launch video content and drive mobile viewing and sharing metrics.

Challenge yourself to make these shortcuts for time-strapped consumers. (Read more on converting URLs to QR here, here, here or consult our free Guide to Creating QR Codes.)

Re-imagine The Landing Page

People are spending 30% more time with popular apps vs sites for good reasons: faster access, native tools (like GPS), less login hassle. But this also pretty much shatters the concept of a Web “landing page.”

Trying to maximize engagement on, say a Facebook campaign? You may want to launch the user’s app. But what platform are they using? Is the app installed? Does it support URL schemes? Does the scheme differ by platform? Is there a fallback URL? (HTML5 apps aren’t the answer yet.)

New link routing logic is in order. So your final resolution of 2012: Consider strategies and deploying app-sensitive link technology to connect more mobile consumers with your campaigns in the optimal fashion.

Make no mistake: Mobile consumers have spoken emphatically. Here’s to you, making 2012 the “year of mobile” for your brand!

Search for Groupon, eBay, Amazon, Target, QVC or numerous others. Alongside the brand website listing, local listings, and social profiles, searchers are starting to see links to these brands’ iPhone, iPad, and Android app profile pages, right on the first page of Google.

These app page URLs are presenting powerful new opportunities to “occupy” Page 1 of Google SERPs for desktop and mobile searchers, with big payoffs.

eBay's iPhone App Page Ranks #2 in Google for "eBay"

Optimize App Popularity Through Organic Search

The opportunity is really the product of a collision between Desktop and Mobile worlds: the explosive popularity of apps are reshaping the Web’s link graph around the App Store and Android Market sites.

It comes as no surprise that “Popular Apps” listed in the App Store and Android Market pages are driven by app download volume and rating quality. But these app profile pages and app “directories” (like the App Store’s Lifestyle category page) are also webpages.

As search engines continue to index, display, and rank app pages for search-dominant mobile users, app-mania is simultaneously driving  a geometric expansion of the backlinks and social popularity of these ordinary webpages – giving them extraordinary influence over organic search results.

The net effect, based on our own analysis of top ranking mobile iOS apps, appears to be a powerful feedback loop: App Store popularity gets rewarded by incremental Google visibility.

Higher Google visibility induces more app downloads. More downloading drives higher App Store popularity… and on and on, potentially entrenching popular apps in a rich-get-richer-faster phenomenon:

The App Visibility Cycle (courtesy of pureoxygenmobile.com)

This might seem like bad news for the 99% who have good mobile apps, but aren’t among the “Most Popular” apps listed. But the fact is, this highlights the opportunity – and urgency – for brands to optimize app pages for organic search rankings, to help drive app popularity and other benefits.

Here are five Mobile App SEO tips to get started optimizing your apps for Page 1 Google rankings on brand queries:

Tip #1: Feature your brand prominently in the app name

The app name doubles as the link anchor text within the App Store and Android Market. Getting these sites to link to your app profile page, using your brand name as a link, is critical for tapping into their enormous link equity. (See Groupon, Amazon, and eBay examples below.) Be sure to feature the brand name in the download page URL as well.

Groupon, Amazon, and eBay: Their App Profile Pages Feature the Brand Name as Link Anchor Text

Tip #2: Link to your app profile page(s) from your home page and/or site footer

You have to aim the link equity of your most important pages at your app download pages. Many brands bury these important links.

Consider building a landing page or section dedicated to your apps with screen shots, reviews, features, etc. But it must also have links from the most important pages of your site, and follow the other tips here to make it into Page 1 for brand queries (REI does a nice job of linking to the REI apps).

REI's internal landing page promoting iOS and Android Apps

Tip #3: Include your brand name in the link text that points at app download pages

Too many brands make the mistake of linking to the app profile page without including the brand name, as in  “Download iPhone App.” Even worse, some just link through the “Available on Android/App Store” graphics. (See Walmart example below.) This is a huge missed opportunity! Use your anchor text wisely.

You have to signal that App Store or Android app page is all about your brand (as in “Download the Walmart iPhone app” or “Get the Walmart App for Android.”)

Walmart Links Graphics (No Anchor Text) to App Profile Pages

Tip #4: Provide a QR link to download the app from your desktop site landing page

Use QR codes to give desktop site visitors easy app access. The QR needs to trigger app download on the right device once scanned. Remember to compress the link before your generate the QR. Native Apple and Android app page URLs exceed 50 characters, producing high-density QRs that fail to scan when displayed at small sizes. (Notice the Walmart example above.)

For best results, use a link compression or QR platform that shows you bot QR crawl requests (full disclosure: we provide one). Our prediction is that QR will be a mobile search ranking signal within the next 12 months. Start experimenting now.

