Google recently opted-in many of their clients’ PPC ads to appear in Google Mobile search results. Yahoo has been offering a small suite of mobile ads for a while now, too, so I thought it’d be interesting to compare their current mobile ad offerings.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

Google’s announcement that they would automatically opt-in many of their ads to appear on the mobile platform seems somewhat controversial, since one supposes that a number of advertisers might not notice the change and might be irritated that their ads may now be running on an unanticipated platform. After all, many online retailers who advertise expect that some percentage of users clicking through would be placing online purchases, and mobile devices don’t effectively support transactions yet. Google’s patent for Gpay might pave the way for this, but it hasn’t launched yet.

On one level, Google’s act to opt everyone into this program might not seem all that bad—after all, advertisers are paying for exposure and referrals, too. Greg Sterling reports that Google’s opt-out policy during this trial period is similar to policies Yahoo and Microsoft have used in the past for new/underutilized programs. Since it can be reasonably supposed that CTR on mobile ads is likely relatively low, the cost to advertisers is probably low-to-nil, and Google’s motive is likely just a desire to get research data on mobile ads while also introducing many advertisers to the medium.

A New York Times article quotes Dilip Venkatachari, Product Management Director for AdSense, as saying that “the ads would provide a new source of revenue for publishers and could encourage more online sites to create mobile-focused Web sites. Like most other Google advertising systems, ad prices will be set through an auction and advertisers will pay when a user clicks on its ad.”

So, this should encourage more sites to create mobile friendly versions of their sites? While it’s an idealistic desire, the lack of standardization through the wireless devices pose significant challenges to large companies who are already challenged by making things simultaneously attractive, usable, cross-platform compatible, and optimal for search engines. Not to mention that devices such as the iPhone and Palm Treo for Windows are fast making it possible to view “non-mobilized” sites just fine, reducing any urgency that companies might feel about getting their content to work well for the new environment.

Interactive advertising on mobile is still very new, and there’s little research as to what’s effective and what works for consumers, much less developers. What many analysts are very sure of is that mobile search is likely to be particularly effective for locally-oriented businesses. As Paul J. Bruemmer reports, “While local search marketing is well established, local-mobile search marketing is barely getting started.”

Paul further voices a concern that many have expressed about the advent of ads on phones, a “General intolerance of advertising messages on a personal device.” At least thus far, I’m not hearing a lot of consumer complaints about this yet, perhaps because the ads are not all that obtrusive so far, and perhaps because internet users have already become so accustomed to seeing contextual ads.

For instance, check out these ads I found in Google when doing a search for “florists in Boston” on my Treo running Windows and Internet Explorer:

The ads are located down at the bottom of the search results, and they’re clearly labeled “Ad”, so I don’t find them all that annoying. I have seen one ad appear at the top of Google Mobile SERPs before, but it seems to be a very infrequent position for now.

Notice the ad with the URL that appears to be Google-hosted? I wonder if that’s one of the mobile landing pages that Google states that they may “adapt” for users who click through? This seems particularly odd to me, and it looks like the sort of thing where Google ought to spell out under what circumstances they’ll choose to automatically generate a landing page to “enhance” the user-experience. This seems very controversial to me, because Google is likely charging advertisers when they click through to those generated landing pages, and advertisers may not realize this, causing them to misinterpret effectiveness of apparent conversion rates.

Now, Yahoo provides advertisers with the ability to purchase similar mobile-friendly pages which I believe are intended for this very purpose, but I don’t think they automatically generate a page in the way that Google does—it’s voluntary. For instance, check out these ads for “shoes” from Yahoo Mobile:

When you click on a mobile ad in Yahoo, they provide an optimized mobile landing page. Here’s one that came up for me when I clicked on a Teleflora ad:

In some cases, Google is choosing to dump users onto the landing pages of the advertiser. For instance, here are ads for a “shoes” search in Google Mobile:

And when you click on the ad for Zappos, you get dumped onto their homepage which is not intended for mobile users:

I’m not sure why Google would land a user onto the graphic-intensive Zappos page in this case, instead of using their optimized mobile landing page. Perhaps Google Mobile didn’t think I needed it, since I’m running on a flavor of Internet Explorer? More likely, I’m supposing if the advertiser’s existing landing page includes a phone number, as every page on the Zappos site does, Google may conditionally choose not to automatically generate a more pared-down mobile landing page.

