After reading an extremely interesting post by Will Critchlow on mobile search, how a mobile searcher might differ from a non-mobile search (what may become mobs and a nomobs if Rob has anything to do with it) and the potential criteria for producing a mobile search friendly site I got to thinking.
I called David Attenborough to narrate and Bill Oddie to study but then funding fell through for my series on BBC so here is the write up instead…
I tracked down some actual iPhone and Windows mobile users in their natural habitat. Approaching these people in the wild is a dangerous business, so I would urge you all to be extremely cautious if you wish to attempt it yourselves. Once I’d appeased them by praising their phones (good compliments include ‘how shiny’ and ‘my I do love the iPhone’) I asked them some questions.
My main find from this fairly limited study (like I said mobile internet users are a rare and furtive breed still, apart from the growing population of iPhone users destroying the habitat of the indiginous WAP and Windows mobile fans) was something that neither Will nor Patrick at Blogstorm noticed – laziness.
One of the main reasons stated for use of mobile rather than your garden variety search is because your mobile is right there. It’s in your pocket, on the arm of your chair, in your hand already even.
Two of my subjects stated that it’s much quicker and easier to do a preliminary mobile search before resorting to the laptop/pc – after all your laptop could be anywhere, you might have to sit up to reach it, your pc is in the office…
Convenience could be one of the driving factors behind growth in mobile search, as well as the mobility itself which Will noted. This means if you want to get your site to the forefront of search, you are going to need to start seriously thinking about mobile SEO.
3 Comments
Glad my post got you thinking…
I think you are right about the convenience thing – I find myself using my iphone for all kinds of things I’d have used my laptop for previously. In fact some days when it all descends into a day of meetings and emails, I wonder if I can get rid of my computer entirely.
That is the dream – I’m still waiting for the mind chip internet that comes up before your eyes and you look like you’re having an acid flashback when you use it
That’s absolutely spot on. Before the iPhone I hardly ever used the rubbishy mobile/WAP internets – to slow, too different to the usual experience.
Now I don’t bother getting off the sofa and walking 5 paces to my laptop, I just use my phone. If I find something really interesting I can Evernote it so it’s instantly available on the big box. It’s sooo lazy, but much easier.
As for mind chips, well I read all that William Gibson stuff years ago – and I think we may yet see it in our lifetimes. Now that will be interesting. And lazy.