For a while now we’ve been hearing that mobile search is ‘the next big thing’ in search; that it will revolutionise how we access information, why we access it and what we expect to gain from it. But in an age when ‘next big things’ are as common as ‘next big flops’, how is mobile search tracking and does it have the potential to be the next major step in internet search?
What do we know so far about Mobile Search?
It’s growing, fast.
As of September 2009, over a third of Australians were accessing emails on their handsets, and global mobile searches are tipped to outnumber desktop searches over the next few years. Because of this growth, combined with the explosion of smartphone sales and the decrease in price for 3G data, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt predicts that the search giant’s revenue generated from mobile search will eclipse that from desktop search over the next several years.
People search differently on mobiles.
The average search query on mobile phones has 11% fewer words and 18% fewer characters than desktop searches, and because there is only one paid link per results page, Click Through Rates for mobile search are very healthy, varying between 5%-15%, compared to the 2% average Click Through Rate for desktop searches (more of these figures are available in this white paper from the SEMPO pdf). Also, mobile searches seem to peak when desktop searches are at their lowest. In the case of the online business directory dLook, the desktop search site receives most of its traffic between 9am - 5pm, whereas its mobile directory peaks between 7pm and 3am. The trend here is that people are increasingly using mobile search after work when they’re out and about, which is a great way to extend your site’s reach, especially if it has mobile ecommerce functionality. Have a think about your business, would you benefit from reaching your customers after-hours?
Google is excited about it.
And when Google gets excited about something, it’s probably fairly serious. Already this year they have implemented a number of new AdWords tools dedicated to optimising mobile search campaigns, including Click-To-Call, Device Targeting and Location Targeting.
And when Google gets excited about something, it’s probably fairly serious. Already this year they have implemented a number of new AdWords tools dedicated to optimising mobile search campaigns, including Click-To-Call, Device Targeting and Location Targeting.
What does this mean for your business?
Short answer - get in early. The general perception at the moment is that nobody knows exactly what effect the dramatic increase in mobile search will have on businesses, particularly those with an ecommerce facility. However, here in 2010, it has become popular enough to be taken seriously, and early adopters will be rewarded with knowledge of the mobile search space that those who are slow to take up the technology won’t have. Five key takeaways from a recent white paper (pdf) published by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization are:
1. Create useable content: (Flash doesn’t work on mobile browsers)
2. Cater to your users: (examine your market demographics and tailor your campaign)
3. Redirect mobile users to mobile content (use device detection scripting to direct the user to the mobile or desktop site)
4. Extend Paid search to Mobile (use your existing SEM campaign as a template for mobile)
5. Experiment and refine (all successful campaigns require testing)
Drop us a line if you've had success or otherwise with mobile search, we'd to love to hear from you.
This article was posted by Chris Pahor. Chris is a specialist in Search Engine Marketing at Traffika. You can follow Chris on Twitter @chrispahor.