If you’re interested in seeing how your landing page or webpage might be automatically adapted by Google to appear for mobile users, check it out through this interface:

http://google.com/gwt/n

Just from observation, Yahoo’s Mobile Ad Service appears broader and more robustly envisioned, allowing a variety of ad types for mobile, including Display Ads, Search Ads, and Video Ads. Yahoo’s promo copy reads “…click through to a promotional site, enable the consumer to find or call a store directly, offer a coupon, send an SMS message—the options keep expanding. If you don’t have a promotional site to link to, Yahoo can create one to your specifications.”

Since Mobile Search and Local Mobile Search are still relatively virgin marketing territories, Google can be forgiven some early program gaffes. But, online marketers may want to go and opt-out some of their current campaigns from running automatically in the mobile end since it could obscure some of their conversion data, particularly if the ads are intended to primarily drive online transactions. It would be better to set up separate campaigns with separate reporting and check to see if an optimal mobile landing page can be associated with the ad.

Also, for mobile ads, be aware that there’s theoretically greater potential for click-fraud. As I earlier outlined in “A Thorny Issue: Detecting Mobile Search Click-Fraud“, invalid clicks may be a lot harder to identify for mobile ads.

Chris “Silver” Smith is Lead Strategist at Netconcepts and a writer for the Locals Only column at Search Engine Land.

One of the biggest challenges of being a mobile SEO is comparing keyword results across the many different search engines. While the goal of all the mobile engines is the same, their approaches vary considerably. Many traditional SEOs will simply target Google and hope for the best in the other engines, but there is a lot to be learned by comparing the impact of your SEO efforts in all of the major engines. This is especially true in the mobile search engines because of cross-promotion deals that mobile carriers, search engines and other interested parties have in place.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

To be an effective mobile SEO you must first understand in general how mobile search results pages differ from traditional search results pages. Then it is important to understand the specifics of how mobile search engine results pages differ amongst themselves.

Mobile search results vs. Traditional search results

Results page layout: Mobile search results, including those for the iPhone, render in one long column as opposed to the multiple column layout that is presented in traditional search results. This makes sponsored results harder to spot, even when they are labeled, because they appear inline with the organic results. In an attempt to improve the usability and appeal of their product, many mobile search engines and search results pages are designed more like portals, with links to specific information and customization options to decrease the amount of typing necessary for the user to find what he or she is looking for.

Local & vertical results: The major mobile search engines are competing to create the best user experience possible. In many instances doing so involves the search engines surmising the user’s search goal and presenting the user with those specific search results first. For that reason, mobile search engines put a higher focus on local and vertical results, frequently featuring them much more prominently than traditional web results. These can include: maps, local results, links to official sites, images, weather and even sports scores. These results are even more important to consider in the mobile web, because of their premium placement on limited mobile results pages.

Character limits: As you might expect, mobile search results are frequently truncated versions of what would normally appear in the traditional results page. If you are optimizing a mobile-specific site, there are a whole new set of character limits to work with when optimizing meta data. If you are optimizing an existing site to be found in both mobile and traditional search, you should abide by the character limits for tradition search while at the same time remaining conscious of what will be omitted in the mobile search results.

URL display: In traditional search results, complete URLs are always provided for each search result, but this is not always the case in mobile search engines. Some mobile search engines will eliminate the ‘http://’ from the URL, or display only the domain in the search results, even though the result links to a deeper page on the site. Optimized sub-domains can be very useful in traditional SEO, but might be even more useful in mobile search engines, when everything after the domain extension (.com/.net/.co.uk etc.) is eliminated. Since savvy users sometimes evaluate display URLs to determine which result they will click on, the architecture of the URL can be used to influence that decision.

To make this more concrete, consider a person looking for the results of a football game on a mobile phone. Which URL seems like it is the most likely to get you the information in the fewest number of clicks:

• a. ESPN.com
• b. NFL.ESPN.com
• c. Football-Scores.ESPN.com
• d. FootballScores.com

I believe that the correct answer is likely a tie between options ‘c’ and ‘d.’ While ESPN is clearly an authority site, FootballScores.com and ESPN.com may lure some viewers away because of their simplicity. Optimized sub-domains are a good idea in some cases, but even in mobile SEO they are not always the best option. In some instances, users are more likely to click on simpler URLs, and other times they are not.

Mobile search engines are not all alike

Number of results on results page: One of the more frustrating differences between the mobile search engines is the number of results they present on the main results page, and the number of results that they will present on the secondary ‘web results’ page. Because mobile search engines are designed more like portals than traditional search engines, they have all come up with a variety of ways to present the information that is yielded from a search result. This can be handy for users but makes tracking and comparison a bit trickier.