Tip #5: Cross-promote your app to mobile users, searchers, and bots

Here’s the magic. You already have a captive mobile audience itching for you to make it easy to discover relevant mobile pages (or your app).

When iPhone, iPad, or Android browsers hit your site (desktop or mobile), provide a link at the top of the page for them to download the appropriate app for their device. (Let’s assume your desktop pages indexed in search engines properly redirect mobile searchers to appropriate mobile pages. If you’re not sure, find out.)

But don’t stop there. For the trifecta, make sure Google’s new Smartphone Googlebot is crawling the app links from your mobile pages as well, using appropriately branded anchor text (not images).

Amazon's Mobile Site Promotes the iOS and Android App, But Lacks Anchor Text

App Store and Android Market app pages are a powerful new ranking opportunity for desktop and mobile searchers. Retailers and media brands with large volumes of site traffic, page content, link networks, or social popularity, can easily leverage these digital assets to influence app profile page relevance, and app popularity, at the same time.

Merry Christmas to all. See you in 2012.

But besides PPC advertisers, there appears to be another exception to Google’s secure search keyword stripping: mobile organic search.

I think Google is signaling where their focus is (and where they want your focus to be) by giving a small window of opportunity to act.

Securing Search Activity

Not that I quibble with the views expressed by others on the sense of loss: organic keyword referral data makes it possible to listen to what searchers want, and build relevant content.

It does seem a double-standard for Google to expect websites to feed lifeblood information, while now providing less information and control in return for non-advertisers. I get how these facts weaken Google’s claims about privacy.

Still, the bigger picture is a mobile picture, where privacy must be paramount. Smartphones and tablets encounter more networks and interception points than desktops or laptops. I was present at Where2.0 this year when it was revealed iPhones track location. Apple made the evening news.

Without some type of encrypted search, it’s inevitable hotspot sniffers will publish personally identifiable mobile search history, location, and clicked SERPs.

The Mobile Exception

That’s what makes it so interesting that secure search evidently hasn’t rolled out to Google’s mobile SERPs. Whether logged into Google or not, using Google’s mobile Web or Google app search, I have not yet seen evidence that any of these default to encrypted SSL search – or secure search that strips referrer keywords.

Check your own log files and mobile analytics: If you’re not seeing “not provided” in your mobile organic keyword referral data, that means Google is still providing you with unencrypted (and unfettered) access to your mobile search referrer keywords.

If that’s the case, then just as the desktop SEO glass becomes half empty, the mobile SEO glass remains half full.

While this won’t last forever, I can’t help but wonder how long it might – and why. Because in my view, Google seems to be facing a curious mobile predicament – one that might keep the window open just a bit longer, and strangely may even require the work of the “99%” impacted by its secure search desktop roll-out.

Mobile Keyword Data => Bigger Mobile Web

The thing is, the mobile Web is not just spontaneously erupting. It’s nowhere near the size of the 1998 desktop Internet, which needed a smarter algorithm to organize it. The mobile Web is nascent, improperly configured, and mostly invisible. It’s still being built.

The reason is simple: the mobile Web has lacked a clear ROI equation. Without this, marketers have been unable to make the business case to prioritize and invest dollars into mobile Web over competing initiatives.

Data is at the crux of Google’s mobile problem.

Bigger Mobile Web => More Mobile Ads

For Google to really monetize mobile search, they must first coax the mobile Web into existence – until there’s enough for algorithms to organize.

So they’re busy providing all the carrots, sticks, tools, and data possible to accelerate adoption of the mobile Web – from offering mobile keyword demand data, to tools for creating mobile pages, to rewarding mobile pages with higher quality score, and now the GoMo site with case study ROI data and visualization tools.

It’s all great. But just like SEOs have lamented lately, it’s not possible to calculate mobile opportunity if you can’t measure your current mobile keyword performance.

In other words, the data marketers need to build-out and prioritize mobile Web content (like keyword demand, market share, average order value, conversion rate) is the data that secure search keyword stripping will take away!

If it’s in Google’s best interest to accelerate the mobile Web, it’s in their interest to not strip referring keywords from mobile organic search for now, because it’s too crucial to mobile Web resourcing and development. Even if that does run counter to privacy concerns.

10 Tips To Get Active In Mobile Search

Mobile is secure search’s raison d’etre; it must eventually make its way into Google’s mobile SERPs and apps. But for a brief moment, while desktop SEOs struggle to see past “not provided” keywords, an opportunity has been created for forward-looking search marketers to take advantage of.

We may not see a better opportunity than this to apply this data, to estimate the value of creating, integrating, and delivering mobile versions of desktop content for mobile searchers.

