SEO for retail – Mobile Search Factors and Value
So, mobile search has been touted as the next big thing since, well forever it seems, but does an SEO‘d mobile site have the same clout as a regular one?
Apparently not, according to eDigitalResearch and IMRG’s survey at the end of last month. While 12% of those questioned said they would use their ‘phone to shop online (and 12% said they were likely to) 25% intended to, or had used their ‘phone for research only, and 20% used their ‘phones in-store to check or compare prices, shame on you display merchandisers ; )
The take away from this seems to be about expectations- for the retailer anyway. Your regular bread-and-butter online store is where the transactions happen. It makes sense; there’s lots of screen real-estate, a perceived extra element of “trust” due to the connection, and the fact that buyers can see nice big pictures of what they’re buying. Given that a good sized ‘phone screen is 3.5 inches that comes as no surprise.
So what we can learn from this?
IMHO lots. One piece of stand-out advice is that marketers shouldn’t assume that specific offerings, such as docks, cables, peripherals etc. for mobile devices should have dedicated mobile sites. If you build a site purely to be mobile-friendly it is likely to be under-par viewed in a regular full-screen browser. The double whammy effect is that only a handful of users will use it to buy, and the remainder who get to to it via a desk/laptop won’t be seeing its full potential.
Another point is that if mobile users are checking and comparing relatively simple data you could do a lot worse than offering that data on your main website, but in a mobile friendly/specific way. They can find what that want on a nice a big screen, then verify that they are making the right purchase using their ‘mobile when they’ve got wallet ready at the checkout.
Ultimately mobile ‘phone search usage would seem to be something that online-only retailers benefit less from, than their high street counterparts.
Christmas Number Ones 2009
Every year I like to indulge the list-making SEO nerd in me and dredge up a Christmas chart of my own – from the SERPs no less.
Last year we saw Wikipedia ruling the roost for “christmas” in Google (.co.uk- the web), but times have changed, and so have the SERPs. News is number 1, and that news is that Simon Cowell shouldn’t take things for granted (no comment).
Coming in at number 2 is good/bad old Wikipedia. As last year’s number 1 this isn’t much of a shuffle but what is interesting is that 2008’s number 1 (northpole.com) has been bumped to number 3. Maybe Google wants “real” relevance, so perhaps its taking a singularly religious view this year.
Bing has a more commercial take on things. While Wikipedia gets the top slot its Tesco that gets number 2, but its not all wanton consumerism, as my old favourite soon.org’s Christmas page is still asking “Does it have real meaning today?”.
Yahoo! strays from the norm by giving videojug.com the number 3 slot this year, and on closer inspection it turns out to be a set of lovely arts-and-crafts how-to’s- very festive indeed.
Ask, on the other hand is awash with sponsored results (no suprises there, they need all the revenue they can get), so gets a big thumbs down for not entering into the spirit of things.
All in all 2009 has been a good year for search, with content marketing seeing wider pick-up and Google lifting the lid on dupe content a little- let’s see what next year brings!
Twittering your Eggs into One Basket
The fail whale has become a symbol that sums up that twitter doesn’t take itself too seriously and that while no one is paying it’s become a victim of its own success! It puts a smile on your face that no service is perfect and that for a brief few minutes you can have a break from your tweeting.
This made me think how much do established brands who are engaging with their customers regularly (being a few tweets a day) rely on a single medium to communicate with their audience?
Is Microsoft’s New Search Engine Finally The One To Dethrone Google?
There have been many pretenders to the crown that have promised to retrieve more accurate and relevant results than Google and thus far none of these new ‘rivals’ have come close to denting the vast market share Google owns.
This is why when Microsoft rolled out their latest foray into the world of search in the form of the new Search Engine Bing, we in the SEO & SEM community failed to get too excited about the prospect that Google’s reign at the top was over. However according to (very) early figures from market analysts HitWise, Bing is faring far better than most new search engines and have already driven a good amount of traffic to the site. On the 3rd June, Bing was the 8th most popular site on the web and at the time of writing it is 75th in the list of the most popular site on Alexa.
Twitter Marketing & Microblogging for your Business…
With the up rise of Social Media Marketing in 2008, it is important to grasp exactly what can be gained from this form of promotion and what are the components of it. This is something we will be focusing on in the first part of 2009.The first element we are going to look is the world of Microblogging, Twitter.com and how it can help your business.