In general, the major mobile search engines will provide a variable number of vertical results, based on relevance and a set number of mobile web results on the main results page. Windows Live provides two mobile web results on the main results landing page, Google Mobile and AOL Mobile provide six, Google iPhone provides eight and Yahoo provides 10. The exception is Google iPhone, which does not present verticals on the main results page at all, but instead presents eight web results and provides tabs along the top if the user needs to access local or vertical results.

Search box location: The AOL mobile landing page provides a search box at the top and bottom of the page, but only on the bottom of the results page. Conversely, Yahoo OneSearch provides a search box at the top of the landing page, and a search box at the bottom and the top of the results page. Windows Live provides one search box at the top of the search landing page, and one at the bottom of the results page. Google iPhone provides only one search box at the top of the landing page and the top of the results page.

Local & vertical results: Some mobile search engines, like AOL and Google iPhone will break local and vertical results into different tabs along the top of the page. Others will present a mixed landing page with vertical results such as maps, weather forecasts, images and sports scores provided inline with web results. Google Mobile and Yahoo OneSearch both maintain results pages where the main focus is web results, but they do integrate some vertical results inline with web results. Conversely, AOL Mobile and Windows Live both provide mixed results that do not focus on any particular type of result.

Location setting: It won’t be long before GPS enabled mobile devices set and update a user’s location automatically, but for now setting your location is still a manual process. While Google Mobile, AOL Mobile and Windows Live all allow you to set your location, Google iPhone and Yahoo OneSearch do not. Google and AOL Mobile both have options on the main search page to change your location. Google Mobile will allow you to set your location by city or zip code, but AOL takes it a step further and lets you specify your location down to the street address.

Windows Live does not have links on the main search page to change your default location; instead, they update the user’s default location whenever the user searches for a specific geographic location, so if your default location is set to Denver, but you want information about a restaurant in Houston you can search for ‘PapaMia Houston’ and your default location will be updated to Houston for subsequent searches. Unfortunately, there are no options or instructions for changing the default location on the main search page, so users are left to figure this out on their own.

Location settings can impact the local and vertical results that you are presented, and in the future may also affect the mobile web rankings as well. Currently, Google, AOL Mobile and Windows Live are tailoring the local and vertical results by the user’s default location, but are not tailoring web results by location.

Keyword bolding: Traditional search engines will sometimes put the keyword(s) that you have searched for in bold to help your eye key into the most relevant results. Most of the mobile search engines, (all but Windows Live) have adopted this practice to varying degrees as well. Yahoo OneSearch will bold keywords in the title line, description and URL, while all of the Google driven engines, including Google Mobile, Google iPhone and AOL Mobile will only bold terms when they are located in the description part of the results. Windows live is the only engine evaluated that is not bolding any keywords in search results pages.

User agent detection: Currently, Google Mobile, AOL Mobile and Microsoft OneSearch incorporate user agent detection to determine exactly what type of mobile device you are using to access their search engine. They will then use that information to optimize the results pages for viewing on your specific mobile device. This is done primarily to ensure images, maps and other graphics to are sized to fit the screen without right-to-left scrolling. In the future, this information could be integrated into the search algorithm to improve the ranking for pages that display well on your specific mobile device.

Transcoding: Google Mobile, AOL Mobile and Windows Live all integrate transcoding software to re-arrange web pages that are designed for the traditional web and to make them viewable on a smaller screen. This is good news for sites that have yet to begin optimizing the user experience for the mobile web, but can also cause problems. Forms or JavaScript may be rendered un-usable on the transcoded version of the site, and the transcoded page may not provide adequate idea arrangement of the elements on the page.

While transcoding improves the usability of the site in the short term, it may hinder SEO and can make interacting with the site more difficult. The transcoded page is hosted temporarily on the search engine server and domain, rather than on the original website. It is unclear weather transcoding impacts Google’s evaluation of the activity on your site, but it definitely makes it harder to get accurate links to the site because the URLs are re-formulated in the transcoding. Many of the mobile search engines have indicated that they recognize the ‘handheld’ style sheet, and will use it to render the site when it is available, but in our testing this was not the case. In all cases, you can choose to view the html version of the site by clicking on a link at the bottom of the page, or simply performing your search in the traditional version of the search engine, rather than the mobile version.

How will this Impact mobile SEO?

