Location Location Location – One-Third of Mobile Searches Are Location Based

During a speech at CTIA Wireless 2010, Diana Pouliot, director of mobile advertising at Google, stated that one-third of all Google searches from a mobile device had some relevance to the location of the user. This additional search parameter – location – is going to change the face of SEO.

Mobile web usage is growing at a staggering rate, and mobile search is among the most widely used facet. Search giants Google and Yahoo are already allocating considerable resources to ensure that their search engines return results with as much location context as possible. For both the consumer and the retailer, this is wonderful. If I search for sushi on my mobile phone (which I do surprisingly often), nearby sushi restaurants are listed higher. Retailers on the other hand will experience a better conversion rate among consumer hits because there is already an extra degree of relevance that there would not normally be in a traditional web search, not to mention new conversion steps such as navigation that can literally bring consumers to their doorstep.

While the search providers such as Google and Yahoo are doing the bulk of the heavy lifting with location based search, brands and retailers need to be aware of the differences between mobile SEO and traditional SEO. This is just another in a long line of reasons why a traditional website does not make a good mobile site.