Mobile SEO

Mobile SEO and the quality of Mobile Internet Sites

I got one of the first ever GetMobile (http://www.gomonews.getmobile.com) sites, earlier this year. I then ran a USD 200 dollar campaign promoting it. That was back in February. About six weeks ago I ran another campaign maybe USD 100 dollars. I didn’t notice much but suddenly, the gomonews.getmobile.com site is all over Google online.

It is moderately visible in the top 10 of mobile search engines. But, Google seems to absolutely love it.

I was surprised this week to find it coming out on top of results ahead of www.gomonews.com. I am trying a slow online SEO technique with GoMoNews.com. Basically, trying to avoid Google Alerts and fast placement on the top of the results. It usually takes about one week before my new articles get to or near the top of Google.

So this is where the transcoded or “juiced” mobile site comes in. I have a lot of RSS mobile sites that haven’t made it anywhere on Google online (only mobile search engines). Then, I saw a few press releases from Quattro Wireless (owner of GetMobile). They have a lot of very high quality brands on their network. The have juiced popular sites from GoMo to Playboy to TheInsider, Savvy.com, Fandango, Hollywood.com and MovieWeb.com

I suspect that it is the high quality of the sites that is making Google happy. All the sites are linked by the ad network that they are all part of. Also all the brand names seem to delivering a stronger brand presence. I found a couple of other sites that were juiced (Playboy) that were also ranking high. I suspect the whole online linking strategy is working with the juiced sites and optimisation is

So, it has taken nearly six months but the GetMobile site is loved by Google and beats the online GoMo News (in some circumstances) to the top of the page. With a Ready.mobi score of 4 - its really is optimised for mobile or online.

Mobile SEO Best Practices

James Pearce from .mobi sent this to me today. I resisted printed it (thinking green) and read it over and over again. Its the latest research on Mobile SEO from dotmobi or what seems to be a new brand mobithinking. 

http://mobithinking.com/best-practices/mobile-seo-best-practices

What did I think?

Yes. I agree with 90% of this. Well written - great resource (thank-you).

But.

So, now I have a secret. I have been developing a tool and working secretly with a senior executive at one of the world's largest mobile search engines.

What?

Well, I realised that I have been in Mobile SEO and Mobile Advertising since 2004 - only I never realised it. Only when I started optimising mobile sites did I realise a pattern.

Why?

Well basically, I think I am sitting on a hot potato that will make Mobile SEO (for want of a better word) cleaner. I can't tell you too much as I have now signed an NDA with a potential investor.

If I don't get funding then I will use this site as a benchmark for the concept. If I do - then get ready. supercharged mobile seo appearing at a mobile phone near you!

Plus

Everything that I create will be open source and I hope if I make it - that it is embraced by the likes of dotmobi and the W3C etc.

Mobile SEO Confusion?

I had a very strange meeting with a mobile content company in London. I was very positive as the buzz about Mobile SEO seems to be starting.

But I was shocked when the company said, "we don't need Mobile SEO". I asked "why". He said, because we are on a mobile operator portal and that gets us traffic.

I said fine. I did a quick ready.mobi check and it came out as a very poor number 2.

Hmmmm.

No wonder operator portals have an inconsistent name.

Education seems to be necessary in  Mobile SEO in the short term.

BuzzCity Ad Campaign Results

Anyone looking for exposure in Asia, India or outside of Europe and the US should use BuzzCity. Those that need EU or US exposure - BuzzCity is not quite there yet.

I ran a USD 20 ad campaign with BuzzCity. I got an impressive impression rate and steady click through rate -but despite having placed a hight PPC to target the US and Europe - I got virtually no eyeballs there.

So, I had to question the value of the mobile ad campaign as a business. If traffic is needed for Mobile SEO services (where mobile search engines track on popularity) BuzzCity is ideal.

Where sales are needed to drive a new business in the US or Europe - then BuzzCity should not be the first choice.

The screen shots below show some campaign results.

Above is a general overview of how the USD 20 was spent and where impressions vs clicks. I was extremely happy with these results as for such a small spend my click total of 942 was worth while. I remain to be amazed how cheaply this ad campaign was and am glad that the CTR is consistent and realistic.

The image above shows where my ad campaign got exposure. It was all in countries that I didn't want to target specifically. Once again this shows that global exposure is possible with BuzzCity.

