It is estimated that more people will be accessing Internet information via a mobile device than a personal computer by the year 2013 (that’s not very far away, folks). As we know, most standard websites do not render well on a smartphone screen due to the smaller screen size, or use of incompatible plug-ins (such as flash). As many businesses opt for a mobile website to complement their standard website, one wonders what this means for keyword optimization and search trends? Do smartphone users search the same way desktop searchers do?

Interestingly enough, mobile search is used and rendered very different from a desktop search. Here are my Top 5 reasons why this is so:

• Mobile search is highly geared toward local information. Statistically 9 out of 10 smartphone searches result in an action. Chances are, if you are looking for for something on your phone’s browser (like a food, a museum, or a bike repair shop) it is because you want to purchase, find, or visit the searched item. Desktop searches tend to be less action oriented overall and more information oriented in nature. Because of this pages like Google Local Listings are positioned to rank higher than pages that are not locally oriented. Domains with geo-targeted keywords will also rank well in this system.
• Google has 97% of the mobile search market share, and their algorithm is different for mobile devices than desktops.
• Smartphone screen size is much smaller than a PC’s screen size, so it will be even more important to snag the top few spots on a mobile search in order to be on the first page.
• Site loading speed becomes critical in a mobile search. A site that takes too long to load when on-the-go information is needed quickly, will lead to higher bounce rates than a standard desktop site search.
• Android users are always logged in to Google on their mobile system.  This means that Android users will always be served personalized results more often than folks searching on a PC who may not have logged in. This will obviously change as more and more people begin to use Google+ or who search when logged into their Google accounts.  Most users aren’t aware if they are logged in or not, and personalized results definitely have an impact on what you will see in your search results.

These are key points to keep in mind when conducting a search on either platform, and even more important to keep in mind when positioning yourself and your business for the future, whether or not you have a mobile website. Keeping a claimed and optimized local listing has always been an important piece in your overall SEO strategy. But now, it seems as if listings such as Google Places and Bing Local could have even more impact on your search results in the future.

Hello, Places listing managers. If you’re like me and you manage a multitude of Places listings, you are probably as frustrated as I am with the way that Google manages its local listing service. I think we can all agree that the current system is lacking a variety of features and capabilities. I think we can all agree that it’s time for Google to provide actual support for its product.

But for now, let’s put our frustrations aside and notice the changes that Google Places appears to be testing.

Custom Categories Gone
The first thing that I noticed was that my client’s listing was not allowing me to use or create custom categories. Instead of empty text boxes that would provide suggested categories as one typed (much like Google Instant), the only option I had was to utilize drop-down menus entitled “Category” and “Sub Category”.

We all know that Places listings benefit from having the maximum five categories filled out – as opposed to only one or two – but with the drop-down menus  they have removed many options.  Instead of having “Personal Injury Attorney,” “Tax Attorney”, “Family Law Attorney,” and a plethora of 20 other varieties of Attorney Specialties, they only had “Services – Attorneys.” To me, this is a huge disadvantage.

At the same time, I can see how it might eliminate Places listing managers that “game” the category section of their listing, literally “stuffing” each category with as many keywords and locations as possible (which as we all know is against their guidelines).

Verifying Your Listing via SMS Text
One of the most frustrating parts of Places management is the verification procedure. It’s not that it is really all that hard or complex, of course.  But for large SEO agencies or anyone managing a listing of a business remotely, it can oftentimes become a problem trying to receive the PIN from the client. They either throw the postcard away as spam, or they have an automated phone system that will not work for verification, or a variety of other difficulties.

When I saw the option to verify via SMS text message, I was immediately excited. Not so much for my clients – since they are mostly all automated systems or landlines – but more for everyone else that could really benefit from this. It may help a business that doesn’t utilize landlines, or online companies that use cell phones for business calls (that still would have an address).  Then I spoke with another SEO ninja about the capabilities of some newer landline phones that can send and receive text messages.

All of this results in one thing: just another option for Places managers to verify and optimize their business listing. And I think that is a great thing.

Viewing the Edit History for a Listing
I had just completed making edits to an unverified listing for one of my clients, and I had the postcard sent to their address for the PIN. After looking at the unverified listing again in Google Maps, I saw a small link that read “This place has unverified edits.” It then followed with “Show all edits” and a link that listed all of the updates in a lightbox.

