***This is a repost from August 2006 with some additional insights.***
Looking for the next untapped SEO market? Well for the longest time proponents of mobile phones have pumped web access. The logical connection would be for SEOs and webmasters to start thinking about making their content available to the online world. I say for the longest time because it was 2003 when I first heard rumblings of mobile internet, but the speeds and cost issues have made the impact on the industry very slow. This is also why I’m not saying that mobile search is the ‘greatest’ untapped SEO market to be had.
Nonetheless, it bears value to pay attention to this particular industry and corresponding developments. As prices get cheaper to surf and speeds get faster, more and more web sites should consider making their content available to the online market. (There may come a time when it really doesn’t matter whether you’ve developed web content exclusively for the mobile market, but that’s not today.)
Implications for mobile search? Smaller markets, larger audiences, and targeted audiences. You can definitely identify existing users of mobile internet to build correlating content. However, we have a problem. We want mobile search not mobile internet. Many users who browse with their cell phone probably have their favorites. Not so much searching and ambiguous surfing. Nonetheless, slowly but surely things will, and are, changing.
The latest developments extend beyond just search capabilities. With any technology, as time progresses the tech gets cheaper and faster. Getting maps, locations, phone numbers, live info, has never been easily. Is your web site optimized for this?
Is there a version of your website accessible to the small screen and slower upload speeds? You have to add this capability if you think you’ll have visitors from a phone search.
Edit ADD: W3 standards for mobile search.
By the way, the next emergence is not just mobile versions of your web site. It’s video. Not a blog, or podcast, but now a vidcast. Makes sense, stream your content online, make it playable in both your regular web site AND a mobile version–that would be enough to lead your industry.
Video is fast becoming the best means of attracting new users and adding value to the visitors you already have. Try to add this capability using a simple camera if you are a blogger, or add more expensive cameras, lights, and software if you’re a large company trying to leverage content and news to your user base.
I thought mobile phones show the same search results as the PC , wouldnt it be optimized for mobile phone too then
Well this particular article suggests MSN LIVE will have a separate section devoted to local Mobile content. I don’t know how they’ll create this ‘mobile directory’ or how one could ‘rank’ in it. If you have a PDA or other device that accesses the internet you would get regular results. Whether the page loads comfortably on your settings is another story.
This link will also help regarding mobile search:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006868.html
also check this out:
http://www.discusswireless.com/forum/Service-Providers-C17/Virgin-Mobile-F56/Virgin-Mobile-USA-Has-JumpTap-power-Mobile-search-engine-P4374/
Virgin is creating their own search engine?
And you know what, not only mobile search but social mobile media!
Cellfish Media is the latest company trying to cash in on social networking for mobile devices. An ad-supported portal, Cellfish.com, allows users to upload and share photos and videos from their phones. The effort builds on the company’s traditional paid content offerings, and offers a variety of free and premium images, video clips and ringtones.
Cellfish.com also features a content locker where users can store their downloads in case they lose their handsets or upgrade phones. Content lockers have gained popularity as a premium offering from carriers and application distributors, but are quickly gaining favor as a free feature in an effort to lure heavy consumers of mobile content.
Cellfish’s announcement follows a move from Mixxer, which has rebranded as 3Guppies which unveiled a widget that can be placed on MySpace profiles to send photos and videos to wireless phones.
3Guppies is hoping to build on its existing audience of 750,000 unique visitors a month with the PC-to-mobile distribution service, and, like Cellfish, offers a content locker for wireless users. The company plans to monetize the service by delivering ads along with the content early next year.