There isn’t a need to tie promotional activities back to branding metrics, or tricky-to-quantify engagement on the site (“Do we want more page views, or do less views mean the site delivered on the first try?”)

Thanks to that clarity, store owners keep a close eye on their data, and have probably seen mobile devices show-up on their radar a lot more than they used to. Combine that with the buzz around smartphones, and the idea of a store app quickly becomes a topic at the conference room table.

And rightly so. Smartphone users are a highly motivated crowd, and for the time being they represent an audience that is somewhat more upscale. But a smartphone can’t deliver more than the eye can absorb on a 3-4 inch screen, so usability becomes a paramount concern.

Hence the appeal of an app: nothing delivers content with the ease of use and instant response that a native app can provide.

Apps Drive Sales, But What Drives Downloads?

So an app becomes the centerpiece of your new mobile marketing strategy. But is it the whole strategy? To have your app make a dent in sales, you need to get it into people’s hands. There are lots of ways to accomplish that, but simply making a great app and releasing it in the App Store won’t do the trick.

And so it’s time to go back to your metrics – they may be trying to tell you something. Are your new customers coming from search? And is that activity centered around product searches – items you stock that they want? For many store owners, the answer to both questions is yes.

If that’s the case, then you have a great channel for promoting your app, staring you in the face: a mobile-optimized website.

For a lot of companies, having an app and a mobile site might seem like an unnecessary duplication of effort. But when you look at customer acquisition, you can see the value of having your site become a more effective tool for getting first time customers to 1) buy from their phone and 2) download your app for that second purchase.

Or even for the first purchase: if you show customers know that you have a product in stock, plus other products they may be interested in, the positive experience may persuade them to download right now.

Keeping Your Mobile Website Focused

How do we produce a cost-effective mobile site when dollars are already being spent to develop an app? The key here is to focus on the mission at hand: acquiring customers through product search.

Again, back to your metrics: your incoming traffic is probably driven by a handful of top products. So the process of building a mobile store doesn’t have to be a heroic effort to replicate your 1o,000 SKU inventory. Focus on the top 100 products, and use mobile SEO to make those pages perform well in searches for those product names.

Key Features For Mobile SEO

• Mention the product name in your HTML page titles (as you probably do on your desktop website.) But keep it short: Google Mobile only gives you 55 characters to work with (versus 70 for desktop.)
• Re-process your product images to get the files down to the smallest possible size. 50kb JPEGS are an attainable goal if you’re careful with the compression. Google looks at download speed, and factors it into search results.
• Conversely, resist the urge to downsize your product copy. Try to package it as bulleted lists to make it more digestible on a small screen. But don’t leave out details that contains keywords that your customers might use.

Image compression software can help optimize your site for mobile SEO, producing high-quality images that download quickly.

Then decide what the next step should be. Should “Buy Now” be your call-to-action? Should it be “Download Our App”? Or maybe a button for each?

A-B testing will provide the best answer for your particular audience. Either way, you’ve got that mobile user in your store, looking at your inventory, and getting to know you – probably for the first time.

With a coordinated strategy in place, your mobile website can help drive new buyers to download your app, increasing its reach and building a mobile customer base that will come back again and again.

Mobile marketing must seem that way to a lot of companies, and as a result, far too many of them are sitting on the sidelines. Fortunately, there are a few vendors out there offering a shortcut to the mobile Web:  a turnkey publishing platform that allows a marketer to quickly deploy mobile landing pages.

The question is: how effective are these pages in the context of mobile search?

The Case For Mobile Landing Pages

Turnkey landing pages are usually considered because of special circumstance:

• Budget. When most dollars get spent to support desktop sites, the remainder may not actually be enough to support a full-blown mobile effort.
• Direct response campaigns. Sometimes a media campaign concept drives the need for mobile landing pages to catch the resulting traffic. QR codes at trade show booths, mobile offers sent via text, and even plain-old PPC ads can drive the need for a quickly-built mobile site.

The systems available to deploy mobile landing pages change every month. So rather than single-out a single platform and dissect its features, let’s look at the factors you’ll want to keep in mind when evaluating and using these services.

