What Is Mobile SEO?

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As the end of 2010 approaches, we hear more and more about mobile search engine optimization (SEO). But what is it really?

The implication of mobile SEO is that it concerns techniques specific to increasing visibility in mobile search engine results while according to ChaCha, it's simply mobile Web design. I perceive mobile SEO as a combination of the two.

Just as there are two sorts of mobile search engine results depending on the type of phone you have. Google confirmed that mobile-specific page types do get tracked separately and are included within the results if searched on a non smartphone device versus what you see on an iPhone or Android phone. These are the pages you need to set up correctly for Googlebot Mobile to both find and include in these feature phone search results.

Smartphone search results themselves are pulled from the main index directly, which mirror what you would get from a desktop search but with implied location intent, as an emphasis is placed on local results. This is where local SEO becomes a critical player within mobile SEO as a whole.

Finally it's a matter of rendering correctly for mobile devices, which Google has affirmed is a factor for being included or dismissed from the mobile index used for feature phones. Never mind the fact that mobile rendering is also a matter of conversions since the page should be simple, to the point, and touch-friendly.

So what is mobile SEO?

Mobile SEO should be a matter of increasing visibility of your website, not only in mobile search engines but on the actual mobile and often touch-enabled devices themselves.