SEO is Going Mobile in 2012
Another year has passed as we turn to 2012 and the future of SEO. There were a lot of changes to how search engine optimization worked this past year, and 2012 promises more of the same, as it’s being called the mobile SEO year.
With millions of consumers owning smartphones and many of them using their phones to search online; this is just the beginning.
Mobile Search Statistics ...
Did you know?
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The world has more mobile phones than toothbrushes. (disgusting but rather fascinating stat)
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Nearly a quarter of all mobile phone owners downloaded at least three voucher codes in 2011.
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Mobile search now accounts for nearly a quarter of all travel-related searches.
Despite these statistics and trends, less than 20 percent of all United States major retailers have optimized for mobile websites. What does that mean? It means that smaller companies can grab a nice slice of the mobile pie before the big guys catch up with the mobile seo trend.
How does mobile SEO affect a website?
It affects sites in a negative way if they are not coded for mobile visibility. If a potential customer pulls up a website on their smartphone and it looks like gibberish, guess what happens? They simply click off the page and move on to a competitor, and that potential customer is gone forever. Needless to say, a 100 percent bounce rate from mobile search is not a good thing! What’s worse is that Google will take a look at this bounce rate and start wondering whether the site deserves a spot in its rankings.
How can a website comply?
Mobile search is the future of SEO and Google is interested in websites that are mobile friendly. How can I be so sure? Google has stated that mobile landing pages will now become part of Adwords quality score rankings. Here are a few tips for developing a mobile site:
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Prioritize content.
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Use features that are unique to the mobile environment.
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Forget the computer mouse, design for fingers.
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Make the layout and most of all the navitaion of the site simple.
It is easy to test whether a website is ready to embrace the future of SEO. Open it on your internet-ready phone and try to navigate through the entire site. Websites without the mobile equivalent are doomed to be left way back in 2011.