Laying A Foundation

The first thing you’ll want to investigate is whether or not these landing pages can be read by a search engine. Here are a few features to look at closely:

• Dynamic Pages. Some turnkey systems use dynamic pages to quickly create pages that can respond to campaigns or even individual ads. Dynamic pages include lots of parameters in their URLs, and can cause problems for mobile search, just as they do in the desktop world.
• On-Page Coding. Mobile landing pages sometimes use special coding to create a seamless app-like experience. I’ve talked about JQuery Mobile in the past, and there are other frameworks such as XUI, JQTouch, not to mention plain-vanilla JavaScript. These schemes don’t get a 100% thumbs-up or thumbs-down – it depends on how they are used. The key is to ensure that your landing pages are actually composed of distinct pages, instead of a single downloadable page with a chameleon-like ability to alter its content.
• Navigation. If your turnkey site is built to catch campaign traffic, it may just be a collection of free-standing landing pages, with links to connect them to each other. If that’s the case, you won’t benefit from the SEO support these pages would lend to each other. Furthermore, without nav links, you may lose a connection back to the home page, which typically has the strongest SEO scoring.
• Flash. Flash is not usually employed on these sites (thank you Steve Jobs) so that’s one less thing to worry about.

Getting There From Here

Looking at all the points above, you might get the impression that optimizing your mobile landing pages will be an end in itself. And it partially is: you’ll be living with them for a while, so it’s worthwhile to see what sort of SEO performance can be extracted from it.

But you can also take a broader view. If the turnkey site and its campaigns are successful, it’s likely that more mobile projects will follow, including the creation of a more comprehensive “official” mobile website.

With that in mind, your turnkey site can be considered a precursor, one that can be used to lay a foundation for the construction of a future brand presence.

A bit of preparation can help to make that happen:

• Domain Name.  Try to anticipate the URL that will be used for your future mobile site. If you can start using that URL today, you’ll create a footprint that will help search engines discover your next website more quickly. Conversely, you should talk to your vendor if they suggest a URL based on *their* domain name, because you may lose access to it when you transition to your next mobile website.
• Recyclable URLs. What works at the site level also works at the page level. Choosing locations for landing pages that will echo the page locations of a future website will also help smooth the transition. Granted, it’s hard to predict what your future site will look like, but for basic pages like “About Us” or pages promoting on your bread-and-butter product lines, some predictions can be made.

Your short-term mobile landing pages (left) may not have as much content as your future mobile website (right.) But the more they resemble each other in structure, the better your mobile SEO will be down the road.

Altogether, mobile landing pages are a great tactic for getting yourself into the mobile space. And with advance planning, that short-term success can be leveraged into an asset that can feed into successive projects, creating a win-win for both mobile search and your time-to-market.

The trouble is potentially two-fold: not only is it hard to track visitors, but once Google’s December changes take effect, it may be hard to attract those visitors in the first place.

One common source of this tracking problem is the series of redirects that make-up the desktop-to-mobile switchboard.

Three aspects of this switchboard are worth checking:

• 301 redirects.  SEO’s are no stranger to the 301 redirect. But in a mobile situation, you might have your doubts. If the web server is 301-ing mobile traffic to your m-dot URLs, does that disrupt the indexing process for the desktop site? And what about link equity? Actually, Google expects this pattern and it’s perfectly safe, but only if you…
• Manage user agents. To manage mobile traffic, you need to know for sure that they’re on a phone. User agents – ID strings that identify your web browser – are the industry-standard technique for sniffing-out a phone. To make this work properly for mobile search, your user agent list should be complete and up to date. This should include the defacto “devices” that GoogleBot-Mobile uses to perform its mobile indexing. If you don’t treat GoogleBot-Mobile like a phone, you’ll accidentally serve-up your desktop page, possibly getting dinged for mobile performance factors like long load time.
• One-to-one mapping. Redirects can be seen as the roads connecting your pages, and how your roads are laid-out can have a significant effect on how users and engines get around your site. GoogleBot-Mobile looks for redirects that connect matching pages, and will make a point to show your mobile URL as your search listing. If your redirects don’t map to specific pages (i.e. sending everyone to the mobile home page) you run the risk of never showing “m.website.com” in the SERPs. It’s still too early in the game to cite studies on this, but it stands to reason that a lack of m-dot URLs will quickly become a quality signal to both user and engines that your site isn’t mobile-friendly.