Now we’re talking, Google. I think this capability of viewing previous changes is great, especially for anyone who has experienced a Google Places “Hacker” that makes a ton of changes to your listing.

I was able to find this information about the lack of custom categories, and the Google Help Forum does describe SMS in the different verification methods, but wasn’t able to find much on viewing previous edits for a listing.

What are your thoughts?

It is a well known fact that Google changes its algorithm a lot. They have changed it over 500 times this year alone. Usually those changes are pretty small and will only be noticed by the most scrupulous of eyes.

More recently, Google has been experimenting with larger changes. Some of the highlights from the recent months include:

• Caffeine
• MayDay
• Tags for your Places listing
• MayDay: The Comeback
• Google Instant
• Google Boost
• Google Blended Search
• And the one we’re talking about today: Google Previews

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We’ve been watching Google test integrated Places search results for a month or two now, and today they began rolling it out systemwide. What has changed and what does it mean for you and your business? In this post, I’ll walk through some of the changes and their implications.

Your search results look different.

And actually, they don’t just look different – they really are different results. Take a look at a before shot from the Do’s and Don’ts article we posted last week.

Before today’s rollout, search results were broken into three distinct and separate areas: Local (pictured above), Organic (the ten results below the map) and Sponsored (PPC above the map and along the right hand side of the page). Local and Organic each had their own unique algorithms to serve up results. There were anywhere from 10 to 17 non-paid search results on the first page for any given search query.

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If you are a Droid user like many of us here at the SEO team, take the time to put down your new Froyo OS and read our link love. And then comment. And then return to your Droid.

John’s Link:
This week I really was interested in Rand’s I’m Getting More Worried About the Effectiveness of Webspam. This is a topic that is thrown around a lot by our clients who are trying to get the best rankings, but without caring about the consequences.  It’s frustrating to explain to those outside of SEO that Google will come down hard on these web spammers, even though for the time being they are in that #1 organic spot. Google, please  back up your guidelines and the information that you repeatedly feed us, even though you forget to follow through.

Becky’s Link:
What are the implications for SMBS of Google Integrated Local Search Result Tests?
As soon as news of Google’s integrated local search tests hit the blogs, we were asking ourselves what it would all mean for SEO. Mike at Blumenthal’s has a lot of great thoughts on the subject.

Patti’s Link:
Oh, I got a great chuckle out of this one: Foursquare Experiences Record Signups After Launch of Facebook Places. A lot of folks were speculating what may happen to Foursquare with the official launch of Facebook Places. Would Facebook kill Foursquare? Clearly, that is not the case. Another win for Foursquare.

I was at a baby shower this weekend, discussing Droids with a fellow attendee who had just gotten hers, when she said something odd – she told me that she prefers Bing to Google on her Droid because Bing tells her what’s nearby while Google would not.

Huh? I thought Google was all over that. I mean, click-to-call, baby! So I checked it out on my own Droid and concluded that she’s just doing something wrong. Not only does Google geolocate you for local search results, but it does it automatically. (With Bing, you have to ask it to detect your location.)

We already knew all of this. It’s old news. But there were some interesting insights to be head in that conversation.

First, people really are using their phones to conduct local searches. This isn’t anything earth shattering, again, but honestly, it was the first time I’d seen this much ballyhooed phenomenon in the wild with someone who doesn’t work in the tech industry, and it makes the second insight all the more important.

Second, when looking at the Google results, there was a minor epiphany. Unfortunately, however, I don’t know how to take a screenshot of my mobile phone’s screen. This led me to recruit John, SEO ninja and newly minted member of the Droid Cult that exists along the SEO department’s row of cubicles, to help me take a photo of it. After a few utter failures, we got his new Droid X to do a passable job.

So the epiphany revolves around those click-to-call buttons you see in the terrible photo of my pizza search. Again, this is nothing the industry hasn’t reported on already ad nauseum, but there’s an important connection to SEO in here:

The businesses that show up in the 7-pack as being nearby all have click-to-call buttons. Most of those businesses have ratings and reviews, and have been claimed, verified and sometimes even have been optimized – which we already know have quite a bit of influence in the 7-pack rankings.

