According to the Mobile Marketing Association, marketers are forecasted to spend $14 billion on mobile marketing in 2011. Techcrunch estimates that 20% of all searches will be mobile by 2012. It is predicted that there will be more smartphone users than PC users by 2013. With booming stats like this, it’s no wonder why companies are rushing into “going mobile.”  Everyone is trying to keep up.

The interesting fact is that if you have a website, you are already participating in the mobile world. People can easily visit your website through the browser of their smartphone or tablet device, even if you haven’t planned for them to arrive.  If users find the same design and content on their phone as they do on their computer screen, they may not be experiencing the best you have to offer.

Mobile users are on the go. They want to quickly find key information without the hassle of searching, squinting or scrolling. Yes, those extra actions are considered hassles for people propelled by efficiency. A mobile audience wants information, as soon as it wants the information. Too much zooming and clicking and mobile users are on to the next option, or tweeting about their negative experience. Using the traditional design and layout strategy from your website for your mobile presence creates a risk of losing potential clients and customers.

4 tips to get started with a mobile strategy:

1. Know design do’s and don’ts. For example, the iPad does not play Flash.  According to Wired magazine, nearly one out of every 300 Americans already owns an Ipad, and not one of those people can see your website if it is designed in Flash.  It is also important to keep content readable, in clean columns, with minimal clutter to help people find the specific nuggets of information they are seeking. As a general rule, less is more when dealing with a smaller screen.
2. Know the difference between an app and a mobile website. A website is instantly available when a user accesses it through the Internet.  If your website has a presence on the Internet, mobile users can find it.  On the other hand, an app has to be downloaded by a user.  It requires an extra step of downloading and sometimes has additional costs associated.
3. Know if you need to create a separate mobile website. Since your website is already accessible by mobile users, do you even need to create a separate website? One way to make this decision is to check the Google Analytics on your current website. From here, you can quickly find the overall numbers of mobile devices that are accessing your website. You can also see if the number is rising or changing. Use these results to help determine if it’s time to invest in the mobile space.
4. Know what’s out there. Begin to investigate competitors and brands on different mobile devices. You will find a wide variety in what you experience as a user. For example, Whole Foods is truly optimized for mobile use with a separate mobile website. You can compare their traditional website with their mobile site from your PC by clicking on the “mobile site” link in the footer of their website. Another good example of a site designed for the mobile user is Wired Magazine.On the other hand, J Crew does not have a separate mobile site. Visit them on a mobile device and you will see an exact replica of their website. Their mobile presence is not geared to the online shopper who wants to quickly make a purchase. Martha Stewart is another example of a brand whose mobile presence seems to be based on traditional website design rather than customized for the mobile user.

What do you think? Would a mobile website help you engage with visitors who are already finding you online?
Do you already have a mobile site?  If so, what tools do you use to develop layout and content specific for mobile visitors?

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A recent study of smartphone users published by Google showed that mobile users maintain a more applied approach to searching than desktop users.  Where users might leisurely browse for information on their desktop, they are more apt to take action immediately with their smartphone.

In fact, nine out of 10 mobile users take action after a smartphone search.  This action includes everything from making a purchase to visiting a business, almost 90 percent of the time within a day of the search.  This high action rate ties into the fact that 95 percent of users use their smartphone to find local information.  Whether checking inventory while in a store, researching prices, or looking for coupons, they are searching for practical, real-time information that they can use immediately.

It seems that mobile users embark on searches to quickly discover answers to immediate needs. Quick access to valuable mobile content allows smartphone users to plan on the go, which enhances consumer freedom and the ability to adapt quickly to an ever-changing marketplace.  Google says that smartphones are becoming an indispensable shopping tool in the research and decision-making process and indicate a new breed of savvy purchasers that it calls “the new smartphone consumer.”

Not only are mobile users action-oriented, they are also multi-taskers.  More than 70% of those surveyed use their smartphones while consuming other media, like watching television and reading the paper.  Of course, smartphones are set up for multi-tasking, allowing users to browse the Internet, use an app and watch videos while making dinner or waiting in a doctor’s office.

The multi-media nature of the smartphone, which is appreciated by multi-taskers, may be extra challenging for advertisers yearning to capture the attention of a smartphone user. The survey showed that 82 percent of smartphone users “notice mobile ads,” but awareness does not guarantee action.

Regardless of your plans for venturing into mobile apps or advertising, the study clearly indicates the importance of having a good mobile presence for your business.  Consumers regularly use their mobile phones to find information and take action.  The easier you make it for mobile customers to reach you, the better chance you have for being a part of their research and purchase decisions.

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QR codes are extremely popular in Japan where they were first created by Denso-Wave in 1994.  With the increased usage of smartphones in the U.S., American businesses are quickly adopting the use of QR codes to promote coupons, sales pages, contact information, and more.

