As I’ve resolved in my new Search Engine Land column, I won’t be comparing the benefits and drawbacks of responsive design versus dynamic serving versus mobile URLs in 2013. More than half of my published articles in 2012 were about this topic, so I think I’ve written enough. The fact is, any of these mobile configurations [...]

I haven’t used the blog for this historically, but I’m going to start using it to promote mobile SEO by linking out to content I find valuable. Today I’d like to point out an infographic you may have missed on the practice of mobile search optimization. I saw it on the Yahoo! Advertising blog, but [...]

Many thanks to those of you who made it out for the Meet Siri panel at SMX East yesterday morning, and especially to Third Door Media for inviting me to speak. The discussion of Google’s designs on one’s brain brought about by Bill Slawski’s excellent presentation reminded me of a quote from Sergey a few [...]

Thanks to Greg Hickman of MobileMixed for having me on his Mobile Marketing talk show. Had a great time talking about mobile SEO topics that are near and dear. We talked about a number of things, including doing a deep dive on the Search Engine Land article I wrote about why local businesses need dedicated [...]

Speaking at SMX East for the first time this October. One panel is on the knowledge graph and semantic search, and one is called “Meet Siri: Apple’s Google Killer?” I don’t know what the other panelists think about it, but after playing with Siri for about an hour, quizzing her on various things I normally [...]

Noticed this last night while trying to discover how the new NBC TV show Revolution attempted to explain the blackout: If you’re not a frequent mobile searcher you might wonder what I’m looking at. A smartphone icon was appearing next to Wikipedia, IMDB and other sites that offer mobile (i.e. formatted or created for smartphones) [...]

I shared this mobile SEO white paper at SMX Advanced this year, but some of you may have missed it. If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check it out. Many SEOs claim to understand what works in smartphone SERPs, but they probably haven’t examined the characteristics of listings that do well in [...]

It was an honor to be on the iSEO panel at SMX Advanced this year with Cindy Krum, Pierre Far and Barry Schwartz. If you’ve been reading this blog for half as long as I’ve been writing it you know that I’ve been looking for more clear guidance on mobile SEO from Google for years. [...]

In December 2011, Google announced a solution to display appropriate mobile content in search results, even if the mobile URL is a duplicate of a desktop page and has less link equity. They called this update Skip Redirect/Old Possum. Faster mobile browsing. [launch codename “old possum”, project codename “Skip Redirect”] Many websites redirect smartphone users to [...]

Join me in December in Scottsdale Arizona for SMX Social Media Marketing! I’ll be there discussing practical tips for marketing in a social local mobile (SoLoMo) world. Including the pitch below if you want more details. Be sure to register soon, as there are worse places to be in December than a resort in Arizona [...]

If you’re wondering what your mobile users want, why not ask them? My latest column in Search Engine Land looks at how to use keyword research and the mobile percent of total volume metric to identify keywords and concepts that are most important to your mobile users. Beyond that, there are many suggestions for branded [...]

Although I am passionate about mobile SEO and can talk about the details for hours (in fact, I do every month on this blog and in my Search Engine Land column), I would imagine most people who are searching for it are not specialists, but building a mobile site or thinking about building a mobile [...]

The interesting thing about the mythical “year of mobile” is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If site owners believe in the year of mobile enough to create content, they expand the reach of mobile, the lack of which is what most pundits use to determine whether or not this is the year of mobile. The problem is, many site owners are waiting until the “year of mobile” is unquestionably here before they create content, ensuring that said “year” will take even longer to arrive. The only way that we can ever reach the year of mobile is if we create mobile content now. This will expand the reach of mobile, and cause brand advertisers to feel that they can reach a large enough audience to justify their ad spend.

That said, there are some companies who should have started creating mobile content years ago, and are extremely late to the party. I mentioned a few of these in my SES Chicago presentation on Monetizing Mobile Search late last year. To find out if your brand should be investing heavily in mobile today, or simply creating a basic mobile user experience, use these three free tools.

Having specialized in mobile SEO for about as long as people have been talking about it, I have seen many experts say many things about the practice of making content accessible to and optimized for mobile users. Not all of these things make sense. There are two things specifically that I want to call out today that have somehow persisted as mobile SEO best practices, even though following them could actually make you less visible to mobile users. There may have been a time and place for making these recommendations in mobile SEO, as the landscape has changed dramatically even in the last five years. But if you hear them brought up in 2009 and beyond, check the speaker�s business card, as they may be your competitor trying to sabotage you in mobile search. More likely they�re well-intentioned, but not considering all aspects of the issue. To be safe, take time to educate yourself on how and why to avoid these two worst practices.

Got your attention, didn’t I? Actually, Matt hasn’t yet discussed mobile search ranking factors to my knowledge, though he has discussed the mobile search opportunity in 2009 many times in various interviews. This can change, however, if democracy is not against me, and if you also want to see him speak about SEO for mobile [...]