All of the differences that we can see amongst the mobile search engine players are simply an indication that the industry is still in its infancy, and has yet to develop standards. Mobile search engines are still determining how they can provide users with the best experience, and SEOs are still figuring out how to compare such variable results. The main conclusions that can be drawn is that mobile SEO is different from traditional SEO, but not so different that everything must be re-learned. mobile SEOs must be patient for the mobile web and the mobile search experience to catch up with the traditional web that we have become so used to. It is an exciting time in mobile SEO, when things are constantly changing, standards are slowly being formed and nothing is taken for granted.

Cindy Krum is the Senior SEO Analyst for Blue Moon Works, Inc., a provider of marketing and strategy services.

Let me preface this by saying that I am pretty tired of talking about the iPhone. But given that Apple recently sold the one-millionth unit, it’s generating more buzz around the office than ever and I have no choice. I’ve spoken more about the iPhone to clients and colleagues alike in the past two months than anything else in the past five years. Most conversations are some variation of “well, this spells the end of mobile as we know it, right?” And my answer is generally, “This spells the end of ALL media as we know it—just not in the way you think.”

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

This was on my mind last weekend as I waited in line at the Apple store to buy an iPhone as a surprise anniversary present for my husband. He owned one of the original Apple Newton PDAs and still has it proudly displayed on his desk at home, so the perfect gift was a foregone conclusion. Needless to say, he finds it highly suspect that I haven’t bought one for myself yet. He’s a devout Mac user (we are the only people we know who have purchased and actually use Apple TV) and he doesn’t buy my excuses about waiting for 3G or Flash support or wanting to see what Nokia does next. “You’re a mobile strategist” he insists, “You need one!”

This morning, on our train commute into the city, he snuck occasional, baffled glances away from the surface of his shiny new iPhone at me tapping away on my trusty Treo.

“Are you reading the NY Times mobile?” he ventured, “Cause you know, if you’d just get an iPhone, you could read the whole thing!”

And he has a point, I’ll agree. I could read the whole thing—but do I want to?

Because to me, that’s the big question. Just because I can do something doesn’t necessarily make it the best way to go. I could, for example, pack my entire wardrobe for a weekend away but I don’t—I pack the essentials. Point being, what I want—and how much of it—is really dictated by circumstance. And in the circumstances under which I’d use my iPhone over my laptop, I’m really not looking to read your annual report or 10-page technical brief. I’m looking for the smaller, more timely stuff—blogs, news, directions, that kind of thing. The snack-sized content, if you will, as opposed to the entrée.

Now I understand the appeal of having access to the whole site. Ninety percent of the sites I frequent don’t have a mobile version so I’m stuck with trying to view the full HTML site (completely futile) or going for the search engine transcoded experience (sad and frustrating). So yeah, the option to view the whole site is great—it’s just generally not what I want or need under the circumstances. I’d be much happier with the pertinent info and a stripped down interface that makes it easy to get to within a click or two. Because I don’t care what anyone says—five clicks is three too many on a mobile device. And that wax on, wax off, pinching thing that you have to do to zoom in and out on the iPhone? No where near as effective as you’ve been led to believe. A good 30 percent of your average website is either wasted space or superfluous content to begin with, so do I really need to see it? I don’t mind wading through all that on a bigger screen, but at 320×480? Less is more.

Basically, I don’t so much want my device to work better as for the content providers and search engines to work smarter. I think this is actually what everyone wants, whether they realize it or not. Content that’s easy to find, easy to get and easy to enjoy—and that’s relevant to my current circumstance. This is of course at odds with the whole “view the whole site” value proposition but I think the real value of the iPhone will end up being something completely different from what was originally intended and I would imagine Steve Jobs and Co. will be fine with that. That instead, it may be the catalyst that forces us to think differently about the user experience and to maybe, finally, abandon the one size fits all approach to serving content in favor of something a bit more tailored.

This is a very “blue skies” perspective to pin on one small device. But as web inventor Tim Berners-Lee himself pointed out, the concept of two separate webs—one mobile, one wireline—is divisive and contrary to the whole spirit of the internet. A smarter Web makes a lot more sense—one where the content provider—and search engine—take into account a whole string of criteria—the search terms you used, your device, your geo-location and even your past visits to create the best possible experience for you out of all the content it has to offer.

On the client side this is catching on quickly—I’ve seen more than one major brand in the past few months launch an iPhone version of their wireline site. One that takes advantage of the full Safari browser while presenting a refined interface and content that actually makes sense in the mobile context. And most offer you the option to view the full site as a secondary option, which is great—truly the best of both worlds. Many others have simply opted to redirect requests from an iPhone to their mobile site and I’ve yet to hear any complaints on this from the user perspective.