Google still shows desktop URLs for both mobile searches (left) and desktop searches (right), but the switchboard action that helps send users to the right destination can sometimes result in a loss of tracking data.

One last comment about 301 redirects, and why they’re especially important in this context. A lot of web developers bemoan the SEO industry’s (and Google’s) insistence on 301 redirects as the one best option for managing traffic. But for mobile tracking it’s even more important, because of the way HTTP server codes are handled.

301′s Keep Your Data Connected

With a 301, the referring URL that got users to Page-A is automatically copied over to Page-B’s referrer. From a metrics perspective, this is a great convenience: instead of having to track how a user hopscotched through the redirect, you can just look at the 1) real source of the traffic, and 2) the real landing page of the user.

With other types of redirects (302, JavaScript, meta-refresh) no such copying of the referrer data is performed. Therefore the data is lost – and that could be why you only see your desktop site in your traffic data. You’re only seeing the hopscotch, instead of the true source of your mobile traffic.

Bottom line, these steps will go a long way toward cleaning-up your metrics, and help you to better weigh the mobile site’s impact. They’ve been tested in both Google Analytics and Omniture to good effect, but if you’ve had experiences with other tracking tools (good or bad) please share them in the comments.

I once sat in front of a dark, Netflix-enabled flat-screen, watching Netflix on my iPhone. It was just easier, and I had it on, and I could switch back and forth with Facebook, and… ok, maybe I have a problem!

In any event, our personal fascination with mobile phones shouldn’t dictate our work decisions. And one question that needs deciding more and more these days is around mobile search: is there a mobile audience for this particular client? And how do we measure the success of our efforts to get a mobile website in front of mobile searchers?

Of course, our past experience with desktop search gives us a great starting point. Search volumes, traffic, and even rankings are useful metrics, both here and there. But mobile SEO brings some special considerations, not least of which is credibility: we need to prove that mobile SEO provides value.

To that end, I’ve been working on a set of metrics to help me get some perspectives on these questions. These aren’t replacements for visitor counts or conversions – rather, think of them as supplements to help us compare the new and somewhat unfamiliar mobile SEO data to our tried-and-true desktop data.

Today we’ll look at one of the most useful, particularly in the early stages of a campaign.

The Mobile Ratio

One of the challenges in getting started with mobile search is proving the value of your efforts: is anyone using a phone to search for this client’s products or services?

To answer that with a simple, understandable metric, I’ve added a Mobile Ratio to the keyword research process. Basically, I’ll start by taking a desktop keyword list, and running the numbers to add mobile figures alongside. I’ll also expand the list if I find any mobile-specific keywords that seem interesting.

Then I’ll take the desktop and mobile volumes, and divide one into the other to compute the Mobile Ratio. For example, if I have a Mobile Ratio of 10, then I can tell the client that for every ten desktop searchers, we have the opportunity to reach one mobile searcher.

Straightforward statements like that allow a client to get their bearings, and start to form a mental model of what mobile means to them. Maybe they’d really like to add another one-tenth to their reach. Or maybe they have easier ways of getting access to those extra eyeballs. Either way, they now have some useful infomation on which to base a decision.

Getting Granular

Doing this at both the keyword and aggregate level allows you to compare and contrast mobile activity for different keywords. So if my aggregate Mobile Ratio is 10, but I have a group of keywords that have ratios in the 5-6 range, then I know these keywords are mobile-heavy: they are more likely to be of interest to mobile users.

This is key info for site-planning and budgeting activities, as it can provide a business justfication for heavying-up on landing pages that address those keywords. Likely examples of keywords that are mobile-heavy could include coupon keywords, or keywords that include a location name.

The Mobile Ratio lets you identify keywords that are mobile-heavy. Here, "pocket knife" searches are strong, while branded searches ("Victorinox") are relatively light. Good inputs for planning a mobile content strategy. (Not one of my clients, by the way.)

Driving Strategy

In the end, the Mobile Ratio doesn’t create another data point. Instead, it offers a more intuitive way of looking at the data you already have, turning it into a KPI that you can use to make decisions about your mobile marketing plans.

