The first article is from Jonny Schneider, a Melbourne based mobile-web Producer, currently working on Yellow Mobile.  In this article Jonny talks about the differences between Online and Mobile SEO and the importance of developing a differentiated strategy to ensure that finding your mobile site is easier than finding a needle in a haystack!

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So why do I need Mobile SEO?

It’s easy to throw the term SEO around, and now that mobile web has arrived, there’re a lot of people asking what Mobile SEO is all about. A good place to start is to get right back to basics, what is SEO? Don’t dig too deep, just think about the acronym ‘SEO’ for a moment – it stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It deals with optimising your content to increase its find-ability through search engines, which brings more exposure to your product. Okay, easy. So Mobile SEO is about optimising mobile content for mobile search engines.

If you already know what SEO is, stay with me, in this article, we’ll discuss Platform and Context; why it matters for mobile content; and how this might influence your SEO strategy.

We’ve already established that SEO is basically about making content play nice with search engines. If you’ve got simple, text-heavy content published for web and you’re targeting people searching for specific information through mainstream search engines, then it’s a pinch – you can employ one of the tried and tested optimisation techniques and watch your organic traffic gradually increase in response. If your mobile content has similar structure and is targeted in the same way, then some of those techniques can be modified for mobile and may yield some results.

However, mobile content doesn’t usually have many similarities with online content. That’s because the context is different. Mobile content might be more concerned with things like location and immediacy. I need something near me, right now. Or perhaps you’re after something specific to a particular device, like a ring tone, application or game. We’ve now got the complexity of non-standard content along with a new context to consider. Here’s an example: if your product is targeted at a geographic region, is it possible to optimise your site content to give a higher rank when someone does a search while physically occupying that geographic region?

Mobile as a Platform brings another layer of complexity.

Let’s start with coding standards for mobile web. Basically, there are none. This is not for lack of trying, it’s got more to do with the hundreds of handset manufacturers producing devices according to their own specifications all handling web browsing in their own unique way. This creates complexity, and means that mobile web content that is suitable for everyone is often restricted by the lowest common denominator.

Then we have the confusion created by mobile search engines and more specifically how they determine what’s ’mobile’ and what’s not. Let’s not go into detail on that now but you might want to read the full analysis in this article.

What if you have both online and mobile content? For example, a strong online presence supported by a cut-down mobile version. Or perhaps you have mobile ad campaigns using mobile landing pages that advertise an online brand. How can you stop your mobile content from ‘competing’ with it’s online equivalent in search engines and how do you make sure mobile users don’t get the online content and vice versa? Next generation devices like Android and iPhone are making this even more difficult as the lines between mobile and online are blurred further.

By now you can see there are as many similarities as there are differences when talking about mobile and online content. No doubt, your content is also different to your competitor’s. These factors combine to suggest that SEO can’t be store bought – it has nuances and the best solutions are tailored to consider your content, your platforms and your target audiences.

If you’re just getting started though, here’re a few useful things to get you on your way:

MobiReady

MobiReady is an automated analysis tool designed to help you understand potential problems on your site that may hinder search engines from finding and classifying your content properly. It’s not focused specifically on SEO, but it does give an indication of the suitability of your site for mobile devices. Generally, the more mobile ready your site is, the easier it will be for a search engine to index.

MetaTXT Discoverability Standard

In simple terms, MetaTXT is a set of instructions used to help search engines to understand the relationship between an online and mobile site for SEO purposes. These instructions help search engine indexers find the mobile version of your site from the online version and vice versa by giving information such as the location of sitemaps, and target URLs for both online and mobile sites in a single file. It’s quite straight forward, and you can find everything you need to implement it at http://metatxt.org/.

Go Mobile SEO Tool

In April 2009 Visibility Mobile launched the first ever Mobile SEO tool in Go Mobile SEO. It’s aimed at the DIY audience and offers a range of optimisation tips and techniques based on automated analysis specific to your site. It’s a per-use service, and the toolkit is designed to get your site ready for the major mobile search engines.

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This article was written by Jonny Schneider as a guest on Mobilista.   You can read more from Jonny on his blog Rogerwilco and he’s also available for Mobile SEO consulting if you’d like to delve a little deeper into the area.

