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4 Things To Understand About Mobile SEO

Mobile search engine optimization has arrived and it is leading us down a path that we haven't seen since the early days of traditional website SEO. Mobile-only search engines like Google Mobile, AOL and Windows Live have popped up, and are continuously being tested, categorized and refined to deliver mobile users with quality search results. Google - the undisputed king of SEO standards - has already developed a mobile-only Googlebot to troll and rank mobile-friendly sites. As usual, the exact things it looks for are kept under lock and key; however, much like desktop SEO, some staples will remain.

In this article, we will cover four specific areas of consideration when building an SEO-friendly mobile sites with tips on how to own the mobile web. Enjoy!

1) Your Audiences Search Behaviour Has Changed

Throw your current pre-conceptions about keywords out the door. When it comes to mobile searching, users speak in a completely different language. If you build a mobile site based on desktop keywords, you've completely missed the boat. Mobile users are impatient, search with fewer keywords, and often perform location-based searches. These three facts will fundamentally change everything about your mobile websites SEO.

When it comes to impatience, Google Mobile already knows this. Google has what they call "predictive searches". What this means is that when a user types specific keywords into their search, Google will guess based on their location and keywords what they're searching for and display a couple of search options relative to that guess. This saves both time and tedious clicking so mobile users are fans.

When it comes to searching, mobile users are fundamentally different from desktop ones as they tend to be on-the-go and don't have time to get down to specifics. Their searches usually consist of a few keywords and a location like "movie times Edmonton" or "flowers Terwillegar". This is a huge shift from desktop keyword usage, which means mobile website developers need to build their SEO strategies around these keywords.

So with that in mind, long winded, hyper-targeted keywords have no place in mobile SEO, and short, location based keywords are king. Build your SEO strategy and mobile to fit the immediate needs of your mobile users exclusively, and you'll be head and shoulders above your competition.

2) Search Engines Have Changed

The mobile bots are smart cookies (no pun intended). Search results using a mobile browser will be different than those from a desktop. Mobile search engines recognize your browsing platform, your search terms and your location in order to provide you with an optimal yet relevant response to your search query. With predictive searches like Google offers, searching is made even easier. As a designer, it would be your goal to rank well for search terms that Google is predicting. This means that you should do some research on the current search phrases your mobile visitors are using and better fit this need or, if you're finding that your users are not finding you with ideal keywords, make changes to your site SEO to capitalize on missed opportunity.

Here's a list of some of the mobile-specific search engines out there already:

Google XHTML Mobile Search from Google Mobile
Yahoo! Mobile
MSN Mobile Search
AOL Mobile Search
Nokia Mobile Search
Technorati Mobile
4Info Mobile Search

In short, make sure your mobile website is extremely friendly with popular predictive search phrases for mobile users.

3) Your Site Design Must Change

This means a couple things to mobile website designers. For one, an optimal design is extremely important to get top rankings. Mobile-friendly websites will get top marks by bots, which means that 'band-aid' mobile sites that do a hack job of converting your site for mobile simply won't cut it. Second, browsing platforms need to be considered when building a mobile site. It should go without saying that you should test your mobile website on multiple browsers.

Another benefit of having a custom designed mobile site is that you avoid site transcoding, which is a feature of major mobile search engines that automatically optimizes your website for viewing on a particular mobile device if it's not done already. Sounds great right? Well, the truth is, sites are often transcoded poorly, cutting off images and, potentially, your content, which results in a poor user experience causing your visitors to bounce. The only way to avoid site transcoding is by custom building your mobile platform and testing it on a variety of browsers.

4) Standard SEO Practices Still Apply

As you would suspect, most standard SEO practices still apply for mobile. Ensuring your site has little baggage for quick loading, adding meta data, building a simple navigation, sitemaps, using internal links, header tags, image alt tags etc. are all expected and essential SEO practices to abide by.

With this said, there are also some mobile specific SEO strategies you should abide by to ensure your code and content is mobile-bot friendly. Using the most current W3C MobileOK standards and ensuring you're using compliant mark-up language are both must-haves. You can also submit your sitemap to Google or your full site to DMOZ's directory to get noticed.

We hope you've enjoyed our brief look at some of the main things you'll want to understand about Mobile SEO. It is clear that we are all walking down a new and exciting path that will inevitably have many twists and turns.

Source:Mobithinking SEO Best Practices