In upcoming articles, we’ll take a look at some other useful metrics for managing mobile SEO.

Dim Sum Versus Steak

Let’s start with user needs. Jacon Nielson recently published a study confirming that bite-size chunks of content are best for mobile users. “When in doubt, leave it out” was his sound-bite takeaway. Given our own personal experience with small screens and choppy bandwidth, his conclusion seems pretty intuitive.

But bite-size content clashes with our ability to optimize and promote these pages to search engines. We need more copy, not less, to be able to insert keywords and get traction for a variety of terms.

As we saw last month, Amazon splits product information into two mobile pages.

Amazon’s mcommerce site tries to solve this problem by providing a very short on-page description, and then linking to a second page for more details. This satifies usability, but isn’t ideal at all for search. That second page has all the content, but the first page is likely to have better link authority.

Fortunately, there’s a solution that was developed to solve other sorts of design problems, that can also be helpful for mobile SEO.

Introducing JQM

JQuery Mobile (JQM) is a JavaScript library that was built to close the gap between mobile sites and native apps. Apps typically have the advantage when it comes to interactivity, taking advantage of a library of user interface elements, and offering seamless screen-to-screen transitions.

JQM was built to take advantage of the latest HTML5 and CSS tricks, to help Web designers close the gap with their app developer counterparts.

I published a review of JQM on Search Engine Land back in April, when it was still in alpha and under heavy development. Version 1.0 finally launched last month, and fulfills on the promise of providing app-like capabilities that work on any smartphone – build once, use anywhere.

Leveraging JQM For SEO

One particular aspect of JQM will be useful in solving our content issue. The platform provides a number of options for loading new webpages into a phone, giving designers the ability to import content without keeping a user waiting for a download.

The option of interest to us is called “Internal Linked Pages.” JQM allows multiple pages to be packaged as one big file, where the “links” between pages simply drag the new content into view.

To the user, a new “page” has been loaded – but in reality, that page was already downloaded to the phone, waiting to be viewed. The plus for SEO is that search engine spiders will also download this batch of small pages as a single large file – one that appears to have a decent amount of indexable content.

See the video, starting at 3:05,  for a demonstration of how JQM behaves on a phone:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Combine these capabilities with a strategy for developing mobile commerce content, and the result will be a store that’s not only easy to use, but easy to find on Google as well.

In my own shopping experiences, both through mobile sites and mobile apps, I’m finding a consistent theme running through the product pages I see: retailers are unsure how to handle product descriptions.

It’s a fact of life that mobile screens are small, and I’ve recently looked at how that impacts decisions about SEO and mobile content.

“Hide-and-seek” Content

Retailers are trying different approaches with respect to the design of their description areas. Some hide them completely, providing a “more info”-type link to keep the clutter to a minimum. Others provide a small sample of the description, while a few brave souls actually include the entire text – sometimes several screens worth.

Amazon's mcommerce site provides a very short on-page description, linking to a second page for more details.

While these approaches deal with user interface issues, they’re all trying to fix a fundamental problem: mobile sites are using product descriptions created for desktop sites. And quite often, these descriptions are already second-hand, pulled from offline catalogs, manufacturer databases, or print brochures that promote the product. Sometimes they’re long, sometimes short, but they’re often not optimized for search, or edited to fit the needs of mobile users.

Specific Pitfalls With Mobile SEO

Here are some red flags to look for when evaluating product descriptions for an mcommerce site:

• Descriptions from the manufacturer. You’ll find these copied at all your competitor websites. Google dismisses duplicated content from natural search listings, so you’ll be completely reliant on shopping results as your non-paid channel.
• Marketing lingo. Often a symptom of manufacturer-supplied content. Filled with brand attributes but no descriptive keywords.
• Lists of specs. A common pitfall for B2B, or any technology product.

