SASCON Mini Conference 2012 – Mobile & Local
Uncategorized

SASCON Mini Conference 2012 – Mobile & Local

14th December 2012

SASCON is most known for their two day conference once a year but the organisers also bring a smaller version of the event, which is much more focussed topic wise and is only half a day. Last week SASCON organised an afternoon about mobile and local.

Introduction to SASCON

Kristal Ireland (@Kristalsmile) introduced the Conference talking about SASCON’s successful background over the past few years and how it is supporting the local community around Manchester.

photo 1

Ben McKay (@yetanoutherben) – Money Supermarket

Then came an introduction from Ben McKay about digital convergence and how all of money supermarket’s on-line teams are now working together with the main focus on traffic and sales and they are moving away from the strict SEO marketing focus which has historically led Money Supermarket’s strategy.

Ben McKay

Guy Levine (@guylevine) – CEO of Return on Digital

Mobile SEO

Guy discussed some of his background into Digital and how his company Return on Digital Started. He then went on to discuss Mobile Social and Local using the common marketing phrases of “SoLoMo”. His initial focus looked into Mobile with his key principle being “Mobilastion” and not “Miniaturisation” he continued to discuss some of the failures that companies make while make sites smaller not actually more mobile.

He over viewed Mobile APP’s and some of the restrictions that you have as an app creator you are still restricted to the rules of the applicable app store and who should you design for. Next he looked at Web Apps, his recommendation was avoiding duplicate content with using Rel = Canonical from your mobile site.

A question was asked at the end of his talk about the use of Rel = Canonical over just directing the relevant robot to either the desktop or mobile version of the site, Guy expressed how Rel= Canonical had worked successfully for his clients.

His personal Preference when it came to Mobile was creating a responsive designed site, he commented that this can be expensive and a full site restructure may be needed, but the advantage is that you whole links strategy is pushed to the one site.

Sascon Mini Conference 2012

Mobile SEO Keyword Research

Mobile users are more inclined to search using broader keywords, look at the auto complete suggestions from Google in a Mobile search for ideas. He also commented on using Google Keyword tool and looking specifically at the keywords produced for mobile users only. (He added he didn’t trust the reliability of the tool.)

Next comes Siri

What happens when we talk a search to “Siri” and it by passes Google? Will the keywords go very very long tail? A general statement to get everyone thinking about the furture.

Quick Tip:

Guy expressed how recently they requested their clients send them the live chat information so they could review question being asked to build content for future searches.

Mobile Conversion:

Guy commented that some research showed that showing reviews and large social sharing buttons encouraged a higher conversion rate. He added that mobile users are very socially based, they need calls to action and they need to see the potential social interaction.

Tip:

The best call to action is “Click to Call”. Mobile users need a streamlined experience no long forms.

One of the main things to remember that mobile users are predominately using their fingers to navigate and not a mouse. This key characteristic should be carefully considered with your mobile site design.

He was finishing to add that some of the future trend he predicts seeing happening are:

  • Data Mine-ing – Users are more excited to know information about them selves
  • Mobile Moments – Capturing people who use their mobile for that split second, would your site give quick enough answers to respond to the mobile moment?

Last tip: Google’s site http://www.howtogomo.com/

Local SEO

Google must associate your website with your location i.e. Business title, Name, address and Phone Number. Next get citations from local business directories and also encourage reviews on the local places. Avoid manipulating reviews and look at ways to encourage clients to create real reviews that stand the test of time.

Unfortunately that where I left the conference and it was a great initial presentation from Guy, I have however collated a number of resource that discuss the next session of the conference, please see below:

 And of course the all important slides:

It’s time to put mobile at the heart of your online strategy – View Slides
Guy Levine, Managing Director, Return on Digital

How to dominate local search in 2013View Slides
Andy Headington, Marketing Director & Co Founder, Adido

Changing the conversation on mobile with the customerView Slides
Claire Valoti, Media Director, Weve

Do you have anything to add? Let me know.

Tags

Written By
Neil Walker started working as an SEO in 2002 and rose to become Group CTO for Swedish Marketing Agency “Online Group” in 2010 he moved to consulting with agencies, in-house teams and PR companies. In 2014 he formalised this work and founded Made Notable Ltd a boutique digital consultancy based...
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.