5 Reasons Mobile Web Is Changing SEO

Even though mobile web technology is still fairly new, it is growing at an alarming rate. With more people using smartphones and other mobile devices, search engine optimization seems to going through a sort of transformation. Just look at these staggering numbers released earlier this year by Microsoft.

• Out of the world’s 4 billion mobile phones in use, 1.08 billion are smartphones
• Smartphones comprise 27% of all mobile phone use
• 3 billion mobile phones are SMS enabled
• 86% of mobile web users are watching TV while using a mobile phone
• 1/3 of all mobile phone users access Facebook from a mobile device
• 91% of all mobile internet is social related
• By 2014, mobile web should overtake desktop internet usage

Looking at these numbers, one thing is clear. Mobile web is here to stay and SEO professionals can no longer afford to ignore this fast-growing audience. Let’s just take a look at a few of the ways mobile web marketing is changing SEO forever.

Image Searches: There are several mobile apps that allow mobile users to search the web using images they take on their phone or even with photos taken that instant. For example, if you are looking for a particular gift for a loved one and you see it at the store, only it’s too expensive, you can take a picture with your phone and you can instantly find that item somewhere else close by for less. Are your site’s images optimized for this form of search?

Type-Searching: Desktop users take no time at all to type out a long keyword phrase. But try doing that on a standard mobile type-pad. Instead, mobile users are starting to search for shorter keyword strings. This means that mobile users are relying far more on predictive text or on search engine suggestions. How will this affect the way you optimize your site and go about link building in the future?

Going Social: SEO is all about sociability these days. If you want to connect to your audience and remain relevant, mobile web is where it’s at.

Geo-Targeting: Many phones come with GPS technology these days and many apps are using the user’s location to enhance the phone’s functionality. Google, for example, often gives you local search results first before any others. But with mobile phones being used in multiple locations, search results are likely to fluctuate more on mobile devices than on any other. If your website’s local search page isn’t optimized or complete, you may want to put this at the top of your list of things to do.

The Immediacy: It is said that 70% of mobile hotel bookings were for same day check-ins. And 38% of mobile flight bookings were for trips departing within 10 days. Knowing this, will you consider changing the offers or content you show to your site’s mobile visitors?

You can expect mobile web use to continue to expand as new technologies emerge to make things simpler, faster and more accessible for users than ever. What do you think of this current trend? Have you altered your SEO efforts because of the mobile web phenomenon?