Here are ten mobile steps I recommend SEOs take today:

1. Audit your site’s mobility for your top desktop site category, subcategory and product pages
2. Export from your analytics the organic mobile keyword referral data for each of these pages
3. Benchmark your mobile SERP rankings (by parsing the referring URL for “cd=” parameter)
4. Upload these phrases into the Google AdWords keyword tool to get exact match demand
5. Calculate your actual keyword market share
6. Apply GoMo (and other) case study results for average order size and conversion
7. Extrapolate incremental revenue projections
8. Calculate ROI by dividing incremental revenue by cost of developing /integrating mobile content
9. Prioritize development of each mobile page by ranking against ROI or incremental revenue
10. Build and integrate mobile pages not just for searchers, but all mobile users

The future is mobile. Mobile search will be secure. It’s just not yet. Maybe you have another year, maybe just another day. Either way, seize the opportunity! You’ll be thankful you did.

Use your data to make your mobile Web presence more visible today. One day, like we’ve seen on the desktop, it’s possible that organic mobile keyword data will vanish.

Remember the days when engines bragged about how many pages they indexed? Seems like forever ago. Search was new, the sitemap protocol didn’t exist, and achieving indexation through URL manipulation alone was basically enough to be a competitive edge.

Those days are long gone – search engines, marketers, and site architecture have all arguably overcome basic visibility challenges. And yet, for different reasons, there is a new invisible Web emerging – the mobile Internet.

In this and upcoming columns, I’ll explore this new invisible Web, and what I think it means for mobile search, social, and app marketers to once again focus on making content visible.

Measuring The Invisible Mobile Web

I was intrigued earlier this year when Google said 79% of advertisers do not provide mobile-formatted content. I was curious whether that holds true of the leading retailers in the US – who have the most to gain, or lose, through mobile commerce. Indeed, I’ve written columns here at Search Engine Land previously in order to raise awareness of this topic.

So in Q2 of this year, my company embarked on a research project. I wanted to quantify just how accessible mobile content was for smartphone consumers of the top 100 retailers in the US.

To answer this, we developed a mobile crawler analysis technology, which we call Mobile Site Analyzer (and have since made publicly available). We used this tool to request a sample of approximately 100 of the most important page URLs for each brand (derived from the Internet Retailer 100 list).

These pages were typically the “hub” pages, like category and subcategory pages, but included product pages as well. Our theory was like a mobile version of PageRank – if a smartphone user were to randomly select site URL entry points, we wanted to measure the likelihood that they’ll get a relevant mobile-friendly site experience.

In all, we crawled about 6,350 URLs from leading brands for the analysis.

Basically the Mobile Site Analyzer crawler first requested each of these desktop URLs and recorded the file size of each page. Then it requested the same URLs again as a simulated Android browser, then as an iPhone browser, and finally as a BlackBerry browser, comparing the file size of the content received against the original desktop URL. (A few brands didn’t permit the crawl so they were left out of the analysis. A few others used javascripts redirections which the crawler couldn’t easily detect.)

For the remaining 75 retailers we then deduced, recorded and spot-checked whether the content received for each URL was in fact a “mobile friendly” and contextually relevant page, and tallied each brand’s results by device type.

One-in-Five Chance Of Getting Mobile Content

What we found was interesting. I’ll share with you our two key findings. (Visit the Pure Oxygen blog to view the detailed results of the mobile retail site analysis either by brand or by retail category).

First, 60% of leading retail brands did in fact provide a mobile-formatted site, and just 40% do not. This was much higher than the “average” advertisers Google talked about, where 21% do provide mobile content and 79% do not. But even though 60% of leading retail brands provided some level of mobile-formatted content, how easy is it to access the mobile content?

After all, if we learned anything from search marketing the last 10 years, surely it is the fact that each page is an entry point. We learned that consumers don’t want to be forced through our home page hierarchy to find content; they crave shortcuts, like keywords, to get faster, direct access to the relevant content.

In other words, we learned you must make deep pages directly accessible (dare I say, more mobile) from channels like search engines. Fail to do that, and you’re part of the invisible Web.

Yet that’s exactly what we find on the emerging mobile Internet. Of the 6,300+ webpages we analyzed, 67% of the pages that belong to brands offering mobile content fail to recognize and connect iPhone, Android, and Blackberry users with relevant mobile page versions.

So, our second finding was that mobile consumers have about a one-in-five chance (19%) of getting relevant, mobile-formatted content when navigating leading US retail brands from their smartphone. Put another way, 81% of retail pages, when requested from a smartphone, disconnect you from relevant mobile content.

Indeed, the invisible Web appears to be going mobile.

The news isn’t all bad however. Some brands are doing a terrific job of connecting users to mobile content when they request deep entry point pages from smartphones. REI, Footlocker, and Lowe’s are a few that we called out for exceptional accessibility in our analysis.

