SEMBG 2015 Table of Contents 1 Introduction......................................................3 2 Why is mobile SEO different from a regular SEO....................3 3 Factors while designing a mobile website..........................4 3.1 Make it mobile compatible......................................4 3.2 Maximize the mobile capabilities...............................5 3.3 Reduce the loading time........................................5 3.4 Understand the context.........................................6 4 Mobile application v/s Mobile website.............................6 4.1 Advantages of a mobile website.................................6 4.2 Advantages of a mobile app.....................................7 5 Leveraging Social Media & Mobile websites/apps....................9 6 Analysis of Times of India Mobile Website........................10 7 Conclusion.......................................................12 8 References.......................................................13 9 Appendix.........................................................14 9.1 Exhibit 1.....................................................14 1
2) Cross device compatibility: The mobile website can be accessed in the same manner across a
varied set of devices and can thus serve all irrespective of the OS of the mobile. The minimum
that requirement is to have a browser in the device.
3) Search engine visibility: As the mobile websites are hosted on the remote server they can be
indexed by the different search engines and hence are available to the users through the search
engines.
4) Maintenance and upgradeability: The maintenance and upgradeability of the mobile website is
relatively easy as one needs to just maintain the content on one location on the remote server.
Any updates which are applied on the remote server in terms of the UI can be easily made
available across all users at the same time.
5) Easy to find and share: As the search engines index the mobile websites as well, they can be
easily searched and shared with other people by just sharing the URL of the website. The person
who thus receives the URL can just access the website from the browser and get the latest
information from the mobile website with just a tap. This enables larger reach for the mobile
website and can thus be helpful to create awareness of the business among the mobile users
community.
6) Low cost: As compared to creating an app for the different platforms like the iOS, Android,
Windows etc. it is relatively easy to build a mobile website which can run across all the
platforms. One needs to only build a mobile optimized (see section xxx) website and then host it
on remote server and with advanced mobile website tools this can be easily accomplished.
4.2 Advantages of a mobile app
1) Interactive experience: As the app natively runs within the device at the OS level, it can benefit
by accessing the different resources like the camera, GPS etc. to bring about a rich and
interactive experience to the user. E.g. an app can easily bring up the camera with just a tap
from within the app rather than separately invoking the action to open the camera.
2) Optimized for regular and personalized usage: An app resides in the individual user’s device and
hence can store user specific personalization information like the user’s language, location,
preferences, credit card information etc and can use this information to provide more
personalized information to the user. E.g. the app can store the credit card information of the
user locally and can bring it up automatically whenever a payment has to be initiated thus
providing a more interactive and personalized experience to the user.
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3) Complex data processing: As the app runs natively in the device at the OS level it can access the
resources of the device easily and hence can run complex data processing algorithms without
too much lag. This can be particularly handy for investment related apps which need to do a lot
of number crunching and paint different graphs and trends.
4) Leverage native functionality like camera and GPS: As the app can run natively within the device
at the OS level, capabilities like the camera and the GPS can be accessed invoked from within
the context of the app. As compared to the browser based website, in which case the user will
have to start the camera separately.
5) Offline usage: As the app resides within the user’s device it can store certain information in the
local storage and can be surfaced to be viewed by the user even in situation when there is no
network connectivity. Once the user is again connected, the latest information can then be
downloaded and stored again for later offline usage.
6) Push notifications and alerts: With the apps there is added advantage to push notifications and
alerts to the user. This can be a really powerful user experience as this can be used by the
businesses to provide contextual & personalized marketing alerts in the direction of mass
customization. E.g. A retail store app can send out notifications and alerts about the various
promotions to the users who are within the vicinity of the store. This can be done by identifying
the location of the user via the app and in the case the user is nearby a store, the notification
can be triggered. This can lead to personalized usage of the app and can thus lead to customer
loyalty.
7) Gather user’s personalized data and online usage behavior: As the app resides within the device
there is provision to gather user’s personalized data and his usage online. This can be very useful
information to analyze the usage pattern and then customize and optimize the services of a
business as per the needs of the users.