1. Everybody builds an App Store

Everybody will want an app store in 2009.  The iPhone App Store has had more than 300 million downloads globally, with more than 10k apps available as of early December 08.  

The appeal of the iPhone App Store is the large, consistent user base, the built in business model and the ‘one-click’ path to getting an application onto a mobile handset.

The iPhone App Store works because:

• It’s dead easy for users.  They just get it.
  
• Apple’s marketing machine has guaranteed enough users to warrant the effort that goes into building an application
• All of the users have the same handset, which means the application only needs to be built once.
• The significant user base is distributed globally, so the development community that can be encouraged to build for the App Store is also large, and global
  
• There is a built-in revenue model for sales of applications through the App Store and plug-ins to immediately enable advertising revenue
  
• Apple controls the quality of the applications that are created AND provide the tools to make it easy to develop software to their standards
  
•  There is a comprehensive SDK (software development kit) including tools, simulators and an active developer community online, all of which make the iPhone easy to build for
  
• It’s cool, and companies / brands / developers want to be seen there!
  

2009 will bring a variety of me-too App Store experiences, some of which we will see in Australia.  Major handset manufacturers will launch their alternative, similar models. (Palm has already launched a software store, RIM is set to do so in March).  Some will fail, but others will find their niche.  In Australia one or more of the telco carriers will jump on the bandwagon, and depending on their approach, will almost certainly fail. 

No Australian telco has enough (any?) of the advantages described above to make a completely open App Store work.  Assuming the Telco can find local developers, provide sufficient incentives to build for a local audience in a fragmented handset market, while funding the internal resources needed to nurture the community and monitor, test & approve the applications being produced…. then some success may be seen.  But I doubt it!

2. Mobile Web Usage Tips Over (almost)

I’ve seen a number of articles about the Mobile Web explosion we had last year.  Maybe in the US or Europe, but I don’t think we saw it in Australia.   In 2009 we will finally see Australia reach the (almost) tipping point for mobile web.  It’s fair to say we won’t ALL be browsing the internet from our mobiles, but by the end of 2009 it will be at least as common as MMS is now.

We will see a rush of Australian online properties make their first forays into the mobile channel.  In the face of this increased competition, those who are already there (News, Fairfax, NineMSN, LP, ABC, CarSales, Sensis) will make a lot more noise.  The classifieds space will start to wake up to the possibilities and we’ll see a lot more from employment & real estate. Carsales & Drive are already there, and Sensis’ Trading Post mobile launched late in 2008. 

With local properties acting as a magnet for the channel, users will find themselves exploring mobile further and discovering the wealth of content & applications available globally.  Mobile search engines will contribute to this growth.  Where there are users there are opportunists, and we will see a barrage of content suitable for mobile being published in the latter half of 2009 to take advantage of this eagerly awaited surge in usage.

Applications will play a big part in this usage surge and mobile site owners will take advantage of the trend with ‘bookmarklets’ – pseudo apps that effectively place a button on your handset that loads a mobile website.

The iPhone and other smart devices won’t do usage any harm of course, and further improvements to data plans from Telcos will see us begin to drift away from the horrors of bill shock. 

2009 will see usage, content, devices & telcos all coming together to make the mobile web truly relevant in Australia.

3. We Hear a Lot More about Mobile Ad Networks

Users + Content = Advertising. 

In Australia to date a small number of major players have controlled most of the mobile usage and thus the revenue that can be earned from advertising.

The telcos (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, 3) along with Fairfax, News & NineMSN own the properties that earn the bulk of targetable Australian mobile traffic.  Major brands like Google, Microsoft & Nokia pick up a fair bit and have their own advertising solutions.

The rest of the traffic is spread across the very long tail of global & independent mobile sites.

Each of the telcos sells advertising on their mobile portals as do the major publishers.  Advertisers can buy Google Mobile Adwords targeting Australia and at least one global mobile ad network (AdMob) can be used to reach a significant amount of off-deck / long tail traffic in Australia. 

With the exception of one or two independent mobile site publishers, these have been the Advertiser’s only options to reach mobile users in Australia to date.