Figure 1: A mobile search for “mountain bikes” connects with REI’s mobile version of the mountain bike category page.

Hyperconnectivity

Here’s the thing: site content is destined to diverge for each device type (meaning your mobile site product page will eventually be different from the desktop product page, and different again from the tablet page, and again from the Internet TV version, and again from the version you access on your fridge, etc). At that point, you may not have a mobile page for each desktop page, or vice versa.

But let’s be practical. What about right now?

Right now, standing on the edge of the 2011 retail shopping season, this invisible Web is affecting mobile search quality: Your desktop site URLs, after all, are what engines index, rank, and display as organic listings for mobile searchers to click. That means every indexed desktop page right now doubles as your entry point for mobile searchers.

When 81% of those pages break the mobile connection, you have frustrated mobile shoppers, this of course kills conversion. Lower conversion means reduced payoff, and lower ROI on mobile investments. All brands are resource-constrained, but this issue will predict how the rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer in our mobile age.

Because unlike a decade ago, what makes the mobile Internet invisible (and problematic) isn’t just a lack of indexation in search engines; that problem looks simple in comparison. Now the issue is whether that content is accessible and optimized for all the shortcuts we lean on as mobile consumers: from keyword search, to social sites, to SMS messages, to email, inter-app linkages, to QR…

Call it splinternet, site fragmentation, content divergence. The mobile imperative is about hyperconnectivity. The alternative is invisibility. Next time we’ll dig into a few of the issues making the mobile Web invisible to mobile search and social users.

Question: Surely most of you are smartphone consumers, too. Putting any search bias aside, what’s your reaction after clicking search listings that lead to desktop web pages instead of a relevant mobile-formatted pages? Pinch and zoom? Other? Sound off…

As with any new field, there is still a lot of mystery about how to engineer QR codes. Today, I’ll explore this point further by looking at the science of QR code creation, how URL size impacts QR size, and how to start engineering a QR-friendly URL strategy.

QR Calculus

Whether your QR marketing happens on business cards, a TV commercial, a catalog spread, a billboard, a website, you’ll eventually run into real estate constraints in your quest to maximize the functional scanning distance of your QR code.

Your goal will become to minimize the use of precious real estate required to display the barcode, yet have the barcode be readable and functional from the farthest possible distance.

For example, a QR code in print need only be scannable from one or two feet away.  A QR code on TV should function from 8 to 10 feet away. If your catalog QR code is functional from five feet away, you’ve needlessly wasted print real estate to boost QR performance.

On the other hand, if a TV QR code requires viewers to get off the couch to scan it from two feet away, you may have saved screen real estate, but at the expense of QR performance (ironically, making your QR a form of wasted real-estate).

So how large is too large? How small is too small? These are questions of optimization.

QR Density, Display & Distance

In QR marketing, the three most important variables are code density, display size and scanning distance.

Here is the basic relationship: the functional scanning distance of a QR is determined by its display size and code density.

If code density increases, and display size does not, functional distance goes down. Conversely, if code density decreases, but display size stays same, functional distance goes up. There’s an inverse relationship between code density and functional distance, given a constant display size.

In other words, QR code density matters; it determines the performance of the other two variables. Higher code density requires more display real-estate to function at the desired distance.

Lower code density requires less real estate to function at the desired distance. Knowing this, you can calculate the optimal QR density and display size required to achieve the functional scanning distance in your QR marketing.

Exhibit A: To Function From Equal Distances, Higher Density QR Codes Require Bigger Display Sizes than Less Dense QR Codes

Exhibit B: At Equal Display Sizes, Less Dense QR Codes Function From Greater Distances than More Dense QR Codes

QR Code Optimization

The QR density variable is determined by two inputs: the number of characters you’re encoding multiplied by the error correction settings. This applies regardless of what you’re encoding as a QR code, but we’re focused here on encoding URLs.

The character count of your URLs will vary greatly, based on domain branding, pathway information, keywords used, and tracking parameters. And for each URL size you want to encode, there are four error correction options: 7%, 15%, 25%, and 30%, each of which increase the resulting QR density.

How do you determine which of these settings will produce optimal density, given your URL size?

Sure, your definition of “optimal” will depend on your application: a print QR code may value a higher error correction setting to increase functionality in the event of ink smudging. For screen-based QR displays (TV, online) smudging is a non-issue, so lower error correction settings are valuable.

But that’s all theory. What matters are the trade-offs that happen as you go up and down the density scale. You may be surprised to learn that what you thought was important is far from your optimal choice.

Suppose your URLs are really small, like 14-17 characters. In that case, you should set error correction to the lowest value of 7%.

Why? The resulting QR would be 21×21 code – the smallest achievable. But if you encode that same small URL using the highest error correction setting (30%), you’d get a 29×29 code instead.