8) Promotes faster and shorter purchasing cycle: One of the significant challenges for business is to
reduce the overall buy cycle for its consumers. With a mobile app there are different avenues
this can tacked. The businesses can push personalized and customized alerts to the user’s device
based on the context and then prompt the user to conduct a transaction. The transaction can be
further optimized by providing an automatic login and by also bringing up the credit card
information for the payment. This can be pretty easily achieved by a mobile app and this
reduces the overall interaction for completing a transaction.
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Overall we observe that the mobile website and the mobile app have its fair share of advantages and
disadvantages. Broadly speaking given ease of access of the mobile website, it is more suited to enable
reach and target a wider range of audiences (through search) and can thus be really helpful when the
need is to create awareness. However on the other hand the mobile app is more suited for advanced
usage to provide users a personalized experience and thus fostering loyalty.
Another important thing that needs to be also noticed is the trend in terms of the usage of the mobile
websites and the apps. As per a survey conducted by Flurry Analytics, the majority of the usage is
coming from the apps as compared to the websites.
Hence it is important for business to come up with an appropriate strategy based on their goals.
However the recommended approach is to have an optimal footprint in both the worlds through a web
site and also an app. Website will help create the awareness and visibility and the mobile app will help
deliver a personalized and rich experience leading to loyalty.
5 Leveraging Social Media & Mobile websites/apps
Social media has taken the current decade by storm. In light of the level of engagement that was created
via the social media during the recent events like the Egypt uprising and the Anna Hazare movement in
India, marketers and business cannot ignore the role of the social media for promoting their businesses.
The other interesting factor is the intersection of the social media and the mobile. Studies show that
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with the advent of the smartphones the usage of the social media via the smartphones has increased
dramatically. On an average it is observed that 60% of the social media access happens via the
smartphones. All these data prompt the businesses to have a holistic approach to their social media
strategy and the mobile strategy.
It is needless to say that it is important to have a social media footprint on the Facebook, Twitter and
Google+. The presence of Google+ is equally important to the tighter integration and promotion that
Google offers through the channel of Google+. Hence even though 1+ Billion people are present on
Facebook, Google+ cannot be ignored. The social media thus created can be leveraged to create the
buzz and awareness and engage with the potential customers.
In the context of the mobile website and mobile apps it is important that the social media channels
complement and foster each other so that the marketers and businesses gain maximum leverage.
6 Analysis of Times of India Mobile Website
In this section we will analyze times of India mobile website based on some of the strategies discussed in
the sections above.
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The two screens below are taken from the mobile website of times of India.
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No irritating pop up to force the user to install the mobile app. Only just a message of android app is shown. User also has an option to close the android app message.
The ads are placed only on the header and don’t disturb the user or impact user experience. On clicking the ad, the link opens in a different tab and the control is taken to the ad page.
Even though the mobile site was visited from Bangalore, TOI is not taking into account the location of the user to render city specific new. Rather, all cities news is being shown. User has to choose the city for which he/she wants to see the news.
Changing the city to Bangalore automatically would improve the user experience and optimize the usage of mobile’s unique features.
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The screen below is taken from the mobile app of times of India.
Page speed Insights result details
Refer Exhibit 1 to see the output of PageSpeed Insights tool.
1. Times of India’s mobile website scores 63/100 for speed in Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
We were able to find that blocking script and blocking CSS files are causing the reduction in the
speed.
2. It scores 99/100 for usability
7 Conclusion
With the rapid growing rate of smart phones, more and more search will be originating from mobile
devices in the future. More and more people are going to search on the go. More and more transactions
will take place from customer’s smart-phones and tablets. Taking advantage of the opportunities that a
strong mobile strategy provides to the business is as important as optimizing for desktop traffic.
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The mobile website clearly contains all the information that a mobile app has. This will help the mobile website users to upgrade to mobile app after prolonged usage.
