Tuesday, October 14, 2008

With iPhone users gobbling up more and more of the mobile search market, Internet marketers must consider the idea that perhaps the mobile market will some day be the dominant search platform. That is certainly the feeling I got from the iPhone and SEO session at SMX East 2008.



According to panelist Cindy Krum, iphone users consume six times more data than the average mobile phone user, and in a world where mobile search has increased by 68%, this is a pretty exciting figure. One of the largest barriers to success with mobile search, and why some companies have outright ignored it, is the necessity for a separate website format that is easily accessible to cell phone browsers. According to Cindy Krum, the .mobi website structuring is out, and iPhone web browsing is in, quickly changing the possibilities for all types of businesses. With the iPhone’s ingenious ability to render html, most website owners don’t even have to change their existing site to show up in beautiful form on the iphone. Even if a business wants to create a custom look for mobile users, they can simply have multiple CSS, one set of rendering instructions for ‘Screen’ and the other for ‘handheld’. The content can stay the same, while phone users get a much simpler navigation using a handheld.

This means that more and more people are going to be exploring the world wide web using mobile devices. Both Nokia and Blackberry have already come up with their answering products to the iphone, meaning a simple touch screen interface and quality html rendering will eventually become commonplace. This implies that consumers will be using their phones to search for information, services, entertainment and more at a dramatically increasing rate. Any smart business owner will soon realize the importance of a search engine presence on mobile devices, which is why SEO experts and in-house teams need to be paying close attention.

Gregory Markel of Infuse Creative, brought up some excellent points about the possible future of the mobile search experience. Markel speculates that search oriented applications will take over the way users find what they are looking for. Instead of relying on keywords in a vast search engine, specific apps will help users find information and services faster. For example, Urban Spoon is an application that helps you quickly find restaurants and revues in proximity to your current GPS location. Just shake the iphone, and this nifty application brings you exactly what you’re looking for, maps it up, and will even let you know what others think about it. This sounds pretty simple compared to entering a long keyphrase search like “thai restaurants near seattle wa,” then having to sift through various forms of results, then mapping them, then getting directions or looking at reviews. Phone Internet users are looking for the quickest, easiest way to get what they want, which is extremely understandable given the limitations in download and typing speeds.

Making sure your business is available through the most used industry specific applications and that your website is user friendly and attractive on the iphone is going to be extremely important if you are going to compete in mobile search. Though it may seem like a small slice of the pie right now, I believe we are going to see a surge as cell phone technology continues to develop, making it possible for people to have access to everything they need through a device small enough to fit in their pocket.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine marketing is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit www.arteworks.biz.