Approximately one-third of all search traffic for auto industry related terms comes from mobile devices. This underscores why it is critical for auto manufacturers, local dealerships, reviewers and local automotive resources to render their sites properly for nearly half of their current traffic, but to also be at the forefront of getting higher visibility for an ever-increasing share of mobile searchers. Automotive Mobile Search Data Just before Thanksgiving, in partnership with Nielsen data, Telemetrics released an insightful study on car-related mobile searching. The study revealed [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | SEO: Mobile Search

When Apple announced, in June, that it was introducing its own maps and ousting Google from its default position on the iPhone, that was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to Mountain View. Apple subsequently introduced an elegant-looking but flawed mapping app as part of iOS 6. While Apple and its mapping mistakes have helped to open up the market somewhat, and brought new attention to third party mapping apps such as Waze, Scout and others, they have also created an opening for Google to fully monetize local search on the iPhone in ways that were not equally possible before. [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Top News

Globally there are arguably four main digital mapping competitors: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Nokia. Google is the clear leader. However Nokia is making a renewed bid to challenge Google's mapping supremacy with a rebranded platform "Here," new APIs, a Google Street View-like offering, augmented reality and new apps for third party smartphone operating systems. Apple is busy trying to fix its recently launched maps and seems to be making some progress. Bing, after aggressively investing in maps for several years, now seems to be outsourcing key parts of its mapping infrastructure to Nokia [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

Exciting news for Google users who have upgraded to the Microsoft Surface device & Windows RT operating system. You can now download the Google Search App, which is specifically optimized for the Windows Surface and Windows RT. Google announced this on their Google+ page saying: If you just got a new Windows RT tablet and want to use Google Search, you’re in luck—you can now download the Google Search app optimized for Windows RT. It’s got all the good stuff: voice search, instant results and doodles. Just go to our “Get Your Google Back” site at http://www.google.com/hom [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Internet Explorer | Microsoft: Mobile | Microsoft: Windows

Google posted some tips for building a search engine friendly mobile tablet experience for users and search engines. Google is clear to point out these tips are NOT specific "recommendations for building search engine friendly tablet-optimized websites." Google does not have guidelines or official recommendations for tablet-optimized web sites but they did want to offer some tips based off their official smart phone recommendations. The tablet-optimized tips include: (1) Unless you offer tablet-optimized content, users expect to see your desktop site rather than your site’s smartpho [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Google: Webmaster Central | Search Marketing: Mobile | SEO: Mobile Search | Top News

Citing "sources at Google familiar with its mapping plans," the UK Guardian website reports what amounts to anxiety that Google's forthcoming mapping app will not be approved by Apple: Sources at Google familiar with its mapping plans say they are "not optimistic" that Apple will ever approve a dedicated Google Maps iOS app. Though the app is reportedly in development and should be ready to ship by the end of the year, the sources say their plans are only proceeding in "the unlikely event" that Apple will choose to approve the app. Although any user can bookmark a page on the Safari browse [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile

This holiday shopping season is predicted to the the biggest ever for mobile commerce. A new survey from Deloitte expects that holiday sales from mobile devices will hit $36 billion this year, accounting for 5.1% of the $925 billion online total. Your Holiday To Do List So, if you have a mobile store up and running, you'll want to make sure your mobile store is ready to attract, inform, and convert incoming shoppers. Here are some great tips from past columns that should be part of your to-do list: If you have a responsive design mobile site, you'll want to take a second look at the Tune [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | How To: Mobile Marketing | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Microsoft: Mobile | Mobile Search | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Marketing: Mobile | SEO: Mobile Search

Almost exactly three years ago then Google employee Marissa Mayer described "the perfect search engine" in an interview with IDG News. She said it would be one "that could understand speech, questions, phrases, what entities you're talking about, concepts. It would be able to search all of the world's information, [find] different ideas and concepts, and bring them back to you in a presentation that was really informative and coherent." Mayer went on to add: There are a lot of different aspects of research that need to go into building that search engine. You need to understand speech. You [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Google Now | Google: Mobile | Google: Voice Search | Top News

Earlier this morning I wrote a post about how most search marketers were failing to utilize mobile paid search and/or not following mobile best practices. Failing to "get your act together" (from a mobile standpoint) could be costly for marketers of all sizes this holiday season. There have already been a dozen or so surveys that basically show consumers anticipate using their smartphones more often or more aggressively as part of their holiday shopping. Google echoed this today with a blog post that argued smartphone-based search will be even more pronounced this year, especially around he [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Stats: Search Behavior