Big deal? Consider how much more area is contained in a 29×29 code than a 21×21: it’s not just 8 x 8. Dust off the ol’ distributive property from algebra, and you’ll see the 29×29 in fact covers nearly twice as much area as a 21×21 (841 units vs 441 units).

That means, when displayed at the same size, a 29×29 QR code will only have about half the functional distance of a 21×21. Conversely, the scanning distance you gain by using a 21×21 is 90% greater than using a 29×29.

If you have limited real estate to devote to the QR code, which of these settings is optimal? More than likely, the 21×21 QR.

On the other hand, if your URLs are 18-24 characters in length, the lowest density you can achieve is a 25×25 whether your error correction is set to 7% or 15%. The highest setting produces a 29×29 once again.

In this case, your optimal choice is likely the higher 15% setting, because you can’t get any smaller, and you maximize error correction. Similar trade-offs can be considered around your URL domain, pathway, keywords, and parameter size.

Interestingly, social URL shortener tools like goo.gl and bit.ly URL lengths fall in this range. Bit.ly encodes their 20-character URLs using the optimal lower error correction settings, as evidenced by their 25×25 QR output.

Goo.gl encodes their 19 character URLs at the highest setting, as evidenced by their 29×29 QR output. (This is actually suboptimal, since a lower density 25×25 is achievable at the lower settings, and would increase functional scanning distance by 35%.)

QR optimization is new territory for most of us – and it’s nearly impossible to guess such results. There are few QR tools that allow you to modify QR error correction settings to discover your optimal QR density.

If you need help predicting which error correction settings and URL sizes will create a given QR density, check out my handy Guide to Creating Optimal QR Codes at the Pure Oxygen Mobilize blog.

Years ago, most websites were designed without any SEO requirements in mind. This increased the total costs of ownership and missed opportunity. There is a similar opportunity now to future-proof your URL strategies by integrating QR optimal requirements.

(Get immediate access to the mobile version of this article, scan the QR code below.)

It’s In The Mail

If you’re a US resident, you’ve surely noticed the spike this summer in direct mail pieces featuring 2D barcodes (typically QR) – even curiously from firms that are typically late adopters, like non-profits. This was due to a brilliant (perhaps desperate) move by the US Postal Service to remain relevant in a mobile era, by positioning direct mail as a method of integrated mobile marketing.

So they offered to cut postage fees by 3% for any direct mailer that included a QR on promotional mailings sent during July and August 2011. (Depending when you read this, you may have a few days to benefit.)

At first, 3% may not seem like a lot. For large mailers, like catalogers, it adds up to tens of thousands of dollars in savings per campaign. For smaller mailers, it’s worth much less. But the cost of participating is so low, there was clear incentive to take advantage.

The QR code is free. So is the incremental ink. The only real cost is the change in printing process. (Interestingly: This helps explain why many of the summer QR codes link to desktop sites, not mobile sites. It may be a sub-optimal user experience, but the brand saved 3% in postage fees, and presumably gained data to quantify further mobile investment, so it’s a win for mobile.)

I think this was a defining moment in US QR adoption. The Postal Service’s offer may be over, but there is actually no incentive for any of these brands to now pull their QR codes from future mailings (it would just cost more in process-change).

Maybe USPS will offer a similar deal in the future, but even if they do not, the “bar” has been set. US consumers are now beginning to expect QR “mobile links” on their direct mail.

QR As Navigation

Just what does this have to do with your PPC program?

For years, direct marketers like catalogers and multichannel merchants, have seen correlation between sending a catalog, and the resulting increase in “search-as-navigation” brand queries. That makes sense: the catalog sparks interest.

But there are fewer keystrokes required to type a brand name into a search box than to type the brand URL directly. Search engines provided, and profited from, this shortcut.

Research over the last few years has shown how “search-as-navigation” brand queries make up more than 50% of keyword traffic volume for most large brands, often constituting the bulk of PPC spend.

QR makes that information retrieval process antiquated and laborious.

Why open your desktop browser, type a brand query, and have to click a link from the ads or SERPs? Instead, you get there directly in one click, old-timer.

Just open your QR reader app and scan. If you’ve got your smartphone handy (who doesn’t), it is certainly easier to scan than type a search query (or a URL for that matter) on your smartphone.

This increased simplicity offers at least a 75% reduction in steps, and nearly 100% time-savings versus typing a desktop query and waiting for websites to load. The point is this: Just like “search-as-navigation” offered a shortcut to typing URLs, “QR-as-navigation” offers an even faster, more efficient, direct route.

When consumers exploit the “QR as navigation” shortcut, it directly reduces the number of “search-as-navigation” brand queries they conduct. It’s a substitute.