So the lesson here is this: Verify and optimize your Google Places page to maximize your local search potential. Why optimize just for the people finding you on their computers when those who find you with their smartphones are presented with an option to contact you at the touch of a single button?

Are you fretting about that bad review on your Google Places page? Well fret no more, because Google has taken a huge step toward making its Places pages more friendly and useful by allowing business owners to respond to reviews. Until now, business owners staring at a bad review on Google have had little recourse. This is a huge step in the right direction for Google Places.

However, it’s not perfect. The only reviews to which one may respond are those left directly on Google Maps or Google Places. Remember, Google scrapes reviews from a number of sources, so if a negative review left on another site is scraped by Google, alas, there nothing to be done. (Unless you can respond to that review on the source site. Which is wise, if the option exists.)

A second, but minor obstacle is that a business owner must claim and verify their listing, then must be logged into the account which claimed it in order respond. That may pose a problem if a third party controls the listing, something we commonly run into when our SEO clients come to us from a competitor who has claimed the listing on their behalf, but for most businesses this merely will act as an incentive to claim it. And that is precisely what Google wants businesses to do in the first place. Aha, I see what you did there with your clever scheming, Google!

Now that you have the ability to respond to a bad review, what should you say? Here are some tips on how to turn a negative review into a win for your business.

1. Don’t be defensive.

If Jane leaves you a bad review, don’t respond by calling her an ignorant slut. (Unless it’s 1979 and your name is Chevy Chase, anyway.) Don’t ever fight fire with fire. It should go without saying, really, but I’ve seen more than one business held up for laughs because of a gross overreaction. That thing your grandma said about attracting more flies with honey than with vinegar? Absolutely true.

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Whew! Just got back from a whirlwind wedding, honeymoon and road trip combo – and of course, being the web junkie that I am, I couldn’t help but think about work. (Bad Tara, bad!) Here are some lessons from the road on how to address your online audience!

5. If they want X, they’ll probably want Y. One thing that really impressed me about our honeymoon cruise to Ensenada was how well our cruise liner had thought of everything we could possibly want to do (or spend money on). For example, they plan on doing a formal night on the cruise, which is great for fools like me who like to make anything romantic. Then, as you make your way to your formal dinner, feeling dressed to the nines, there’s a staff of professional photographers waiting to take your portrait. I couldn’t turn them down! Even with the $20/print pricetag.

You can take this lesson and apply it to your website by really thinking about which services or products your clients will want in addition to what they’re offering on the page. For example, a cosmetic surgeon’s page on liposuction might be a great place to put a Call-to-Action for brachioplasty (arm lift) or buttock augmentation. This helps your bounce rate, time on site and helps convert visitors to patients.

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There are many of us who see the BBB sticker posted on trucks and business buildings around town, and the meaning of it kind of surpasses those of us who are less savvy with internet marketing. Yes, the Better Business Bureau has some awesome implications for your business in the physical world, if anyone knows what it is or what it stands for. But the real power of the BBB can be seen in your web presence. Being a member of the BBB and having a listing on BBB.org can be one of the strongest things you can do for your online presence. The most important “person” to see your online influence with the BBB is Google, and other search engines. Here’s seven reasons why your BBB listing will improve your search engine results!

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As the competition for first page listings, web traffic and business leads keeps getting tougher, optimizers are always looking for new ways to get inbound links and authority and credibility for their clients’ sites.

The fact that results from search queries now increasingly include real time search results , it’s becoming imperative for us to craft strategies above and beyond the traditional link-building methods.

While making sure that the fundamentals like custom Title tags, compelling descriptions, high quality content and user friendly interfaces remain the cornerstone of our work, we can successfully use some strategies to boost the presence of our sites.

• Publishing targeted blog posts, interacting with the viewers and syndicating blog via feeds.
• Making sure Google Maps and Bing Local listings are verified and updated with the latest media rich information about the site.
• Finding Local directories to add sites and create a presence within a smaller, more focussed geographic area.
• Using Twitter and Facebook to build a brand following for your site, thus proving the popularity of your site to the search engines.
• Using e-PRs , articles and press releases to target specific key phrases through latest updates.
• Using Video especially YouTube to build a strong presence for your site.

These strategies will bring definite advantages to our sites, helping us get an edge over competition in the search engine rankings and potentially bring in high quality web traffic and business leads for our clients.