What will be really interesting though is to watch the way the search engines evolve their approach. As a rule, they are serving uniformly wireline search results to iPhone users but I suspect that over time, we’ll see mobile URLS start to appear on the SERPS. Because in the end, it’s all about the best user experience and that has a lot more to do with what the user wants than what the device can do. When we see it happen, we’ll know we’ve taken the first steps toward a more intuitive web.

Rachel Pasqua is Director of Mobile Marketing for iCrossing.

I am a strong believer in the future of mobile search or what I prefer to call mobile access to information. This takes into account not only what we think of search today but also audio, video, text messaging, location based info, and more.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

Why am I so bullish on mobile?

When mobile services become better known by searchers (that’s a large challenge) and used correctly (another challenge), they can offer something most people want more of. Time! It has been my experience when you can actually demonstrate to people how that can save time, you’re likely to make new friends quickly.

Increasingly, users can get the info they need with a mobile device without using a desktop or laptop computer. Just think how quickly we went from only business people and tech geeks having mobile or cell phones to what sometimes seems like everyone having one (especially noticable when you’re driving).

The next step fpr mobile search is for the masses (moms, dads, even grandmas) to gain access to useful information when and where they need it. Powerful stuff. I think search geeks often forget that many of the tools and resources that are second nature to us are still not known by many users. That’s important to remember.

Ask believes strongly in the future of mobile search. At Ask.com we began offering our Webby Award winning mobile service last fall at http://mobile.ask.com. This Spring Ask debuted a service offering GPS navigation and much more appropriately named, Ask Mobile GPS. Here’s an inside look at both services.

Ask Mobile

Ask Mobile loads very quickly and provides several services you don’t find elsewhere. More features and services are in the works. You can access Ask Mobile at http://mobile.ask.com (this works both on mobile devices and standard computers).

One of the most interesting things about Ask Mobile is that it’s carrier agnostic. While some mobile services are tied to specific wireless carriers, Ask Mobile will work on any mobile web browser from any web carrier.

Tip: You can always return to the home page by clicking the “O” key on your telephone keypad.

The main features of Ask Mobile are:

Web search. Results include some Smart answers, like weather, time zones and horoscopes.

You can also easily navigate to these and other features by selecting them from the home page of Ask Mobile. In other words, multiple ways to get to the same location.

Ask.com’s Zoom Related Search feature is also available to help users narrow and focus their search. Look for those suggestions at the bottom of the page.

Pages appearing in Ask Mobile search results that are not formatted for mobile browsers are made mobile friendly with page optimization technology.

One frequent question asked when someone sees the Ask.com Mobile home page for the first time is, “where’s the search box?” There isn’t one. Ask’s VP of Product Management, Doug Leeds, provided a review of some of the reasons why it’s not there on a post on Google Blogoscoped shortly after the product launched. It’s well worth a read.

Here are are key passages from Doug’s comments:

In general, we found, people search for the same type of information and use the same queries that they use on a PC. One very important implication of this is that, like on a PC, iteration is an key part of searching on a mobile device.

…unlike on a PC, there are constraints that make search iteration on a mobile device more difficult. For example, relatively limited bandwidth makes it much more time consuming to perform multiple searches. At the same time, a common way to solve for the bandwidth issue, reducing the number of results that appear on a single page, only exacerbates the problem because there are fewer results to determine how to refine the search.

Typing is another problem. On most phones (non smart phones), each letter can take multiple keystrokes. (An “R” is three strokes, an “S” is four.) This not only means tons of time typing but also many many more typos. Typos lead to poorer results and more iteration, meaning more time lost and more typing. It’s a vicious circle.

Removing the search box had the immediate effect of uncovering all of the other search tools we offer. (Tools we offer on our PC home page in a toolbox that gets much more viability on a PC monitor). These tools are designed to disambiguate queries. For example, instead of typing “weather in SF” users click and type only “SF.” On a normal phone keypad this saves 18 of the 25 clicks required to get a result (remember “r” takes 3 clicks).

On average, we saw a 25-40% decrease in the number of clicks to the “end point.”

Maps. In this map-crazy world you’ll notice that Ask.com mobile maps not only offers the actual street map but also aerial imagery. That’s right, aerial imagery on your mobile browser.