What is a QR code?
A Quick Response (QR) code is a two-dimensional barcode that can be scanned by the camera in a smartphone to automatically pull up information. Depending on how the code is set-up, it can direct the smartphone user to a website, portfolio, Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, resume, or a number of other creative landing pages.

How do I use QR codes for marketing?
QR codes are a mobile-friendly way to point people in the offline space to online resources. Their usage can range from getting “likes” in social media to increasing e-commerce sales to spreading news.  For example, the NYC Department of Sanitation is using a QR code campaign to encourage recycling in the community.
Really, the uses are endless. The important concept to bear in mind is that QR codes should provide value to the person scanning.  Before incorporating QR codes into your marketing plan, think about where you are sending people and what action you want them to take when they get there.  Here are some of the most common ways businesses are using QR codes.

• To relay contact information.  Place a QR code on your business card or email signature to direct people to a website, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, or blog where they can learn more about you and your business.
• To promote a service.  Add a QR code to traditional marketing materials, like brochures or billboards.  Generate the code to direct people to a specific landing page that promotes a new service or product.
• To encourage interaction. Use QR codes in a store or on your website to encourage people to sign up for discounts or coupons.  Set up the code so anyone who scans it will receive valuable information they can use, and may even share with others.
• To create brand loyalty.  Place a QR code in a visible place and invite people to make comments, add videos, share stories, or check in to Foursquare when they scan it.

What are the challenges?
QR codes are not considered mainstream yet.  Being an early adopter of QR codes limits your reach to people who understand what the codes are used for, and to those that have smartphones with a QR reader installed. According to the Nielsen Company, less than 30% of U.S. mobile subscribers own smartphones.
On the other hand, setting up a campaign with a QR code can be a quick and affordable way of encouraging people to take action.  It also has a “cool” factor associated with it, which might be a boost to your brand.

How do I generate a QR Code?
Generating a QR code is fairly simple and inexpensive.  In fact, many QR code generator websites are free.  Here are a few resources to get you started:

• Kaywa - a very simple QR code generator that lets you direct people to a URL, text, phone number or SMS.
• iCandy -  a more robust tool that includes tracking and analytics.
• QR Stuff - a high resolution QR code generator that includes options for printable formats and graphics.

Have you used QR codes in a marketing campaign?  Do you think they are valuable marketing tool or do you consider them hype?

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I love my Motorola ATRIX smartphone, with all its accessories and toys. It is ideal for traveling, and convenient to use around home, but it’s not always so great for web surfing, and it has nothing to do with the phone. I found the same thing happened with my iPhone. The problem is mobile versions of websites. Many of them are so bad, I can’t use them, and now, I refuse to use them. Why?
Here are some of the issues:

Automatically Redirecting Mobile Users

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why sites automatically redirect mobile users to the mobile version of their site, and almost every big website with a mobile version does this, but it’s a huge pain in the backside. First of all, if I use a regular, Firefox browser on my phone’s Lapdock, it still redirects me to the mobile version of the site. The real issue is that I never get the option to go to the regular website. This means I can’t take advantage of my phone’s capabilities.
Now, I realize not everyone has the same phone as me, so this doesn’t necessarily apply, but it also means regular mobile users have to deal with a number of other issues…

Providing Fewer Options

Mobile sites are optimized specifically to give users the most important information. For instance, popular blogs cut out all the extra ads, sidebars, and extra information. This way, I only get the latest headlines and can easily consume content. But what about all the additional information I can’t access?
There’s nothing more frustrating than going through my RSS reader or clicking a link on Twitter, only to be told I can’t access the post or picture because it wasn’t included in the mobile design.

Failing to Offer Options

So many mobile websites get so focused on ‘giving ‘em the goods’ that they forget about usability basics. There’s no way to access contact information, go to a different category, leave a comment, read more about the company, or access the shopping cart. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I can’t find these things, my stay on a website is usually pretty short, particularly if I’m using my phone to shop online. In fact, I’d sooner play around zooming content in and out, and paging to find what I need, rather than fight trying to interact with a company. Believe it or not, Facebook is one of the biggest culprits of this I encounter.

Compatibility and Website Fails

Unlike browsers, phones work very differently. You can’t just build one standard site and expect it to work for everyone. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine how much testing you’d have to do to make a 100% compatible website. However, nothing is more frustrating than being forced to use a mobile website that doesn’t work. Think it only happens to small business owners or small websites? Nope. Lifehacker and Gizmodo are two of the sites I find it almost impossible to access beyond the home page.

