For a while now, businesses have understood the benefits of Search Engine Optimisation as a part of a marketing strategy. The clear advantages of a good SEO strategy is the pull marketing strategy that can be successfully implemented as a result of this. The end effect is similar to mass media campaigns, only for a fraction of the expense in most cases.
Nowadays, it’s being realised that a smaller proportion searches are performed from desktop computers and more searches are being performed from mobile devices. These searches are from smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices but also include Tablet PC products.
44% of last minute gift searches from Smart Phones
Google has recently stated, that for this year (2011), 44% of last-minute gift searches this Holiday (Christmas) season will come from smart phones. This figure was obtained by analysing trends from previous year’s data. The search terms looked at were branded retail searches and retail location searches.
The implications of this data are massive for SEO and web marketing strategies. We certainly need to see increases in numbers of web landing pages that are optimised for mobile devices. Retailers who continue to ignore the importance of good mobile landing page designs will be left with a great disadvantage in a fiercely competitive industry.
Tablet PC users of growing relevance
Tablet PC users are also on the rise, and are a consideration for web marketing strategies. Different to smart phone internet users, Tablet PC users are shown to be very engaged in online purchasing. Online retailers need to be aware in differences in browser interfaces used in Tablet PC systems and ensure that e-commerce web design displays well on these products.
The questions of platform
What this means, is Java platforms will continue to see increased use due to the native platform independence. Improvements in processor speed and memory available on very small mobile devices means that previous problems relating to the running speed of Java based web applications is becoming less of a problem.
Still, scripted HTML driven applications are the king of consumer e-commerce interfaces. As browser wars continue to mildly hinder efforts to truly make everything look the same no matter what browser is used. Browser companies continue to blame-shift onto web programmers using shortcuts and tricks that work in ‘other browsers’ but not theirs. The reality is that the mildly shifting sands of web technologies will continue to be a problem for IT professional in the web design fields.
The Meta-Market Effects
The browser war certainly has spilled over into the mobile device and smart phone user space. Creating good mobile landing pages is a problem being tackled presently by many firms and will increase demand for proven mobile web developers.
Naturally we’ll see a meta-market arise as a result of Google’s latest data on the trends towards mobile searches. Web Development firms will continue to jostle at all levels for a slice of the incoming spike in demands for small mobile device web design.
It’s going to be a good coming year for Web Marketing Strategists, Developers, Content Creators and SEO Consultants. As the market moves more towards different web technology, and jaw dropping statistics like the mobile related ones released by Google continue to fan the fire, it’s going to be a busy season for the Web Development industry.