So, I took a look at my mobi site where the traffic went and there was a considerable lift to tie in with the campaign. I didn't put enough money in to improve rank or have a knock on effect on the search engines -but with in the community where the mobi site is resident I noticed some activity. Traffic, drives traffic and curiosity. Which means that with a small spend the overall CTR was impacted in countries that were important to me as peers noticed that my site starting getting more traffic and wanted to see what it was and why that was important.

Once again more proof that social media plus Mobile SEO plus mobile advertising provides the most complete strategy available for mobile visibility.

Poll: Average advertising monthly spend

Opinion Polls & Market Research

RSS Update

Yesterday I deleted the original old feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mobileseonews

The problem was that it wasn't working very well and then I created http://feeds.feedburner.com/mobileseo which is working. I replaced the newsletter as well.

We have 100 readers on the new feed but thee were 16 early adopers left on the original one. So - really sorry - but please upgrade using the subscriber to newsletter or subscribe to feed buttons on the left handside.

thanks bena

Poll: How important are Mobile Sitemaps?

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Advertising works

OK, we all know that mobile advertising works - but I am just going to re-inforce it. After having the worst month ever on GoMo News in March - I re-optimised the site in April. It was offline for a bit and then ran three campaigns in May - mixing online with mobile and testing a linking strategy.

I am not changing my mind to say that linking is vital for Mobile SEO - but for GoMo News - I did notice that pushing gomonews.mobi via gomonews.com and vice versa was very positive for the site. Organic hits and traffic kept on growing despite the fact that the value of the ad campaign (i.e. the price) reduced towards the end of the month - when traffic was at its highest.

Also I am amazed at the growth of http://gomonews.getmobile.com will schedule a call to find out more. I spoke to GetMobile earlier in the year and they said that they did have a mobile SEO agenda and perhaps it has started now.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Advertising on Buzzcity

I had to laugh as little old mobile advertising expert me -gets a phone call from Buzzcity's Malcolm from Singapore as I am setting up my ad campaign. He said, "Madam, I am afraid you forgot to add the URL - so I cannot accept your site".

I checked back and he was right. But what great service!

So - I paid USD 20 (the cheapest I have paid yet to set up as an advertiser) and created a mobile campaign for Mobile SEO News.

Setting up the as an advertiser is very simple. But instantly, I didn't like the fact that everything was ticked and controlled from he on set. I suppose for ease of us or to maximize Buzzcity revenue the PPC is set as is the placement on devices.

I have found in the past that some sites still using WML are running huge mobile ad campaigns of USD 10K and above and not realizing that the ads are all being served in Asia. The amount of times I have been asked why my site is viewed more in Asia than the UK is unbelievable.

But anyway - how was setting up as an advertiser on Buzzcity?

Well, it was cheap and fast and had a lot of value add thrown in. For example, landing pages and an opt-in survey. You can even instantly pay back users to complete the survey (they are rewarded in Gamma currency). I really liked that and thought that would be a great campaign winner for small brands or social networking sites looking to expand.

BuzzCity is a global network - but having a one price for all is not wise in this instance. It's best to have a lower PPC in countries that are not important or simply ignore them and set an average PPC for desired targets. Why? Because you don't mind paying more for the hits in the right location and a higher than average rate will make publishers more eager to accept you.

Buzzcity has a strong number of target channels. I ran one campaign for a mobile porn company using this route only and the results were impressive. But the quality of adult publishing sites is a bit dodgy. This means that campaign wasn't optimised for SEO results because if all the publishers are (how should I put this) on the lower end of the scale - the impact on the search engines and results didn't reflect the traffic that was being generated.

Does that make sense? Email me or call me if you want more!

All in all the set up was easy - I have set this campaign at a high rate so that we can see the results quickly. I know that BuzzCity is like an AdMob and burning 1000 dollars on the network in 30 minutes is done quickly. So, I will report back with some early results before running a longer more thought out campaign.

More on setting up a landing page and results this week.

mjelly uses us for Mobile SEO

Nice blog from mjelly mobile ringtone site we are going to optimise the mobile site for them.

You can read it here: http://blog.mjelly.com/2008/06/mobile-seo.html

Also we have some very exciting mobile advertising news coming up shortly!  More from MoJiva and Medio this week.

Poll: Reasonable Mobile Click Through Rates

Opinion Polls & Market Research