With usage and content growth expected in 2009, we are set to see one or more of the following mobile ad network moves:

1. Telcos extend their mobile networks to include (more) independent mobile sites.

     Telstra’s MediaSmart has already tested the water, extending its mobile network beyond the Sensis & BigPond family.  I suspect we will see a lot more of this in 2009.

2. Online Ad networks extend coverage to include mobile properties.

Online Ad Network Max Interactive have launched Max Mobile, initially only offering advertising on the 3 portal – for now.  This is the start of things to come though.  After all, if online networks do not embrace the mobile versions of web properties they represent – who will? 

3. Global Mobile Ad networks look at Australia

Globally there are a number of big mobile ad players (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft) and numerous niche mobile ad networks (eg. AdMob, DeckTrade, Smaato, AdModa, Buzz City) many of which already offer targeting of Australian mobile traffic.  To date
ion st=”on”>Australia has seen little focus from these global players, other than AdMob who has a significant amount of Australian traffic already.  In 2009 will see some activity here.  Google will add more Australian publishers to their mobile content network and some of the niche networks will pick up local partners or publishers.

4. Local Mobile-specific Ad Networks emerge

In 2009 we will see one or more start up companies launching in Australia with the goal of aggregating ad serving within mobile content.  More mobile content means there could be a genuine need here, but the real opportunity is in building the network, thus becoming an acquisition target for the larger global mobile or local online ad networks.

4. Australian Ad Industry puts Mobile on The Radar

With all this activity and advertising opportunity, 2009 will be the year our local agencies start to take mobile seriously.  The advertising industry will start to consider mobile more often and earlier in the planning process (but not yet often enough or early enough for my liking!).

Digital agencies will realise they are not truly digital if they don’t offer mobile services, and we will see mobile experts being hired and trained with increasing frequency.

Media planners will be expected to know what’s available in mobile media buying and mobile specific agencies will flourish while digital and traditional agencies figure the space out.  Mobile specialists will either do well or be absorbed / acquired.   Advertisers will start to ask for mobile and in some cases will even know what it is they are asking for!  

Unfortunately 2009 will also be the year of the “Epic FAIL” mobile campaign.  Agencies & advertisers will go it alone, believing they know what works (It’s just the web on a small screen right?) and spend money on campaigns that don’t deliver. 

Tacking on mobile at the last minute will be rife and we will see horrible mistakes like SMS campaigns pushing full screen web URLs, QR codes that are too big/small/fuzzy to scan and downloadable apps that cost $150k to build and get no usage. There will be talk of mobile being all hype and no reality. 

But we’ll also see some really smart & innovative mobile advertising. This will be the year we move beyond ‘banners and brochureware’ and see mobile integrated across digital & traditional channels and applied in scenarios where it’s undeniably perfect – direct, targeted, measurable, interactive conversations. 

The global economic downturn will be good for mobile advertising, as it costs less to reach the right people via mobile. Where the target audience makes sense, many advertisers will sacrifice broadcast media for direct, targeted campaigns with mobile integrated.

There will be a mobile story in every issue of every advertising & marketing publication in Australia in 2009.  Yes, everyone will jump on the mobile bandwagon (and don’t I love it!)

All in all 2009 will be an industry defining year for mobile advertising in Australia.

Thinks I’d like to see, but probably won’t just yet:

- Everyone stops caring about getting on the carrier / telco deck

- Consistent Mobile Advertising Guidelines are adopted by all the major publishers & carriers

- Brands start building content & sites for mobile first, and not the other way around

- Mobile Search becomes as ubiquitous as online search and takes over from portals

- Australian mobile content developers make a lot of money (sorry it’s not this year guys)

What other people think

 I put the word out and got some input from a few other notable Aussie Mobilistas.

Shane Williamson, Founder, Mobile Monday Sydney

• 2009 will not see a decline in mobile sales overall in Australia as the GFC will not effect the market greatly. Mobile devices are too important to people to get the chop.
• With the maturing of Unified Communicatons, smartphones will be the driving force of higher end mobile data use into the enterprise.
  