Google has been pumping out research and speaking at industry trade shows trying to educate advertisers and agencies about the growing importance of mobile in the consumer path to purchase. One of the "best practices" advocated by Google, as well as those experienced with mobile paid search, is to separate PC and mobile campaigns. However new data from Wordstream indicate this is only happening in about 5 percent of cases. Wordstream founder and CTO Larry Kim looked at the company's huge trove of data and determined that 55 percent of paid-search campaigns target mobile devices. Given th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Got the new Google Search app on your iPhone or iPad? Here's a trick. Ask it, "What's the best smartphone?" The app will politely decline to say. The app will reply in one of two ways that I've found: "No one phone is right for everyone." "You'll have to decide for yourself." Don't have the app? Here's a video I made with both answers: [youtube width="560" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYH18JUFy04[/youtube] I'm guessing that Google decided to avoid an embarrassment Apple had earlier this year, when Siri was found to be suggesting phones other than the iPhone as the [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Google Search App | Google: Mobile | Top News

Announced in August, Google's new Google Search app for iOS has been apparently stuck in Apple's app approval process for over two months. No longer. Google's just announced that the new app is out. The news came on Google's official blog today. The company has also posted a video of how it works: [youtube width="560" height="315"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZUSPecPRk[/youtube] The new app provides direct answers and uses a "card" format familiar to Android 4.1 (and now some Android 4.2) users who have the Google Now service: It was never clear exactly why it took the app so lon [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Mobile | Google: Google Search App | Google: Mobile | Top News

We know from multiple data sources that more than 90 percent of smartphone owners use maps and local search. We also know from Google that up to 50 percent of mobile search carries a local intent. Now, a new local search study from YP and Street Fight takes a closer look at local search behavior and tries to segment the audience based on the intensity of local search frequency and usage. Got Mobile Devices? You're Likely An "Avid" Local Searcher Based on a survey of 1,100 US adults, the study found that 40 percent of survey respondents used local search daily and that 70 percent of smartphon [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

Google has beefed up its Google Now feature. In addition to the existing content (Calendar, Sports, Traffic, Weather, Places) the company has added a range of new cards/categories to Now: Flights Hotels Restaurant reservations Events Packages/shipping Stocks Movies Breaking news Nearby attractions Nearby photo spots Google Now is in a way Google's answer to Apple's Siri, although the two "assistants" operate differently. More than Siri Google Now is about personalization and intended to anticipate user needs and interests. Siri of course requires an active prompt o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Google Now | Google: Mobile | Top News

Google has launched a Get Your Google Back site to teach new Windows 8 users how to restore or add Google Search to their devices and to get Chrome. It doesn't help those with Windows RT devices who seem stuck without Google, however. Windows 8 was released today, which means a number of people will find Bing as the default search engine. This isn't always the case. Those who are upgrading and already have Google as default or buying computers from companies that partner with Google to be the default should still have Google, though we're checking on this. Still, plenty of people may f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Marketing | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Windows | Top News

It all makes sense. According to comScore, map-based search on the PC has now peaked and is starting to erode. By contrast mobile usage of mapping applications is growing and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Apple Maps' problems notwithstanding, smartphone mapping apps offer a better overall experience than online maps. Because they're in your pocket they're available when they're most needed: on the go. And they offer location-aware/search nearby capabilities that online maps do not. Here's what comScore recently said about the decline of PC mapping and the rise of sma [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

SEOs focusing on Web search may have had a Panda update and an EMD update at the beginning of October, but SEOs focusing on mobile and app search have had their own share of turmoil in the last few months. In February, there was a major spam crackdown by Apple which resulted in many developers being banned from the app store for things like auto reviews. At the end of June, there was a small ranking change which weighed keywords less heavily and focused on ratings and downloads. Last month, there was iOS 6, which transformed the app store rankings into a horizontal scrolling card di [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Mobile Search | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | SEO: Mobile Search

From Ben Guild we get to see some blurry native iOS Google Maps screenshots. We know the app is coming; the questions are: 1) precisely when and 2) will Apple do anything to block it? My guesses would be: 1) within the next month and 2) no. Guild says the mapping app is currently in an alpha stage. He offers some additional detail about its functionality: It’s vector-based It’s got two-finger rotation to any angle It’s super fast 4-inch height of the iPhone 5 is supported This suggests he's seen a demo or played with it himself. Here's one of the shots from Guild's blog p [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, during an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York last night, made the case that Apple should have kept Google Maps on the iPhone. "Apple's done very well using our maps," he joked. When asked directly about a forthcoming iOS Google Maps app, Schmidt gave the familiar line that he didn't want to "pre-announce" products. He also repeated another line he's said before: "Apple would have to approve it." Multiple reports have effectively confirmed that Google is working on an iOS maps app. These reports also suggest that since the public announcemen [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Top News

Google launched a new mobile interface for navigating various Google services. Now if you load Google on your smartphone, you will see a menu icon made up of three lines. When you tap it with your finger, a black navigation bar will slide out from the left of the screen. Here is a screen shot: The navigation bar has an independent scroll from the rest of the page. This allows you to preview the right side of the Google page and scroll up and down the navigation bar to see more Google services. Clicking on the navigation icon will slide the navigation bar back to the left of the s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search | Top News