How To Manage Wholesale Revisions

Once you’ve identified problem areas, you can start to plan what resources you’ll need to make changes. There are lots of ways to manage the workflow for a wholesale upgrade of your product copy:

• In-house staff. Either full-timers or interns. This is the direct approach, and produces consistent results, but it can get expensive.
• User-generated edits. Think Wikipedia, where readers suggest edits to make the description better. This is clever and cheap, but you need a very large audience to get enough activity. Plus, moderation is necessary to keep the quality up.
• Crowdsourcing. My personal favorite. Revising large numbers of products is an ideal project for a team of remote workers, who can log-in on their own time and tackle them a few at a time. Crowdsourcing tools are difficult to master, but once you nail down a process, you can plow through thousands of SKUs in a few weeks, with good quality results and no need for extra staff.

Pick Your Battles

Whatever method you choose, costs are an important consideration. Creating content – even in bite-size chunks – can get expensive. And that cost has to be justified by ROI.

So how do we prioritize a project where there might be thousands of SKUs to look at?

Clockwise from top left: Buy.com is very text-heavy, while Best Buy only has specs. Walmart.com has a good balance of copy and specs.

Let’s start with the highest priority fixes, and work our way down:

• Top sellers. You could sort this by sheer volume of sales, or their contribution to profits – whatever defines business success for your store.
• Word count. The longest descriptions probably good candidates for a “long-story-short” version.
• Lack of category name in the text. This is a good indication that the description lacks keywords. Most mcommerce sites are run from a database, so a script that looks for category names in the text can be quick way to assess this.
• Ratio of numbers to letters. For technical products (especially B2B) a lot of numbers in the description (say, 20%) mean you’re probably looking at a spec sheet.

So now you’ve identified the your mobile commerce site’s issues, chosen a method for manage the workflow, and singled-out the products that need revising. Now you can circle back to the “hide-and-seek” design issue, and adapt your page designs to fit the content.

I’ll get into that in the next column, but if you’d like a sneak preview of the factors we’ll be talking about, have a look at my past article on using JQuery Mobile for SEO.

Siri, the voice recognition app that comes standard with the new iPhone, can be used to control text messaging and reminders inside the device. But it can also be used as a search tool, to call up specific information from the outside world.

With the mobile search space already in flux, Siri adds a game-changing angle, particularly for marketers that want to reach the lucrative (presumably affluent) iPhone audience.

Here are some factors for businesses to consider as Siri grows in both audience and usage:

• Siri works. Siri’s voice recognition is nearly flawless, and its utility right now is only limited by the APIs that Apple has given it to work with. It’s likely that the API list will grow, giving iPhone users access to pretty much any form of information they can verbally request.
• Siri is a velvet rope. Apple’s choice of APIs to power Siri will, in effect, choose the leading search tools for the iPhone. As Danny Sullivan and Greg Sterling reported, an iPhone user can ask Siri to use Bing or Yahoo to perform a search. But Google is the default, and most users will take the default option if it serves them well.
• Pick your battle. For any given business, there will be one all-important API that needs to know who you are. Today, that’s pretty much limited to Google Search, Google Places and Yelp. But in the future, Apple may add APIs to cover more niches. For example, if one of the many physician portals is chosen as the API for look-ups, then it will be very important for doctors to get listed there.
• Make that two APIs. Google is also advancing the voice recognition functions on Android, and may match Siri for ease of use. If so, you can expect their “Siri” (“Andrew”?) to become the lead search method on many other smartphones. In which case, all the planning implied above gets doubled, with two tracks of promotional tactics to hit both platforms.
• Siri likes keywords. When searching for restaurants that serve ravioli, Siri returns a list of places that mention ravioli in their Yelp reviews. Yes folks, keyword optimization is still very much the name of the game.
• Siri localizes by default. “Show me restaurants” uses the Location Services in my iPhone to correctly assume that I want a list of Boston restaurants.
• Punjabi “Dubba”. One of my favorite Indian places is Punjabi Dhaba, a fast-paced joint that serves fresh, hot Indian on mess-hall steel trays. But Siri can’t understand the name. Fortunately, they happen to be No. 1 when you ask for a list of Indian places in Cambridge. In this case, attention to both keywords and category choices can help make up for a name that voice recognition systems find challenging.

Siri can find restaurants by type, and even by keyword, but sometimes has difficulty recognizing names.

As Apple continues to develop Siri, we’ll see what directions it (she?) takes, and I’ll post updates here to track how it impacts mobile search marketing.