• A key factor to uptake will be fixed to mobile convergence (FMC) of voice services to mobile devices. This is the ability to use mobiles to access traditonal enterprise PBX services and applications.
  

 Tim Parsons, Founder, Mobile Monday Sydney

• channel confusion, some people will be e-mailing from their iPhone/Android/WindowsMobile/Blackberry, while others will still be SMSing. Expect some missed rendezvous while we decide what asynchronous messaging channel we should be on to connect with each person.
  
• on-deck revenues continue to rise, for perhaps another 18 months – 2 years, and then sharply decline as all the fun off-deck becomes too much to ignore
• the rise of uncapped data-plans and simultaneously super-social apps like ‘instant chat’ and xumii
• brands are starting to get serious about targeted marketing; mobile marketing will probably grow a bit faster and be more innovative this year.
  

Luke Janssen CEO TigerSpike

• Companies will go bust..
  
• Mobile Internet will become a no brainer..
  
• and much more on Luke’s blog
  

Tim Elwin, CEO, ToyPhone media

• MIM (Mobile Instant Messaging) is going to get bigger
  
• Mobile measurement will finally be a reality in Australi
  
• and a hot tip from Tim….. “..ensure that all staff, especially client facing staff in agencies are properly trained up on general mobile interaction”
  

A Few More Opinions with a Global Perspective 

MobHappy- Russell Buckley’s 2009 Predictions (1, 2 and 3) (4, 5 and 6) (7, 8, 9 and 10)

From MocoNews - How the big mobile stories of 2008 will play out

MTrends – Rudy de Waele’s Mobile and Wireless Predictions for 09

Chetan Sharma’s Mobile Industry Predictions 2009

MoMo London founder Daniel Applequist’s 2009 Predictions

In my last article I talked about using a mobile website as a content or advertising medium. Once you have a mobile site, you would naturally be keen to drive traffic to it.  Discoverability is a significant challenge in the mobile market today.

Accessing a mobile website on a phone can be quite cumbersome.  Almost all new mobile phones are released now with a mobile web browser resident on the handset.  Each handset is different, but usually there’s a menu item or button called ‘Web’ or ‘Internet’ that the user can select to load up the browser. 

To enter a URL you usually have to navigate through several menu options (eg. Bookmarks, Edit Bookmarks, Enter New Bookmark), then type in a URL using the mobile keypad. Although new handsets like the iPhone make this process far more intuitive, finding all the necessary dots & symbols on some handsets can be clunky & tiresome and many people don’t make it that far.

Given this barrier, solutions for the discovery of mobile websites are paramount, at least until more mobile phones are intuitive for URL entry & uptake of these devices reaches the mass market.  

Carrier Portals

The most common way that mobile website are discovered is through their Carrier’s content portal.  Each of Telstra, Optus, 3 & Vodafone operate a mobile content portal, on which selected content & information services are listed.  In many cases, users are unaware of any other way to access mobile content from their phone.

For the content owner, being included on one or more of these portals can be a challenge.  Each carrier operates a different policy for management of their portal.  Some require a revenue share of profits from the mobile site, others pay a fee to brands & content that complement their vision, while others include only content that they have commissioned & developed internally or with business partners.  

As an example, Telstra has recently divided their mobile portal into two sections labelled ‘Home’ and ‘Web’.  The mobile content and sites on the ‘Home’ tab have been endorsed by Telstra, and are free to browse (ie. there are no data charges for accessing any content), whereas sites linked to from the Web tab are independent and users will face data charges for browsing.

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In the current Australian market, inclusion in some way on a carrier portal is almost a guarantee of usage & awareness but as the market becomes saturated with content offerings, and ‘slots’ on portals are increasingly difficult to acquire, content owners are becoming more innovative in their attempts to attract usage.  

Mobile Search

Not unlike the mobile industry today, In the very early days of internet, people would find websites by visiting portals.  Usually these portals were the homepage of their Internet Service Provider (ISP) and included lists of links to recommended websites.   Before too long, users discovered that there was a world of content outside this “walled garden” and began exploring the wider web.  Search made that possible.  These days, it would be almost unthinkable to attempt to find ‘web content’ without using a search engine like Google.