Multiple Links

Nothing is more frustrating than to be going down the highway and end up going to 5 other pages I didn’t want to go to (which eats up my data!) in an attempt to get directions for a store, a phone number, or some other tidbit of information. The biggest reason why this happens is because whoever designed the mobile website never once thought about smartphone users having a touchscreen. They compile a whole list of links, with one or two word anchor text, all into an area the size of my pinky finger. I have enough trouble typing and using a touch screen without the extra help. Having links like this is almost standard on a regular website, but a mobile version? Now THAT is frustrating.

Paying attention to usability when you create a mobile website is an absolute must. And if you have an ecommerce site, I think usability of the mobile version is far more important than that of a regular website because visitors searching for your site so they can visit or buy from you! You’re killing hot leads. The other solution is to give mobile users the opportunity to visit the regular version of your website, even if it’s just giving users a link in the footer of your site.

Have you encountered any of these issues while using your mobile phone?

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Mobile search and traditional search are two very different animals and just because you optimize for one doesn’t mean it’s optimized for the other. The reason for this is user habits — people searching on their mobile phones are looking for different information, have different limits, and different habits. Therefore, the algorithm and set up are different and your optimization techniques need to reflect that.

Algorithm Differences

While no one really knows what desktop or mobile search algos include or how they work, it’s easy to see they’re very different. For example, desktop search places far more emphasis on brand searches than mobile search. So, if your site relies a lot on its name and the name of its products and services, it likely won’t do as well in mobile search.
Solution: Don’t assume that just because a term is successful in desktop search that it will be equally successful in mobile search. Take time to examine your analytics to see how the two campaigns compare. Use the strengths of each one to your advantage.

Location Matters

Unlike someone using a desktop computer, mobile phone users place a significant emphasis on location. They want to find information about local businesses, attractions, and events. This means they are more likely to want local results and to use geographic modifiers with their keywords.
Solution: Make sure to set up and optimize a Google Places listing.

Functional Results

Rather than receiving purely informational results (a title and description), mobile users will often receive functional and interactive results. So, for example, a search for a basic term will return a local business or location, an option to search for additional local results, popular websites with the keyword in the title or URL, the option to go to a list of keyword domains (if clothing is the keyword, it will ask if you want to go to clothing.com, clothes.com, etc). However, this also means regular results are pushed down in the results and may not be seen on the main screen at all.
Solution: You may need to adjust the keywords you target. The best option is to borrow an Android and iPhone to see how they work and how they return results, so you can better optimize your site.

Personalized Results

Mobile phones gather information differently than desktop computers. For example, they constantly track your location, and in the case of Android phones, users are always signed in. This takes a lot of the emphasis off search results and more on personalizing the options users can choose from.
Solution: Focus on personalizing their results in your favor. Encourage people to bookmark your site on their phones, for example. Another option is to consider creating a simple app that gives users direct access to your site, rather than pushing search.

Results Formatting

Desktop search results vary greatly, but they’re generally formatted the same way. Local results bring up a map with a small pack of results on the side. Video and image results appear in a line and search suggestions and social results appear at the bottom of the page.
In mobile search, video and image results don’t appear in a line. Instead, they appear one above the other, before regular search results. There are also fewer filters at the top of the search results, which means there are fewer options and the possibility of higher click through rates.
Solution: Keep the search filters in mind when creating and optimizing your content. Image and video SEO are extremely important. Carrier content such as ringtones and downloads also appear at the top of the results, regardless of what the search term is. This may also play into your marketing plans.

Autocomplete Filters Results

With standard searches, users either get direct results only after they click search. With mobile search, however, results are filtered with an autocomplete feature long before the results appear. This means users will likely use different terms than they normally would and see the the results differently.
Solution: Put the most important content first and include a search call to action in your broadcast advertising.
Have you noticed any significant differences between mobile and desktop search results?

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Smart phones are used for all sorts of communications like phone, email, messaging, and web browsing so SEO professionals started focusing on optimizing websites for mobile searches. The mobile optimization is not completely different from normal optimization. Some modifications are done in websites for good mobile searchability and the rules are slightly different with traditional desktop optimization.

Short Keywords/Key Phrase: The shorter keywords are used in mobile search engines because the searchers do not prefer to use long keywords in mobile. Local businesses can reap benefits from mobile search provided that they can optimize their website based on their location. The location based keywords like “web developers UK”; “web developers UK” helps the users to get closer to their needs.

Mobile Friendly Design: The screen in mobile is much smaller to surf so avoid flash and pop ups in the websites. Use text links and externalize all CSS. It is better to create a site map since it helps the spiders and users to navigate the site comfortably. The frames are strictly prohibited in mobile websites.

Whether Images Are Mobile Friendly: More images results in more loading time. If the loading time of the site increases then bounce rates also increase. The images should not be larger than the mobile screen. Scrolling down to see an entire image is not acceptable by users; they may get frustrated by this.