Maps can be manipulated by clicking arrow keys and you’ll find direct links to local listings “find nearby” and the option to send a link to the phone via SMS. Of course, entering a city without state info will offer up a list of options.

Aerial Examples for Mobile:

• Terminals at O’Hare Airport in Chicago
• Fenway Park in Boston

Directions. In my opinon, this is a key service for mobile users. Just like Ask.com on your laptop, we offer both driving and walking directions. It’s also a click to “swap” your beginning and ending address. Here are some cool things regarding directions:

Here’s a walking route from Michigan Ave to Wrigley Field in Chicago. Note both the ability to view the directions in list form or turn by turn with visual cues. Many pages also help the searcher resolve ambiguity by offering links labeled “All Matches.” For example, is it North Michigan or South Michigan Avenue?

In some cases, you will get visual cues (arrows and lines) that will even tell you which direction you need to go. You can always go to the first step (click 3) or last step (click 4).

Local business listings. You can send business listings to your phone via SMS, or just directions for getting there. Also, on many phones, clicking the phone number will actually dial the number located in the listing.

Image Search. Results offer three images per page. An option to send a link to the images to someone else via SMS is also available.

Blog Search. Ask Mobile offers a direct link to the Bloglines mobile search tool. It also uses Skweezer, a technology that takes ordinary web pages and renders them more mobile-friendly.

Other features available with just one or two keystrokes include: area codes, currency conversion, horoscopes, and time zones.

Like all search products, the best way to get to know it is by using it. Have some fun and become familiar with how mobile access to information will become just as important to cell/mobile phone users as being able to talk with someone on the phone.

Ask Mobile GPS

Ask Mobile GPS is a GPS-enabled application that features the best of Ask.com, Citysearch, and Evite.com. The service is available on a number of Sprint GPS-enabled phones and offers a number of location-based features including:

• Zoomable and scrollable maps based on your location
• Integration of contacts
• Location sharing: Find out where your friends listed in your address book are located. Tell them where you’re at. You choose which friends
• Access to CitySearch with reviews and info on nearby events
• Send and manage evites, online invitations to events
• Real-time walking and driving directions. This includes the both visual cues as well as voice navigation telling you to turn, go straight, etc.

You can read much more about Ask Mobile GPS (including screen caps) in this blog post.

Gary Price is Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com. He is also the Founder and Editor of ResourceShelf.com and DocuTicker.com.

Managing a mobile marketing campaign can be a challenge because there are many different entities contributing to a successful campaign. At minimum, we have the carriers, advertisers, and consumers. But in the background, we have third-party technology companies like Enpocket, ThirdScreen and Quattro; not to mention industry organizations like The Mobile Marketing Association, the CTIA Wireless Association, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which provide resources and guidelines for setting the standards to help move the industry forward.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

While local search marketing is well established, local-mobile search marketing is barely getting started. Marketers will spend $3 billion worldwide on mobile ads this year (ABI Research, April 2007), with spending expected to reach $11.35 billion by 2011 (Informa Telecoms & Media) as more users start surfing the web on mobile phones.

The number of worldwide mobile phone users is expected to grow from 2 billion in 2005 to approximately 3.3 billion in 2010. Currently, there are over 2.8 billion mobile phone subscribers. In the U.S. alone, we had 233 million subscribers at year-end 2006, which is over 76 percent of the population.

Mobile marketing has the potential be the next big thing in interactive marketing. As Greg Sterling stated earlier on SEL, “We are on the cusp of a new mobile era.” However, there are many obstacles to overcome. Below are some issues for consideration when planning a campaign.

Pros and cons of mobile marketing

Pros:

• High penetration of devices with twice as many cell phones as PCs.
• Web searches on mobile devices will eventually exceed searches on PCs.
• Access to many international consumers who can’t afford PCs
• Mobile phones can receive input anywhere-anytime, enabling location-specific and behavioral targeting for local businesses.
• A cell phone is a very personal device that people take with them wherever they go, making it easy for marketers to develop a relationship with customers through this medium.
• Carriers have customer data and location information potentially available for targeting.
• Personalization, immediacy, and interactivity of mobile ads encourage response by consumers on the go.
• Preliminary data show good response rates for mobile campaigns (5% click rates vs. 1% for conventional web ads).
• New tool for brands and advertisers to reach new customers and target specific audiences.
• Smartphones and iPhone to enhance mobile surfing, promoting mobile marketing success.
• Messages sent to a mobile phone are more likely to be read than email sent to a PC, which can get caught in the spam filter.
• Mobile marketing campaigns are highly targeted and are opt-in, making them more effective than other forms of advertising.
• Mobile marketing can help build a customer database. Once customers opt in to receive an ad, you can use the information for loyalty marketing and customer retention.
• Mobile marketing can help generate buzz about your products/services because your offers will reach consumers while they are actively shopping, socializing, and making buying decisions.