The mobile web is currently a little like the early days of internet.  All of the major search engines have a mobile service and people are beginning to realise they can search the mobile web, just as they currently search the ‘normal’ web.  Try Google Mobile by entering http://m.google.com.au in your mobile browser.

In Australia the major carriers are embarking on relationships with search engines and implementing search on their portals.  For example Optus makes Google available on their mobile portal so that users can carry out mobile searches without having to leave the portal and enter in the Google URL.  Telstra also recently signed a deal with Yahoo to deliver Yahoo results in searches made from the BigPond mobile portal. 

As in the online industry, it is possible to use Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to buy mobile keywords, so that customers will see your text ad above mobile search results.  It is early days for Mobile SEM in Australia, but local publishers including CarsGuide, Fairfax & Sensis already buy mobile SEM keywords using Google, and traffic from mobile specific ad networks like AdMob (more on this in a future article).

Mobile Banners

Increasingly, local advertisers are testing the water with mobile banner campaigns.  A mobile banner behaves exactly the same way as a simple online banner, in that a clickable graphic is served onto a mobile website.  <
/span>When clicked on, the banner takes the user to a mobile destination site. NineMSN regularly serves mobile banners on their mobile sites, including  http://news.ninemsn.com.au/mobile/ (the 9 News mobile site).

Depending on campaign goals, the click through destination could be a permanent mobile site (such as http://mobile.whereis.com.au) to which the advertiser is attempting to drive traffic.  Alternatively the destination could be a campaign site which has been set up specifically.  Peugot recently ran a campaign whereby mobile banners were served on NineMSN’s mobile network.  The banners clicked through to a mobile campaign site for the Peugot 308.

Buying media for a local mobile banner campaign remains fairly fragmented.  Each of the carriers controls access to its own mobile customers, and although NineMSN performs something of a aggregator role as well as serving ads on their own network of mobile sites, each o
f the networks prefers to encourage advertisers to use only their mobile properties. Melbourne startup MDigital now offers a mobile media buying aggregation service, and my own business Mobilist can also help out in this area.  Before making mobile media decisions I highly recommend looking into all of the options as no single network can offer comprehensive coverage of the Australian market. 

SMS Shortcodes

Another way to cut out the tedious typing of a URL into a mobile phone browser is to send users a link via SMS. Many larger companies with mobile sites have established an SMS shortcode to simplify discoverability for new users.  

Usually the shortcode number is listed on a website, or included in an ‘offline’ advertisement (eg. magazine, bus shelter,  billboard etc).  Users send an SMS to the shortcode and receive a link back instantaneously via SMS.   Eg. to save entering http://cleo.mobi you could instead text the word ‘cleo’ to 19 34 34.and receive an SMS response containing a clickable link to the mobile version of Cleo Magazine.

The AIMIA ‘You can on a Mobile’ campaign website lists URLs and SMS Shortcodes for accessing many local mobile sites. (http://www.youcanonamobile.com.au/top-sites.html)

NOTE: This  article was originally published on Digital Ministry in April 2008, but has since been moved or deleted (?)  I have reposted it below so that it will have a permanent bookmark. 

NOTE: some details changed to update facts / links etc since April 08

Theoretically, mobile content is any type of media that can be accessed via a mobile phone, and mobile advertising is any advertising message using a mobile phone as a delivery mechanism.  Depending on who you are and what you’re trying to achieve, this could mean anything from a simple text based SMS message to a full scale mobile TV production.

So if your client demands that you include ‘mobile’ in their next campaign, do they know what they’re asking for?  Do you? Are they expecting you to tell them??

The mobile phone can be used as a content & advertising mechanism in many different ways, each suited to a different type of content or message, and each reaching a different kind of audience.

In this article we look at using SMS/MMS, mobile websites and downloadable applications as mechanisms for delivering content & messages via the mobile phone.

Messaging (SMS & MMS)

SMS is a useful medium for delivery of short snippets of information such as weather, wee
kly updates or directory services.  Users can subscribe to a regular SMS alert by signing up on a website such as Margaret & David’s ‘At the Movies’ site on the ABC http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/sms/   Customers text the word ‘movies’ to 197 00 222 to receive weekly reminders and movie star ratings via SMS.  This type of service is usually made available for a fee, either as an upfront cost (eg. $5 per month) or per SMS (eg. $0 25 per message). 

