Christmas is now over and things are beginning to return to normal even now.
KSSK has returned to their regular format after over a month of 24/7 Christmas music; Clients and prospective clients are telling me that they want to ramp up their efforts along with the New Year.
And speaking of the coming year, one area of search engine marketing we will be seeing & hearing more of is the Mobile Web.
The cell phone revolution that continues to march on is gaining a foothold in the search arena. The ability to query Google, Bing, Yahoo & other search engines from a cell phone is already here, though in an early, primitive form.
In Japan, however, they have adopted this ability and made it common to their daily lives.
How do we take advantage of this new market? The answer is ‘it won’t be easy’. Consider the size of a cellphone screen – how many search results can fit there?
Looking at my own, I would say 1 or 2. Any more and the choices would be too similar for any to stand out. An abbreviated description and title can be confusing, especially if the search engine software is choosing how and where to abbreviate.
The search engines themselves, as well as various gurus, are making such suggestions as making your META descriptions small and to the point in order to maximize your presence on a mobile phone or unit.
Makes sense. But, again, how do you stand out? Good question.
The good news is that proposed standards are being proposed and worked on. Some are suggesting that there be separate sites built and modified for delivery on mobile devices.
The problem is that requires businesses to build yet another website conforming to mobile standards.
Another suggestion is special software that would modify a website before mounting it on the small screen. The question is – would this software be on the mobile device or on the delivery end?
And would all the cell companies agree on that software or would there be competition , such as there is in the different DVD formats.
Unfortunately, this is another area where we have to wait and see how things fall. Still, it’s an essential market that cannot be ignored.
The legitimate next step is here. We just don’t know what shoes to wear yet.