By providing this new shortcut, marketers can drive those same users to the site, without the incremental ad cost of brand queries. Interestingly, with QR acting as a navigational shortcut for consumers, it doubles as an advertising shortcut for marketers.

QR As SEM Shortcut

How much of your PPC spend is driven by “search-as-navigation” brand queries? If a 3% postage reduction was enough to motivate marketers to adopt QR integration, imagine the cost savings of weaning those users off brand-query ads.

In essence, “QR-as-navigation” allows brands to take back what was theirs’ all along: It was only because search engines offered consumers a typing shortcut that brands eventually had to advertise on brand queries. Now with QR codes, brands can reclaim that traffic and greatly reduce ad costs.

But there are other inefficiencies to address. If your multichannel marketing induces head-term query traffic, the “QR as navigation” principle could reduce those expensive acquisition costs.

Perhaps by placing a QR in the catalog along-side product categories with high search demand, search-inclined consumers will have to decide whether to take the QR shortcut, or risk taking the longer “search” route.

Similarly, less expensive tail queries, like product names or SKU numbers, could be rerouted by placing QR next to each product within a catalog.

There is great incentive to adopt a QR integrated SEM strategy:

• By year-end (four months away), there’s a 50% chance your US consumer will own a smartphone. (75% chance by this time next year.)
• QR reading apps are and will be freely available for him/her to download.
• QR codes effectively eliminate the time and effort required for him/her to access information.

By strategically integrating QR codes, you not only can reduce demand for “search-as-navigation” queries, but in process reduce your SEM spend, improve your SEM yield, and lift margins.

Of course, since there are no real cost barriers to QR integration, all competitors have this same advantage. And consumers will ultimately choose to do business with the brands that make it easiest.

Will QR eliminate search activity? No. Mobile users are still search-dominant.

But you have to ask why: The fact is, we’re search-dominant because the best we have been able to do, in most situations, is to search.

Every multichannel brand should be feverishly reconsidering their SEM strategy because choosing QR integration can make one of your biggest costs (“search-as-navigation” queries) an inefficient spend. There’s a big pile of free money there – your money – to be reclaimed.

QR is disruptive to SEM because it lets you as a brand compete with, and trump, the best shortcut consumers have had available until now: search engines.

Scan for the mobile-friendly version of this article:

Today, I’ll complete the theme with examples, and best-practice methods for optimizing QR code URLs.

Let me summarize my point of view: Barcodes (the Quick Response format, in particular) are more than merely mobile campaign conduits; they are mobile site links.

They are the mechanism through which we as mobile consumers will expect to access mobile site pages, without typing or searching. Making mobile site content accessible in this manner – from everywhere your consumers are – has a name search marketers are familiar with: it’s called link building.

In short, I believe QR codes will be how you as a marketer (and how your fans, customers, and community) will weave a web of mobile links around your brand, products, and assets.

This calls for a strategy to maximize mobile site accessibility, with respect to your keyword-rich desktop and mobile site URLs objectives.

Beyond the mechanics of QR code generation, and the relationship between URL size and QR performance covered last time, here two additional challenges to consider as you develop your strategy.

Tracking

Barcodes (as mobile web links) present a few important tracking differences compared to standard web links. The similarities include clickstream data like timestamp, browser user-agent, and IP address. IP data is interesting, of course, because it allows for geo-locating the request and serving hyperlocal ads or content.

But when it comes to the data critical for channel attribution, namely referrer data, there is none passed in the barcode’s clickstream. I have a QR barcode on the back of my business card pointing at my mobile home page. If I re-use the same barcode URL in other materials, like on my desktop website, I would be unable to differentiate which source actually “referred” the traffic.

The way to get this type of data is to simply generate a unique barcode (URL) for each unique parameter you wish to track. There are two challenges here. As discussed last time, the more characters you encode in the QR URL, the less white space your barcode will contain, reducing scalability.

In addition, generating multitudes of unique barcodes for any given mobile page may enable precise source tracking, but at the price of management complexity.

Branding

See the screenshot below of the QR scanner app I like (built by Tap Media) because of the “browser history” showing the QR URLs I’ve scanned, in reverse-chronological order. From my history, can you tell which links belong to which brands?

Being mobile means letting consumers take your brand and content with them, wherever they may be. To maximize repeat visits, your QR URLs should contain your brand name, either as a subdomain, or root domain, or an abbreviated domain if the brand name is too large.

But herein lies the URL optimization puzzle: Maximizing barcode white space is at odds with large URLs – primarily because of SEO keywords, but also due to the URL branding and tracking needs marketers will require of them.

So let’s look at three common methods used by US brands to generate QR barcodes, and some examples of the tradeoffs of each configuration.