Preview: Check often how the website looks in mobile devices. Avoid transcoding because it is the main reason for the website distortion.

.Mobi Domain Benefits: The .mobi is a new top level domain similar to.com, .org. To make the website more readable the .mobi domains are preferred to be used at the same time with .com domains. When the users access the website through Smart phones, cell phones or tablets, than the .com domain is redirected to the .mobi.

Content for Mobile Websites: Make simple content for mobile websites. Long pages are not recommended by the users as they do not spend much time reading the content in mobile. The special shorter mobile websites should be designed without skipping the key details of content.

Off page Optimization: Websites can be promoted by submitting it in mobile specific search engines like Fire Fox, iPhoney, and the Opera Mini Browser and also by submitting the website in local directories. Websites can be promoted by press release submissions, article submissions, social media optimization, forum postings, blog commenting, etc.

Mobile Analytics: Mobile analytics are similar to normal web analytics. It is used to check the ranking and other important information by mobile search testing. The mobile analytics helps to get ideas for ranking better in the mobile search engines.

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Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to get your website or blog ranked within the search engines. And if you have an Apple iPad with mobile broadband you can perform SEO tasks right through your device, from just about anywhere, using one of these top search engine marketing apps:

Google Analytics for iPad

Google Analytics is the premier web analyzer for blogs and other websites. If you need an app that will give you up to date stats on your blog or website, Google Analytics is the app for you. This app will give you charts and stats through reports to the iPad’s full screen mode. The standard version will give you ten data rows. If you want more, you can upgrade to the fully featured version at around 7 dollars.
Get Google Analytics through iTunes.

WordPress for iPad

Do you have a blog or website that uses the WordPress theme? WordPress For iPad is one of the best resources for changing a link or even posting a new article to your blog. If you are the kind of blogger that loves reading comments by their readers, this is an excellent app to have. This will also allow you to change keywords on a whim if the competition drops for a certain trending keyword.
Get WordPress through iTunes.

SEM Calculator

The SEM Calculator is essential for SEO because it allow a user to analyze every aspect of their marketing. You have the ability to work with your impressions or Cost Per Action campaigns. If you use Adsense or affiliate marketing on your blog, this calculator can give you information on what campaigns are working and what campaigns aren’t working.
Get SEM Calculator through iTunes.

Website SEO Analyser by Koozai

There are a lot of website analyzers on the market, but Website Analyzer by Koozia is one of the best. This app will give you all of the information about your site’s inbound links and the on page factors of your content. This is also a great app for checking the inbound links and domain information for any of your competitors.
Get Koozai through iTunes.

HootSuite

HootSuite is a great app for people who use social media as backlinks for their websites or blogs. If you are using social media to promote your sites, you can use the HootSuite app to link all of your social media profiles together. This gives you a link between Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Having all of your social media profiles linked together is one of the best ways to build backlinks and get traffic to your site.
Get HootSuite through iTunes.

SERPS

Would you like to know how your blog or website is stacking up online? SERPS gives you an easy way to check your page rank from your iPad. This is a fairly limited app, but it definitely serves its purpose when you need to know your rankings on the fly.
Get SERPS through iTunes.

Analytics HD

This is not a free app, but paying for it is a great way to get more detailed reports than Google Analytics will give you. Analytics HD gives you more options for charts and graphs than the standard Google Analytics. This app is also designed for the resolution output on your iPad so you will get better coloring throughout the graphs. This app is offered for 4.99 in the App Store.
Get Analytics HD through iTunes.

Kindle

Do you love reading ebooks about SEO, Internet marketing or the latest trends in the industry? If you had a Kindle in the past, you can transfer all of your Kindle based ebooks to your iPad with this app. Since the Kindle uses a special format, you normally would not be able to read through your Kindle based ebooks. Kindle is offered through the App Store for free through Amazon.
Get Kindle through iTunes.

Dragon Dictation

Do you need to post a new article to your blog or website but don’t have the time to type it out? Use Dragon Dictate to dictate the article directly to your iPad. When you first set up the app, you will need to read through a paragraph in order to allow the app to get used to your voice. The calibration will take you about 20 minutes. Once you have completed this, you will be able to dictate notes or a whole blog post using your voice. This is a free app offered through the App Store.
Get Dragon through iTunes.

DropBox

Dropbox is a great app for storing data on a cloud server. Cloud servers have become popular for computers, but with the implementation of mobile broadband, iPad users can now take advantage of it too. If you have been working on a post and want to access it from another computer, use DropBox. Setting up your own cloud server through the app will take you a couple minutes. Don’t confuse this for an offline backup because there is a limit to the amount of data storage you can use. This is another free mobile broadband app from the App Store.
Get Dropbox through iTunes.

What’s your favorite SEO app for the Apple iPad?

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