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.
