Mobile is a pow­er­ful chan­nel for brands to con­nect with con­sumers through­out their pur­chase jour­neys. A mobile SEO strat­e­gy is a key piece of a suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing plan. Does your mobile expe­ri­ence delight con­sumers, regard­less of which device they use to find you? With Google now reward­ing sites that are mobile-friend­ly, what does it mean for your mobile SEO strat­e­gy?

A poor mobile expe­ri­ence can send poten­tial cus­tomers to your com­peti­tors. Don’t let this hap­pen – espe­cial­ly not as Google is ready to boost mobile-friend­ly sites in its search results. Intro­duc­ing Mobile SEO Now 2015. It will pro­vide you with:

• Vital infor­ma­tion on the cur­rent stage of mobile search now, and where it’s going.
• Mind-blow­ing mobile sta­tis­tics.
• Amaz­ing mobile case stud­ies.
• Knowl­edge and advice from experts and thought lead­ers in mobile.

By the time you’ve fin­ished read­ing, you’ll be ready to imple­ment strate­gies that will help your brand or busi­ness reach and influ­ence mobile con­sumers at key moments through­out their pur­chase jour­neys.

Why Is Mobile SEO So Important?

Con­sid­er a consumer’s jour­ney…

Meet Jes­si­ca. She just bought her first home. One day while sit­ting on her patio, she real­izes that an out­door fire pit would be an amaz­ing addi­tion to her back yard.

The Awareness Stage

Like near­ly half of con­sumers, Jes­si­ca begins her research with a search engine (Google, in this case). She grabs her smart­phone, nav­i­gates to Google, and types in “fire pits” to get tons of ideas (fea­tures, specs, safe­ty, war­ranties, and more) and tips to con­sid­er from blog posts and buy­er guides before call­ing it a day.

This is just step one of a research process that could take Jes­si­ca days, weeks, or months to com­plete, and will span mul­ti­ple chan­nels and devices. Mobile is inte­gral dur­ing the ini­tial research stage for many con­sumers.

Replace “fire pit” with any oth­er prod­uct you sell and ask your­self: would she be able to find you in this cru­cial stage? Is she aware you sell the prod­uct and are the best option?

The Consideration Stage

Lat­er on, with some time to spare dur­ing her lunch break, she returns to Google on her smart­phone and uses voice search to search for “buy out­door wood burn­ing fire pit”. She is try­ing to decide what type of out­door fire pit is per­fect for her. With so many options, she’s over­whelmed and decides to pick this up on her lap­top lat­er that evening, where she dis­cov­ers sev­er­al brands she con­sid­ers buy­ing from.

If your brand sells fire pits (or any oth­er prod­uct), you want Jes­si­ca to con­sid­er buy­ing from you.

The Evaluation Stage

Now that Jes­si­ca has nar­rowed her search and your brand is still in the mix, it’s all about mak­ing sure there are no hur­dles that will derail a sale. She’s found you, but will she buy from you?

Not just yet. Because now she search­es for online reviews to eval­u­ate whether she’s mak­ing a smart pur­chase. The field is fur­ther nar­rowed down.

Before din­ner one evening, she gets frus­trat­ed by one painful­ly slow-load­ing site she had been con­sid­er­ing and tries anoth­er. This one is poor­ly designed and makes it too dif­fi­cult for her to eas­i­ly nav­i­gate to the out­door fire pit she wants to buy.

Poor mobile SEO and a bad mobile expe­ri­ence have ulti­mate­ly cost those com­pet­ing brands a sale.

The Purchase Stage

Late at night in bed the next evening, she grabs her smart­phone and search­es Google to com­pare prices. One brand espe­cial­ly catch­es her eye – it has a “Mobile-friend­ly” label. She also remem­bers buy­ing from this brand in the past and hav­ing a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence. So Jes­si­ca clicks on the “Mobile-friend­ly” site.

Every­thing clicks. The mobile site is fast and easy to nav­i­gate. The con­tent is per­sua­sive and reas­sur­ing. She’s con­fi­dent in the deal she’s get­ting. She’s con­fi­dent in the brand. She’s ready to buy.

Build Loyalty

If all goes well after the sale, Jes­si­ca may just become a loy­al cus­tomer. Some 80 per­cent of peo­ple are more will­ing to rec­om­mend a brand after pos­i­tive mobile inter­ac­tions

Ready?

The crit­i­cal impor­tance of mobile search as a chan­nel means that brands need to ensure that a consumer’s expe­ri­ence of the brand is noth­ing less than excep­tion­al.

Get this guide and make sure your mobile SEO is up-to-date, effec­tive, tru­ly cus­tomer-cen­tric, and ready to meet the chal­lenges and expec­ta­tions of an increas­ing­ly mobi­lized world.

Is your mobile site opti­mized and pro­vid­ing mobile con­sumers with excep­tion­al expe­ri­ences?