Mobile Search is the Future. Are You Ready?
How does Google envision the future in 5 years? Google executive Tim Reis recently spoke at a Pittsburgh Advertising Federation event in Pittsburgh and revealed some of the company’s future predictions. He shared many noteworthy insights:
Facts
- $500 billion in e-commerce purchases last year
- Number of internet users is approaching 2 billion
- 36 hours of information is uploaded to YouTube every minute
- More than half of offline purchase now derive from online research
Predictions
- MOBILE IS THE FUTURE
- Smartphones and other mobile devices will become ones, personal concierge
- YouTube will continue to grow and be used across all platforms
- Storage will be unlimited and cheap
- Everyone will have access
How will you take advantage of these changes?
To increase the volume and quality of search traffic, there are some steps you can take right now. We suggest the following:
- Claim Google Places listings for all physical business locations
- Evaluate location-based social networks such as Foursquare to see if they make sense for your business
- Connect with in-market consumers researching trusted sites such as viewpoints (Reis’ suggestion) or NetBase (our suggestion; full disclosure: a client)
In Google AdWords
- Link location ad extensions to appropriate Google Places accounts
- If inbound calls are desired, use phone ad extensions; they are click-to-call
- Deliver ads to all or select mobile devices (you may want to separate these out into separate campaigns)
- If advertising on the content network, try video display ads; they are far more engaging
- Add more abbreviated keywords to better target mobile search users
