Mobile phones are no longer simply telephones. The days of the brick are gone and those phones have been replaced by slim lightweight models that have everything from a video camera to a full QWERTY keypad. They also have internet access and not just for mobile either.

Internet access using mobile phones is one of the fastest growing areas of the internet. It is one area that search engines are concentrating on heavily – they are even releasing their own mobile applications to make searching easier. This leads us to the question then, is it worth your while to optimize for these mobile devices?

I am probably going to be in the minority to a certain extent. Most web sites probably don’t need to go down this road, yet. But the time will come when they do need to. There are, however, a couple of market sectors where optimizing for mobile is not only a good idea, it is becoming a must.

Most mobile searches relate to local search and local businesses. Theaters, restaurants and other entertainment sites will benefit greatly from a mobile presence. Local shopping will also gain from having a mobile presence.

In the future, as mobile devices become smarter, having a mobile version of your site may help to increase your reach, improve your visitor numbers and perhaps have a positive influence on your overall search rankings.

How do you optimize your mobile site? It’s not that difficult. Start by ensuring your Document Type Definitions can be recognised by mobile devices; create a mobile sitemap for the search engines (don’t forget to submit it); and ensure your robots.txt file allows access to the search engines. For example, you will need to include a specific reference to Google using the Googlebot-Mobile string.

Is mobile web optimization worth the effort? For many businesses, most definitely. If you have the time, do it since it is not going to harm your online presence and may have a beneficial influence on your future. Do some research and determine if the mobile web is growing in your region and niche – if it is, join in or get left behind.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.