1. Branded, Uncompressed, Destination URLs

This is arguably the easiest method of QR generation (and the least optimal) because it relies on desktop website branding and URL structure.

In the above screenshot, you can see a FedEx.com barcode link from a print promotion piece I recently received. This URL features:

• Traditional desktop branding (“http://fedex.com”);
• Raw directory info (“/us/ecommerce/index.html”);
• And tracking codes (“?cmp=PAC-wecom-qr2-post”).

In all, it contains 64 characters. Even at the lowest error correction setting, the resulting QR barcode size requires Version 6 (a 41 x 41 matrix).

It’s worth noting, upon scanning this code, you are presented with a desktop-formatted web page, not a mobile-formatted page.

2. Unbranded, Compressed, Redirect URLs

One of the most common methods is to use a hosted URL shortening service that encodes the URL as a QR barcode. Popular tools like bit.ly and goo.gl do this automatically, as do emerging QR-specific services.

This method makes it easy and inexpensive to deploy and test. By using links that are typically less than 20 characters, the resulting QR codes can reach sizes as small as QR Version 2 (a 25 x 25 matrix) and Version 3 (29 x 29).

Depending on the error correction setting used, either of these dimensions should be optimal for scaling barcodes up, or down, to accommodate small sizes and large distances.

The drawbacks? These services often provide limited branding, URL control, and tracking integration. (Would you have guessed which link in the above screenshot goes to Kohl’s Department Stores, for instance? It’s the 2d-co.de URL)

Some services make it easier to brand your short links by configuring hostname DNS, or by using a custom short domain.

As a marketer, you may also want the ability to change the QR code destination link without changing the QR code itself, modify the error correction settings, or test various destination URLs. There are a variety of barcode needs that common URL shorteners may simply not address.

3. Branded, Compressed, Redirect URLs

This is the least common, but most optimal method of generating URLs for QR codes.

Last time, I provided a QR code illustration using a Best Buy keyword-rich URL. When you visit a Best Buy store though, you’ll see barcodes imprinted on product pricing tags, like this one (apologies for the grainy pic):

The QR code URLs look like this: http://bby.us/?c=BB002081846161

To generate this code, Best Buy uses a semi-branded, shortened domain (“http://bby.us”) to host what appears to be an internal URL shortening service. For each product, they generate an appended tracking parameter combining what appears to be a store code (“BB00208″) and the product SKU (“1846161″), in this case totaling 32 characters.

The resulting barcode is QR Version 3 (a 29 x 29 matrix). Given the 2″ x 2″ print dimensions of the code, this should be readable for most instore scanners. Upon scanning the QR, Best Buy’s webserver 302 redirects properly to a mobile site URL.

A few things to note:

• Using compression techniques (like placeholder tokens) Best Buy could reduce the URL further (by perhaps 35%) in order to achieve QR Version 2 (a 25 x 25 matrix).
• Also a 301 redirect would be preferable to avoid blanking out the referring URL for Javascript analytics that live on destination pages.

Overall, I think Best Buy’s methodology of URL branding, compression, and tracking are (nearly) optimal for generating high-performing barcodes, at large scale. These links make their mobile website integrated, and easily accessible in-store.

Mobile Link Building

QR codes, and the URLs they represent, are mobile links. They are the threads that will weave the mobile web into the fabric of our lives. That means you will have a new set of URLs to manage.

They’ll probably be compressed redirect links. You may or may not host them. And you will have so many of them, they will eventually outnumber the URLs on your current site.

So start developing your “mobile link” strategy today, and consider the following issues:

• How accessible are your mobile pages from barcodes (you do have mobile pages … right?)
• What’s your optimal URL branding (bestbuy.com? bby.us? best.by?)
• What tracking elements will you need for point-of-sale attribution
• How can this data integrate with your mobile URLs for optimizing conversion
• What kind of link management and testing will you require
• How can you encourage users, affiliates, customers, fans to “link” to you

Keyword-rich URLs are not obsolete yet. But as barcodes increase in popularity, these mobile links will live “upstream” of your site URLs – bypassing search altogether for some. Search is still critical for mobile users of course, but a shorter shortcut has been made.

Just as we’ve worked for years in the search business to make deep content accessible for engines through spiders, the work now begins to make deep content accessible for devices through barcodes, the new mobile link.

(Want to read this article on your mobile device? Scan the QR code below!)

However, mobile’s disruption of marketing knows no bounds. This common SEO practice can also be a liability when it comes to mobile barcode marketing -  where URL size and branding matter, but keywords do not. In this two-part series, I’ll make a case for QR, illustrate how QR is expanding our idea of URL optimization, and explore options to address the problem.