Other services operate on a request/response mechanism whereby users send an SMS to a designated number requesting the information they desire.  Bongo is an example of this type of service.  Users can send any question to 199 26646 (199 BONGO) and receive an answer in response. Eg. Send ‘Why is the sky blue?’ to 199 BONGO and receive a response back via SMS.  This kind of service is usually charged by Premium SMS based on the customer’s request.  eg. Bongo charges users $3.50 for every SMS request they make!

MMS can be used to deliver content that is graphical or video based, via either of the above mechanisms, although this depends on a mobile phone’s ability to receive MMS messages.

The Mobile Web

Mobile content that is not alert or snippet based is usually found or made available via the Mobile Web.
an class=”Apple-style-span” style=”">  Mobile websites are simply web pages which are designed to look right on a small screen .  Mobile phones are not (yet) as powerful as PCs and bandwith is generally significantly less across mobile phone networks,  so mobile websites need to be very simple, with limited graphics & audio visual components in order to operate successfully.  Over time however, increasingly complex & interactive mobile sites will be possible, as faster bandwidth & higher-end handsets become available (eg. the iPhone)

The ’Mobile’ web is in fact the same web as the ‘online’ web that most people are familiar with.  A mobile web page exists at a URL in the same way as a normal website.  eg. http://www.company.com.au    Mobile web sites are often given a slightly different URL to make them easily identifiable to mobile users.  This is not a technical requirement, but is becoming increasingly common.  While there’s no accepted convention, certain standards are encouraged, and the following variations are most regularly applied:

1. http://m.company.com.au

2. http://mobile.company.com.au
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3. http://www.company.mobi

4. http://www.company.com.au/mobile 

There is presently a great deal of demand for and interest in .mobi domain names and many brands are securing their web URL as a ‘dot mobi’ just in case.  As yet there is no trend towards any one of the above examples, but many well known web sites currently use a subdomain such as m. or mobile. for ther mobile version (see examples 1& 2 above).

Downloadable Applications

Some mobile services are accessed by downloading an application to the mobile phone itself.   Downloading applications used to be the preserve of more advanced users, but with handsets like the iPhone, this is becoming more & more common.   iPhone users can access an ‘App Store’ from their phone to quickly & easily download applications to use immediately.  This ease of download will soon become commonplace, but for most other devices it is still more tedious.  To get application software onto a (non iPhone) handset, users can connect to their PC with a USB cable and install the application using the PC software that came with their mobile phone.  Alternatively, many services now direct you to a mobile website URL where you can simply click on the ‘download’ link and follow the step by step instructions to install.

Shozu is a photo uploading tool that users can download from the Shozu mobile site http://m.shozu.com.  On visiting the URL, you’ll see a link to download the application.  Following the prompts will install the app on the phone and set up links to various photo sharing websites (eg. Flickr).   Once installed, shozu prompts with a message each time a photo is taken using the camera phone, asking if you’d like to send the photo instantly to Flickr.

Other applications that can be downloaded in this way include email software to allow mobile access to your account, local maps or instant messaging tools.  Try visiting http://www.fring.com on your mobile browser and download the Fring application to access your favourite IM service via your mobile, using VOIP.

Some companies that operate mobile websites also develop a downloadable version of their site for advanced users.  The downloadable version is usually more graphical, faster & easier to use, and often includes additional functionality not available on the mobile site.  Check out the downloadable version of Google maps by visiting http://m.google.com.au/maps on your mobile browser, and click on the link to ‘Install Now’.

Watch out with mobile applications though, as they can churn through a lot more data than a simple mobile site and you could be in for a shock when you receive your next mobile bill.  More on data charging and mobile site discoverability in future articles. 

NOTE: This article was originally published on Digital Ministry in Feb 2008, but has since been moved or deleted (?)  I have reposted it below so that it will have a permanent bookmark.

NOTE: some details changed to update facts / links etc.