Mobile Search: The Time Has Arrived!

30/07/2010

By Rob Weatherhead, Head of SME Operations, Latitude Group

It feels like the year mobile is set to come of age has been “next year” for about 10 years now! But there are some signs that mobile adoption, specifically in the world of search engine marketing, is starting to become a channel that advertisers need to pay attention to.

Boosted by the rise in popularity of smart phones, mobile internet usage has soared in recent years and in particular searches from mobile phones have rocketed with searches for commercial keywords growing 260% from 2008...

...to 2009. And with 500 million smart phones expected to be in circulation by the end of 2010 this growth is likely to continue through 2010 and beyond.

Searches from a mobile device are expected to represent 8-10% of all search completed by during 2010 and approximately 2% of Google paid search revenues are generated by mobile channels. Whilst the percentages might not sound too large this would make spend on Google Adwords from mobile devices larger than total spend on Microsoft AdCenter!

With all this growth, and more to come, it is time companies operating online started to take note and devised a plan of action for mobile search. Here are some best practice pointers on how to make sure you are best placed to make the most of this growing channel.

Provide a mobile version of your website

With more hits coming to your website through mobile search you need to ensure the user experience is positive. Investing in the development of your mobile site will help improve the customer experience and promote conversions from mobile visitors.

Target mobiles users separately

By default all of your Google Adwords campaigns will be opted in to appear on mobile devices. This means that... continued on page two >

 

 

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