While it’s true that search engines place the greatest value on links that come from other websites, they also take notice of the links connecting pages on your own site.

Therefore, SEO consultants will spend a lot of time focusing on the site’s navigation menu, adding keywords to make the menu more self-explanatory. But why is this so important?

Both desktop and mobile websites have to balance the need for keyword-rich links with the need to provide a clean, intuitive layout.

“About” Who? “About” What?

On a typical website, navigation menus are often loaded with links, and sometimes forced to rely on context to keep the links short.

For example, the “Services” link tells you… not very much at all. But it’s assumed that you can see that you’re on a landscaper’s website, so “Services” will mean something to you.

While this works from a usability standpoint, it can fall short when it comes to search engines.

The engines are always looking for reassurance that they’re on the right track. “Services” doesn’t say much. But when search engines see a “Landscaping Services” link, and land on a page that matches, they get the reassurance they need, and rank the page accordingly.

A Quick Experiment

Sticky notes are a good test environment for thinking about navigation links. When we jot down a to-do list, we favor brevity to conserve space, relying on the fact that we just need a hint to remind us about what needs to be done.

Yesterday, I wrote “mobile nav” on one, knowing that it would remind me to finish this article.

There was no chance that I’d mistake it for a reminder to buy myself a GPS device. But if someone else saw the note, they might very well have thought that.

That’s the position a search engine finds itself in: trying to make sense of other people’s notes, and looking for that extra bit of information to make things clear.

Designing Mobile Website Menus

So context isn’t enough – we need descriptive links that tell search engines the whole story. But it’s not easy to accomplish when designing a webpage, and it’s even harder when your screen shrinks down to the size of a sticky note.

Mobile designers have no choice but to use short links, small buttons, and lots of context – otherwise, there would be nothing left for the actual content. And yet, with search dominating mobile just as it does on the desktop, we need to get SEO done right.

Alternatives To Overstuffed Menus

One solution is to make better use of copy links. It’s already considered an SEO best practice to try to embed bits of blue text into your content, whenever you happen to reference a fact or feature that can be found on another page.

For example, if the landscaper’s site mentions “sprinkler maintenance” on a lawn care page, that phrase should link to the sprinkler maintenance page. Good for the user, and great for search engines.

On mobile sites, this technique gets promoted from nice-to-have to an absolute must-have. Even on mobile sites that have minimal content, there’s usually more text to be found here than in the navigation menu. Copy links become your best avenue for getting detailed link text on your mobile webpages.

Other techniques you can try: providing a sitemap page with full-size links, or a more extensive footer menu that provides longer links without interrupting the user experience. Either way, you’re giving the search engine just a bit more information to get its job done.

This timing element could be applied to a lot of other industries; let’s look at online retail.

Product Searches

As search marketers, we understand the difference between someone typing in a generic product search, versus a brand or brand/product search. The generic searcher is earlier in the buying cycle, and approaching their research without a favorite brand in mind (at least, not one they’re openly expressing.)

In contrast, a desktop search for a product name indicates a person with an established preference. That person may be ready to buy, or checking price, availability, etc.

When that search originates from a mobile phone, it can indicate even more immediacy. It’s still a research activity, but it even more likely to be a price check. In fact, this person could be standing in front of the product right now, at a brick-and-mortar retail store.

A good price will seal the deal for the online retailer. But there’s a caveat: it’s very likely that the shopper will wait until they get home to make the purchase: on their PC. Repeat customers may have log-ins that work across all their devices, letting you tie the story together and credit your mobile campaign with the sale. But for non-loyal customers, this type of cross-channel attribution can be tough to figure out.

Mobile-specific coupon codes are a low-tech way to solve for this. A percentage of your customers will keep them, and use them when they hit the desktop site. (Be sure to inform your desktop IT team, so they can allow the mobile codes to generate discounts!)

Product Reviews

Reviews for a specific product are a common class of search terms, even in mobile search. Reading a review is a standard research action, but actively searching for reviews from a phone can indicate a customer who received a suggestion and is looking for a second opinion.

It could also be a customer who really wants this product, and is looking for more info to basically talk themselves into it (Or maybe that’s just what I do.)

