Mobile search engine optimisation (SEO) has received a lot of buzz in the industry during the last several years. However, while many believe that it has not yet reached its peak, there are already predictions that it will lose momentum. So the question in everyone’s mind today is “Will this year be the year of the mobile?” Well, there are differing opinions among industry leaders. And with the popularity of the Apple iPhone and the eagerly anticipated Google G1, things just became all the more interesting. If you look at the issues deeper though, the arguments will come down to the following:

Did the iPhone Kill Mobile SEO?

Mobile “web” is usually refers to WAP pages made simple for users. Smartphones including the iPhone has the capability to access full HTML pages. Because of this, certain search engine experts believe that there’s no specific mobile content to rank. For example, the fundamentals of SEO such as researching keywords, inserting the selected key phrase on the meta tags and title tags, and adding links remain the same. To answer the question, the iPhone did not kill mobile SEO. In fact, it made mobile usage for browsing and searching almost mainstream. According to Nielsen Mobile, the use of mobile web has reached critical mass as of July of last year. This is in part because of the popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones. Rather than killing mobile web, these phones even made it a more viable market. Google reported they received 50 times more requests from iPhone users than the users of other devices.

Mobile SEO Differs from Desktop SEO

While the fundamentals of search engine optimisation largely remain the same in both mobile and desktop devices, they differ in very important aspects. For example, even if your site ranks for a certain keyword on mobile devices, it is no guarantee that it is relevant for the searcher. This is because mobile search behavior is different from desktop behavior in terms of category, frequency, and intent. If a marketer wants to take advantage of these differences, they need to use mobile specific tools such as Google’s mobile keyword tool rather than relying on desktop analysers such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. It will provide a detailed data of the search terms mobile users use when they are looking for information. In many cases, it is to be expected that the phrases are shorter and more direct because they have limited time and are browsing while on the go.
The key thing in being successful in mobile SEO is to understand the mobile searchers are different from desktop searchers. Adjustments can be made shortly after this discovery. A webmaster can make his site more relevant to users by creating mobile-specific content that is themed specifically for mobile SEO.