Cons:

• Current WAP technology inadequate, discouraging web searching and surfing.
• General intolerance of advertising messages on a personal device.
• Current carrier-imposed “walled garden” approach prevents unfettered mobile web access.
• Adaptation of content and messages to the mobile web results in poor user experience.
• Scarcity of mobile web sites (only 8% of 1,000 top U.S. brands offer a mobile site).
• Current low usage of WAP-based mobile search doesn’t support investment in creating mobile sites because traffic volumes are low except on search portals and other high-volume sites.
• Trial and error period required for mobile marketers to learn how to succeed in mobile marketing, which differs from the traditional web marketing.
• Advertisers are wary of consumer privacy issues.
• FCC yet to rule on limiting use and release of customer data, including location information.
• In April, FCC released order requiring mobile marketers to obtain express consent from customers before carriers can release data and to make it easy for customers to opt out.
• Mobile marketing is fragmented and complex because of many different handsets and carriers, different types of functionality, and different preloaded apps (i.e. Google Maps on iPhone).
• Currently, reach is low because consumption of mobile content is small (10% of subscribers), and penetration of 3G devices is still low in most countries.
• Establishment of reliable measurement and metrics for advertisers to measure mobile ad effectiveness is needed.

There is much more to know about managing mobile marketing campaigns besides the pros and cons. You’ll want to know what types of campaigns work best, how to target your audience, and the most important factors leading to campaign success. To learn more, consider attending SMX Local & Mobile 2007. I’ll be speaking and will elaborate on these topics. Hope to see you there.

Paul J. Bruemmer has provided search engine marketing expertise and in-house consulting services to prominent American businesses since 1995. As Director of Search Marketing at Red Door Interactive, he is responsible for the strategic implementation of search engine marketing activities within Red Door’s Internet Presence Management (IPM) services.

Want to understand more about all that’s happening in the local and mobile search space? That’s what our SMX Local & Mobile conference on Oct. 1 & 2 in Denver is all about! To give you a preview of what will be covered, Search Engine Land executive editor Chris Sherman and staff writer Greg Sterling — who have programmed the SMX event – talk about what to expect as well as trends and developments in the mobile and local space, in a special podcast. Check it out by listening to this MP3 file or use the player below:

Sometimes even large, successful websites have problems when trying to implement a mobile version of the site. While the iPhone and its competitors-to-come will change exactly what the mobile web will look like, it’s still imperative that companies have a quality mobile version of their site because specialized optimization is required to make mobile content truly searchable.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

The folks at BNET.com—a comprehensive business resource—knew they needed a mobile site that their constituents—busy, often traveling, C-level executives and managers—could access on the run. What BNET didn’t realize when they created the mobile version of their blogs (see Figure 1)—with a simplified version of each preexisting, “regular” blog post—was that inadvertently they had created duplicate content (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: Blog post on BNET.com and its corresponding mobile version

From an SEO perspective, this can be detrimental because it splits link popularity between multiple versions of the page, can cause search engines to return the wrong page for a given medium (mobile or wireline/traditional computer), and can even cause search engine spiders to stop indexing pages of a site because it finds too many copies of the same pages with differing URLs.

Figure 2: Google results page that illustrate’s BNET’s duplicate content problem

BNET is hoping to go live with a solution soon that uses CSS to leverage user agent detection. This is one of the better practices (if not the best) for mobile website design. Essentially, instead of creating secondary webpages, a secondary CSS file can be added to a website specifically for mobile devices. At this point in time, as opposed to some of the “@” calls or links that are available, it seems that the most consistent way to present the handheld stylesheet is to use the on-page <link> element:

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” media=”handheld” href=”mobile.css” />

This style sheet is recognized by mobile device browsers and used instead of the primary CSS file. The mobile CSS file reformats the content for better usability on a mobile device, and can strip out elements in the site that are too large or download-intensive for the average mobile device. The resulting user experience is a fast-loading, simplified version of the same webpage at the same URL. When it’s time to redesign or update the site, it only has to be done once and—presto!—the mobile CSS file continues to render the new design in a mobile-friendly format.