The Case For QR Codes

By 2013, I believe Quick Response codes will permeate US marketing – from direct mail pieces, to catalogs, billboards, display, TV, store signage, websites, product packaging, and even the products themselves. The movement has already begun, and for good reason:

• 2D barcodes give smartphone consumers the ultimate shortcut, whether they’re looking to engage, gain more information, or to re-order a product. By satisfying the never-make-me-type ethos of mobile consumption, barcodes represent the new hyperlink (“hardlinks”) that glue offline and online together.

• QR is more than just theory. Last year, smartphone consumers increased their scanning of QR barcodes by 1600%, typically to get discounts, get more information, or make a purchase. Think this is just a youth movement? Think again: 70% of QR consumers are between ages of 25 and 55.

QR usage; Courtesy of mghus.com

Indeed, despite competing formats like Data Matrix and Microsoft Tags, the benefits of QR are proving too irresistible for the market (and marketers) to ignore:

• They can be programmed to launch every mobile touchpoint consumers care most about: Web, SMS, Apps, Email, Phone
• They offer virtually unlimited data storage
• Built in data-redundancy makes them more smudge-proof, and readable on curved surfaces unlike competing formats (such as Microsoft’s Tag)
• QR is a published, and market-proven, ISO standard
• They are inexpensive and practically open-source to generate, thanks to patent-holder Denso-Wave
• QR scanning capabilities are quickly becoming commodities, with many brands baking this into their mobile app

Sure, over the next 12-18 months, our collective QR curiosity will predictably wax and wane, as we all flex our imaginations with QR campaigns and gimmicks ranging from t-shirts, books, and cupcakes, to tombstones.

In the end, however, the US consumer will come to expect the same thing Japanese mobile consumers do (who already have over a decade more QR experience): scanning a QR code will drive you to a URL by default, unless noted otherwise.

URL Battleground: QR vs SEO

If that holds true, what does it mean for your typical product or website URL that you’ve worked so hard to engineer for optimal rankings and click-through? Let’s look at an example. Here is a fairly representative URL you might find at a typical retail site, courtesy of Best Buy:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Celeron%26%23174%3B+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+3GB+Memory+/+250GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/1846161.p?id=1218296198127&skuId=1846161

This keyword-rich URL (which ranks #3 for [Toshiba Intel Laptop] in Google) contains 182 alphanumeric characters. What happens when you convert this URL into a QR code? It’s mammoth!

Resulting QR Code, Courtesy of Kaywa

(Try this yourself, or plug in your own product URLs at kaywa.com to see what they’d look like.)

The reason is that Quick Response code size and complexity are the product of two inputs: the number of characters in the object you want to encode (say a URL, SMS, phone number, etc), multiplied by the desired rate of error correction (essentially data-redundancy) which can be set to either 7%, 15%, 25% or a maximum 30%.

These two factors determine how much data storage (in the form of the black pixel-like “modules”) are needed to store the object as a QR code. The principle is this: the larger the object (like a URL), the more black pixels are needed to encode the object as QR code.

At the highest error correction setting (30%), the Best Buy URL above required a whopping 73 x 73 pixel QR code (QR Version 14).

Less Is More

The problem is that this code contains very little “white” space. White space is good, because it makes the QR more readable when compressed into smaller areas (like for print), or when scanning from a distance (like in the case of a billboard).

US marketers experimenting with QR codes in print applications recommend they be the about size of a postage stamp (around 1.5″ by 1.5,” give or take) as long as it’s readable from 6″ – 12″ away on a low resolution cameras (say 2 megapixel camera found on iPhone3.)

What happens when shrinking this Best Buy QR code to such specification?

See for yourself:

How’s it working out for you? Yeah. The point is clear: If this publically accessible, keyword-rich URL were used as the basis to produce a QR code for instore signage, display, print, broadcast ad campaigns, or product packaging, it will fail to connect with most smartphone users.

(For the record, Best Buy employ QR codes on instore signage that contain more white space than the example used.)

The point here is not to abandon keyword-URLs; they do serve a purpose in connecting users with your content. But clearly their size poses impediments to successful generation and deployment of mobile barcodes in marketing campaigns.

So the goal is to have your QR codes contain the least amount of data possible, while still connecting users to the optimal page.

If you can create than connection through lower version QR codes (like Versions 1 through 4), your QR codes become like powerful vector graphics: easily scalable down to the size of a stamp, or scalable up to a billboard-size, fully functional at each point in between with no loss of performance.

How can you achieve that level of QR compression, without sacrificing your brand, or your SEO URLs? Next time, I’ll explore a few methods, requirements, and challenges of URL-based QR optimization.

And just for some cross-channel fun, here is a QR you can scan to take this article with you, and read on your smartphone: (which I recommend now that Search Engine Land finally got the WPtouch plugin configured for mobile-friendly article consumption… Yay SEL!)