SEO in A Mobile World SEJ ThinkTank w/Anne Ahola Ward

transcript

Mobile SEOBy Anne Ahola Ward

#SEJThinkTank@annebot @circleclick

About me!

➔ O’Reilly Author➔ CEO of CircleClick➔ IBM Futurist➔ SEO SUPER FAN GEEK➔ Secret Canadian➔ Avid Tweeter

(@annebot)

2#SEJThinkTank@annebot @circleclick

Mobile SEO Matters!

Search is the most common starting point for mobile product-based

searches.

➔ 48% of mobile searches begin with search engines; 33% begin on branded websites; 26% begin on branded apps.

➔ More than half of 100 billion monthly searches are occurring on mobile devices.

Poll 1 Is tablet SEO the same as Mobile SEO?A. YesB. No

Mobile Search = not the same.

★ 62% of organic searches display different results on desktop vs. smartphone.

★ This trend is only expected to increase.

What is it?

➔ Nth Screen Technology is the merging of devices, people, and places to create a shared interactive experience.

➔ The search ecosystem expands to everywhere and is part of everything we do.

Mobile Tenets★ Don’t develop for a platform think

“Nth.”★ Be fast or go home.★ Empathize with the user ★ Test frequently, not just the

homepage!★ The fold is no more…?

About the fold...

The concept is older than we

think.

Turning pages have always been effort. We stopped

making scrolls and switched to making books when Buddhist

monks took the idea from India through Afghanistan to China,

first century BC.

What is visible on the page without action is what gets us to scroll.

Be worth the trouble of scrolling.

Most people start scrolling before the entire page loads.

The most viewed area of the page is just above the fold, at about 550 pixels,

with just over 80% viewership.

More than $3 billion in pizza has been ordered via Domino’s mobile app alone.

Local Search Behavior➔ 50% of Consumers who do a local search on their smartphone visited a

store within one day.

➔ 30% of Consumers would rather buy in-store instead of online knowing they are close to a store.

➔ 61% use the address or phone number in the ad. 67% of Consumers want ads customized via city and ZIP code.

➔ 68% use the “Get Directions” or “Call” buttons.

Ok, cool. So what do I do?

Mobile Considerations

1. Do I build an App or do I not build an App?

2. Site configurations. Do I go with dynamic or parallel URLS?

3. Responsive or bust.

4. HTTP/DOS (2)

How to Optimize Mobile

★ Hosting matters - Check your CDN / Choose packages wisely

★ Redirect? Then do canonicalization right.

★ Is your business local? Invest in local SEO.

★ Facebook Instant Articles (4/12)★ Project AMP

Poll 2 Have you deployed Project AMP?A. YesB. NoC. What's Project AMP?

AMP Observations

★ Author field now required.★ Verbose image information now

required, upfront.★ There are WordPress

integrations!★ Syntax may be a bit obscure to

your web developer.

Rich Snippets

Add structured data of the appropriate type to your site, then simply test to verify! There are generators that will even do it for you.

Example snippets:

★ Product Snippets contain information about a product. For example: a photo, price, availability and reviews / ratings.

More Snippets!

★ Review Snippets contain a review of an

item such as a restaurant, movie, or even

a recipe.

★ Video -- An online video, including a

description and thumbnail. These are extra

hard to get to index (at least intermittently).

★ News article -- A news article, including

headline, images, and publisher info.

About Snippets★ Using them doesn’t

guarantee they will be displayed.

★ Headlines should not exceed 110 characters (AMP guidelines).

★ Always, always test before deploying.

Help the machines help you.

Spend the time and resources on mobile optimization.

★ Site structure and navigation matters.

★ Take out the trash.

★ No pop-ups, no flash! Ewwww.

Onto the future, now!

Emerging technologies and platforms...

Mobile VoiceGrowing in popularity with text to speech

ZenithOptimedia found that 23% of survey respondents have used voice search services, including Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana. Of those surveyed, 50% are using voice search more frequently now than they did a year ago.

Voice Search Musings➔ Queries are conversational➔ Optimize for ‘direct answers / rich answers’➔ Assume mobile or wearable / connected home devices➔ H/T Rich snippets, they will also help you out with voice

We can assume that search engines will want to use direct answers for voice search. Accuracy improves continuously and exponentially with processing power and machine learning advancements.

Virtual Reality

★ Futurists like me envision a world where digital technology flows as water into space taking shape around our non-virtual existence.

★ VR monetization revenues are expected to reach $4.4 billion dollars by 2019

★ The Landscape is expanding...

Augmented Reality

★ Input comes in the form of text, video, images and audio.

★ ARISE - the first Augmented Reality search engine (University of Illinois research project).

★ Location is the strongest application for AR search.

Emerging Search DevicesSmart TVs; Smart Watches, Smart Wristbands

★By 2018, smartwatches alone will move nearly 100 million units.

★Beacons are delivering real-time product and service messaging through Apple’s iBeacon, Google Eddystone, and Facebook Beacons.

★Users will want more concise content such as discounts, coupons and live concerts or events.

3 Takeaways★ Speed is king, do the work

and reap rewards.★ Don’t build an app just for

the sake of it.★ There is no dominant

platform, always consider Nth possibilities.

Thank you!!! Follow: @annebot @circleclick Bibliography:

www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/

www.cmocouncil.org/facts-stats-categories.php?view=all&category=mobile-marketing

techcrunch.com/2015/10/08/mobile-searches-surpass-desktop-searches-at-google-for-the-first-time/

www.mediative.com/mobile-stats-for-2015/

https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2343577/google-local-searches-lead-50-of-mobile-users-to-visit-stores-study

Edward Kundahl 2016 Digital Marketing Forecast: 7 Trends to watch for BusinessCreatorPlus.com

Ramon Llamas of IDC

Josh Schwartz, Scroll Depth

Amy Schade, Nielsen Norman Group

Google Developer documentation, blog

Wikipedia article on book binding

The internet as a whole, thank you!

P.S. Thanks to future robot overlords 33