Mobile search is increasingly important, with 100 billion monthly searches occurring on mobile devices. 62% of organic searches display different results between desktop and smartphone. Half of local mobile searches lead to in-store visits within a day. To optimize for mobile, sites must be responsive, fast-loading, and consider features like rich snippets, AMP, and voice search. Emerging technologies like augmented and virtual reality will also impact mobile search.

1. Mobile SEO
By Anne Ahola Ward

2. William Sears
Group Product Manager, LinkedIn
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3. About me!
➔ O’Reilly Author
➔ CEO of CircleClick
➔ IBM Futurist
➔ SEO SUPER FAN GEEK
➔ Secret Canadian
➔ Avid Tweeter
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4. Mobile SEO
Matters!
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Search is the most common
starting point for mobile
product-based searches.

5. 100 billion monthly searches occur on mobile devices.
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6. Mobile Search = not the same.
62% of organic searches display different results on
desktop vs. smartphone.
This trend is only expected to increase.
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7. 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.
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9. 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.
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10. 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 …?
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11. About the fold...
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12. What is visible on the page
without action is what gets us
to scroll.
Most people start scrolling before
the entire page loads.
Be worth the trouble of scrolling.
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13. The concept is
older than we think.
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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.

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Ok, cool.
So what do I
do?

15. 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/2
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16. How to Optimize
Mobile
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Hosting matters - Check your CDN /
Choose packages wisely
Redirecting? Then do canonicalization
right.
Facebook Instant Articles (4/12)
Project AMP

17. Help the robots help
you.
-
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Spend the time and resources on
mobile optimization.
Site structure and navigation
matters.
Take out the trash.
No pop-ups, no flash! Ewwww.

18. Rich Snippets
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Add structured data of the appropriate type to
your site, then simply test to verify!
Examples:
Product Snippets contain information about
a product. For example: a photo, price,
availability and reviews / ratings.
Video -- An online video, including a
description and thumbnail.

19. About Snippets
Using them doesn’t guarantee
they will be displayed.
Headlines should not exceed 110
characters (AMP guidelines).
Always, always test before
deploying.
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20. Onto the future,
now!
Emerging technologies and
platforms...
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21. Mobile Voice
Growing 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.
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22. 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.
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23. Virtual Reality
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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...

24. 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.
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25. Emerging Search Devices
Smart 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.
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26. 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.
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27. Thank you!!! Follow me: @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
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