BNET.com’s new mobile CSS solution will reduce issues of duplicate content, and should also save editorial resources. For detailed information on the parameters of creating a CSS-driven mobile version of a site, go to W3.org/TR/css-mobile.

Jeff Muendel is a Search Analyst at Netconcepts, a web agency specializing in search engine optimized e-commerce.

Microsoft has been powering the search box on Sprint for awhile now, and the companies have had a public, strategic relationship since last November. But this evening they announced some new enhancements and mobile services. There are essentially two things being introduced: location-aware mobile search and a rich client download (voice local search) powered by Tellme. Microsoft acquired Tellme in March of this year.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

First Sprint and Microsoft are promoting what they’re calling the “first fully integrated GPS location-aware mobile search service with entire internet search on Sprint phones.” The GPS part is actually cell-tower triangulation, but it amounts to the same thing from a consumer perspective. Location is passively identified, saving the user from having to enter it with every query.

Consumers will also get access to Microsoft-powered “federated search results” (Web, local, ringtones, etc.) via the Sprint search box. There’s initial co-branding but local and other mobile search data on subsequent screens carry the Microsoft Live Local brand. Initial monetization will be from national AdCenter advertisers (mobile banners essentially) on a CPM basis. Later, local and other geotargeted advertisers will be integrated. Separately, Microsoft’s Live Local WAP-based search is monetized with Ingenio PPCall advertisers. Online (at Live Local/Maps), Microsoft has a partnership with Superpages, which is the primary source of local advertisers on that site.

As a separate, parallel piece of this announcement the companies are promoting a rich client application powered by Tellme. Dubbed “voice search by Live Search for mobile,” it’s a Java-based app for most Sprint phones, but not Windows Mobile-powered smartphones (ironically). This is very much like Tellme by Mobile, which has a voice interface that yields a rich graphical output (listings, maps, etc.). Sprint and Microsoft are touting this as the first application with GPS-enabled voice search capabilities.

Here are some screens of what the interface looks like:

In this role as local search infrastructure provider and carrier enabler, Microsoft is in competition with companies like Medio and JumpTap, which offer some of the same search and monetization capabilities to operators on a white-label basis. But it may ultimately be a model for other carrier relationships with branded search providers.

Carriers risk being marginalized as the proverbial “dumb pipe” unless they can offer competitive services and content; and partnerships, whether with white label vendors or branded search engines and portals, are essential. While financial arrangements of the Microsoft-Sprint partnership aren’t public I would guess that ultimately Sprint is going to get a share of ad revenues generated via mobile search.

The application and services are “free” to those with a Sprint data plan. (Separately Sprint has a WiMax partnership with Google.)

Local.com has announced a contest to promote its Local Mobile search service. As part of the promotion, the company will be giving away one Apple iPhone each day for 30 days to Local Mobile users.

This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

Local.com is giving away 30 iphones as part of this promotion. From the press release:

Local Mobile is a mobile-centric site that provides users with a quick and easy way to perform local searches by entering a keyword and location from their wireless phone or device.

Local Mobile enables users to:

• Quickly access search results based on a simple “what” and “where” search
• Access business profile pages, complete with mapping
• Access driving directions
• Send listings to mobile phone or device via SMS
• Access click-to-call functionality
• Sort results by relevance, distance or name

To access Local Mobile from your mobile phone or device, please visit: http://mobile.local.com.

To enter the “Apple a Day Giveaway” Local Mobile Challenge, visit www.local.com/win and complete the entry form. The contest will run from September 17 – October 17, 2007.

Hot on the heels of last’s week’s Local Search Week, this week we’re going to focus on mobile search. More than any other enabling technology, mobile devices hold out tantalizing possibilities for search marketers, allowing us to reach searchers anywhere. It seems like this promise has been dangled forever, but has never been quite fully realized.

This article is part of Mobile Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the run-up to our SMX Local & Mobile conference next month.

This year, however, things have changed. With the introduction of the iPhone and new generation smart phones, combined with the increasing prevalence of high speed mobile networks, accessing the internet on a mobile device has become easy and comparatvely painless. More and more companies are creating sites specifically to reach mobile users.

But search marketing for mobile is quite different than web based search marketing. From an optimization standpoint, everything is different, from design and content issues down to how implement search and user friendly navigation. Even mobile advertising options are different.

This week, we’ll focus on many of these issues. And, of course, the program we’ve put together for our SMX Local & Mobile conference offers numerous tactics and techniques for succeeding with mobile search marketing. Want to know more?