Why Social Must Be Part Of Your Mobile Strategy

Let me start this piece by throwing a few stats out there:

Mobile

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

Social

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

We can break an SEO campaign into 3 main parts:

• Architecture
• Content
• Links

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

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

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

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

Architecture

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

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

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

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

Content

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

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

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

Links

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

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

Links from Twitter

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links from Facebook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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