Mobile SEO

We just started a page on the mobile design wiki for mobile SEO. Here's the content as of today; come edit it.

What is mobile Search Engine Optimization (mobile SEO)? It's how to design and code your site to get found in mobile search engines.

Original Sources

Barbara Ballard originally wrote this, with input from:

* James Pearce of dotMobi, especially mobiForge

* Andrea Trasatti of dotMobi, especially DeviceAtlas

* Igor Faletski of Mobify.me

* Mobile Marketing Discovery Tactics for the Mobile Web

Getting Found by Mobile Search Engines

Web crawlers need to find your mobile site. Options are:

* a top level domain (TLD) explicitly for mobile, specifically, .mobi

* content adaptation and only one site

* a subdomain (mobile.domain.com or m.domain.com) or subsection (www.domain.com/mobile) - with link from the main site

A new .mobi domain ensures a separate entry for your mobile site and tells the crawler that it is mobile, so when the user clicks the link it will render mobile and not transcoded. Some engines have mobile-optimized sites listed preferentially, so there is some benefit there (until you have a lot of mobile competition).

Content adaptation will get your mobile site found and preserve desktop SEO. But the search engine won't know it's mobile, and your site may get transcoded by Google for a much worse user experience.

A subdomain works well and preserves your desktop SEO history, but only if the crawler can find it. Thus the main site must have a link to the mobile site.

On-page SEO Practices

In general, mobile SEO and web SEO are the same. Use the same practices for good results. Note, in particular:

* semantic markup

* include your address, if relevant. This will improve performance for local searches.

* use well-formed code

There is evidence that some crawlers will crawl each version of a device-adapted page.

Hi..
Nice article on mobile SEO, but could you write more on it, i mean little more descriptive.
Thanks..
John..

very useful information about mobile Search Engine Optimization. thanx.

http://www.n4i.co.in/category/mobile-and-cell-phones/

@johnmilton – What would you like described? You look like you might know a bit about SEO; you could certainly add to the wiki.

so is there a difference between normal and mobile seo?

Mobile SEO is SEO for your mobile (or desktop) site with mobile search engines, some of which are desktop search engines.

One of the points of the article is that there isn’t a large difference between mobile and desktop SEO. These are the tweaks that are the difference.

Hi Barbara,

thx a bunch for the clarification. It does sound like there is no need for an in-depth analysis of particular mobile seo practises & strategies since the differences are so minuscule atm. I will check the mobile design wiki regularly though.

Pete

I politely disagree that SEO is much the same for desktop and mobile – there are certainly some very significant differences, most of which stem from the experimental nature of mobile SEO.

A few months back, I wrote some detailed analysis focused on this topic and based on a mobile SEO implementation for a large directory site in Australia
http://www.rogerwilco.com.au/mobile-search-and-seo-considerations-for-mobile/

These days, mobile SEO and web SEO are treated as nearly the same. They use the same practices for good results.