Either way, you have a reader that already has this product on their shortlist. Landing page tests can determine what will get these shoppers to finally open their wallet.

Another coupon code might work here, but so could free shipping, or trustmarks like a magazine’s 5-star rating – anything that lowers the mental barrier to purchasing. The choice of tactics is important, because mobile screens won’t allow for a cluttered array of information.

Mobile search activity for one consumer electronics brand. Reviews are highly sought after, both in the US and global markets.

Part Numbers

This is more for the B2B arena, though it also applies to consumer electronics. A part number search from a mobile phone is a strong indication of someone needing a direct replacement for something they already have, be it a burned-out component or a duplicate of a product they’ve already tested.

This isn’t a time to emphasize value or trustmarks – what this person wants to know most is availability. “In Stock Now”, right next to the buy button, will motivate them to act.

Timing & Customer Intent

As mobile becomes more popular, it gives search marketers a great option for contacting potential customers at multiple points in the buying cycle. I’ll continue to look at different industries in future articles , if you have any requests, leave them in the comments.

Most tourists already have a hotel booked by the time they arrive. They have a set timeframe, and a short list of sights to see. Beyond that, a lot of their time is up for grabs. And they’re all carrying mobile phones of one type or another.

Search activity for Boston landmarks is similar, but the quantities are different. More importantly, the timing is different, and will strongly influence how you build your landing pages.

Where’s The Mobile Marketing Opportunity?

Here are a few travel-related businesses that could tap into demand from the tourist on the ground:

• Landmarks. If you’re an organization promoting a landmark, or a business nearby wanting to capitalize on your neighbor’s visitors, landmark content is a great magnet for mobile SEO traffic.
• Restaurants. For restaurants, location is everything. If someone searches “seafood near Freedom Trail” and you don’t mention “Freedom Trail” on your site (or in your PPC keywords), you’ll miss that opportunity. Think like a tourist when planning your mobile SEO and PPC; use the terms they are likely to care about.
• Bicycle Rentals. Tourists sometimes get ideas from the destination itself, and seeing a cyclist ride past can trigger a search. Same goes for group tours, boat rides, and other sightseeing activities. Setting up mobile PPC ads for keyphrases like “bicycle rental boston” costs very little, and can be left on autopilot. The mobile landing page would focus on location, hours, and would provide a clickable phone number. (If you have an online reservation system on your desktop website, I’d skip it – better to get them on the phone or into the shop at that point.)

The Crossover Point Between Desktop & Mobile Search

As mentioned earlier, tourists book their hotel reservations before they arrive. So any hotel’s effort to get a tourist’s attention once they’re in Boston would naturally have little effect.

Other travel businesses have buying cycles that are less clear-cut, and we see crossover points where desktop search passes the baton to mobile search.

Let’s look at this more closely:

• Hotels. If I’m the typical Boston tourist, I was probably sitting at my PC 2-3 months ago, typing “hotels in Boston” into Google. Getting a PPC ad in front of me would require some geotargeting (I was sitting in Buffalo, typing a “Boston” search), timing (it’s 2-3 months before the warm weather starts), and good ad copy (mentioning a nearby landmark e.g. “Steps from the Freedom Trail”), The desktop searcher wants a landing page with photos and an online booking system. In contrast, the mobile searcher (already on the ground) wants an address, directions from the airport, and the check-in time.
• Bicycle Rentals. People are just as likely to plan a bike rental in advance as they are to look for one at the destination. Here, a desktop strategy would echo the hotel approach, directing searchers to a desktop landing page with guide maps, photos of bikes, and quick access to online reservations.
• Tickets. If you’re planning to take in a Sox game while you’re in Boston, there are lots of ticket vendors competing for your business. A desktop search for “red sox tickets” should bring you to a landing page with every available game, letting you choose what fits your schedule. In contrast, a mobile search is probably more time-sensitive: that first landing page should show you tonight’s game, a Buy button, and a link to the game list as a secondary page.

So if there is a formula for playing desktop and mobile search, it comes down to timing, landing page design, and the ability to anticipate what a customer needs at each point in the buying cycle. Similar logic can be applied to any industry, and can help you find creative ways to use mobile search as part of your overall marketing mix.