The Kelsey Group, a research firm out of Chantilly, VA, recently released new research statistics concerning mobile device usage. Their Mobile Local Media Forecast, back-dating two years and projecting three (2008-2013), estimates a 130.5% growth rate for local mobile search and an 81.2% growth rate for overall mobile advertising.
Local search advertising is expected to go from from $20 million to $1.28 billion over the same few years.
For us the most important part of the whole projection is that the largest area of mobile usage growth is local. Social media usage on mobile devices will certainly grow and so will things like mobile banking etc., but the explosion of mobile traffic will be centered around things like looking up addresses or phone numbers online, seeing what is nearby, or city specific searches.
Now we just have a few questions for you: Is your website mobile friendly? And how much do you focus on local search? If The Kelsey Group is right, sales via mobile devices and local search could shortly be the new internet.
Probably the most important thing you can do to grab traffic as the worldwide mobile frenzy continues is be relevant for terms people will search on their mobile devices. This means SEO specifically with mobile in mind. Take a good look at your site and try to think about what local and mobile centered keywords you can target. It helps to think about the perspective of the mobile user. They generally want information faster than someone sitting at a PC and their search terms may be more concise and specific. They also have the limitations that come along with a miniature screen and a baby-sized processor. If at all possible you may want to consider creating a very simple mobile version of your site that you can direct mobile users to. One service that may be worth checking out is http://sem.keynote.com/keynote/ they offer software that will simulate mobile experience so you can test your site out and see how it looks on a variety of different handsets.
Taking a few steps now could mean giant returns later, and actually according to The Kelsey Group, later might not be so late after all.
Reference: http://www.kelseygroup.com/visitorsearch/view-MLM-Summary.asp?DocID=2049
