While every year for the past five has been heralded ‘the year of mobile’, will 2010 take the crown?  I don’t think it’s quite time yet, but it is time we all sat up & took notice of how consumers are using search on mobile phones.

There are two ways to target paid search ads to consumers using mobiles:

1. Users on WAP-enabled mobile phones (eg BlackBerry and the host of internet-enabled standard handsets)

2. Users on smart phones with full internet browsers (eg iPhone)

Given WAPs stabilisation &/or decline I’m going to focus on high-end devices with a full web browser.

Your AdWords campaign automatically opts you in to target mobile devices with full browsers, however there are some key differences in the ads being displayed:

• Mobile device search results show 2 paid ads at the top of the page, followed by approximately 10 organic results & snippets, followed by 2 to 3 paid ads at the bottom.
• If you utilise the full character limit allowed (the same as desktop search), your ad will actually fit over 4 lines rather than 3, hence pushing your competitors further down the page.

Given a rank of 1 – 2 is much more critical on a mobile platform to ensure visibility and share of voice, slightly different optimisation techniques should be applied.  We recommend setting up a unique campaign targeting the mobile platforms, which enables you to employ the most appropriate optimisation strategies, utilise your creative character limits, send consumers to a mobile-device-friendly landing page (WAP or no flash!), and also importantly target your creative message to consumers on the move.

Whilst search volumes on mobile devices are still small (less than 1% of desktop from the data we’ve seen), they are growing.  Google Australia has outlined some impressive growth charts over the recent Christmas period.  Now we can only wait for telco providers to make data plans more accessible, and search will be revolutionised!

Oh, and if you are targeting mobile devices from the one Google AdWords campaign you can now see a breakdown of traffic by device (desktop v. mobile); go to Filters and views > Segment by > Device.

I like to drink coffee and fortunately for me there is no shortage of coffee shops in the area. Infact, there are no less than six coffee shops on the block where the Outrider Sydney office is located.

So to satisfy my curiousity I wanted to compare mobile search results on Google vs Bing when looking for “coffee shop cremorne” on the iPhone. How do the search engine results look and perform on iPhone and if I was searching would I actually find a coffee shop?

Google Search on the iPhone

Google results look familiar to the results that you would get on the web browsing from a laptop. Google’s text is small which allows it to fit more results into the screen. What comprises the organic results are websites, a block for local listings complete with map, clickable phone numbers and opening hours. There are also a few relevant videos and there is a block of paid ads at the very bottom.

Google helps the searcher out with the ‘Google Suggest’ query suggestion product making searches that bit faster.

Overall, Google performs well on the GUI front – its fast, easy to use and does look nice. But, apparently there is only one coffee shop in the entire area and I need to walk about 2 kms down to Spit Junction to get my caffeine fix.

But if I click on the ‘Local’ tab at the top I’m given a bunch of local listings, some of which are really helpful. So right now, the search is only partially helpful.

Bing on the iPhone

Visually, Bing looks a little bit bland and as a default the text size is fairly big – bigger than the results on a normal web browser. Also, for local searches Bing requires you to add your location.

Bing doesn’t have the rich local listings, maps, videos or related search suggestions that Google offer. When you click on a link Bing opens that link up in a new page which might be confusing to some people. You’ll see the ‘local’ tab but its not clickable for my localised search.

Results wise, Bing shows six organic results before I have to click through on the next page of results. Out of six results for “coffee shop cremorne” only one was relevant. The other five results thought I wanted to buy a coffee machine. Also, slight mispellings of suburb name totally throw Bing’s results. My search for a coffee shop would lead me to think that there is next to nowhere in Cremorne to buy a cafe latte!

And the winner is…

Currently, Google’s search results are superior and far ahead of Bing and at least they list one coffee shop in a neighbouring suburb on the main search result page. However, in real world terms, the average searcher would likely abandon both Bing and Google mobile search results and end up walking or driving around until they find what they’re looking for.

The other half of the story are local businesses who really need to get on board and obtain local listings on the search engines…of course, that is if they want to attract new customers.

Google officially announced on their blog on Thursday that they’ve released Google Product Search for mobile. I know personally I would find this very useful, as there have been many times I’ve been in a store pondering a purchase yet hold back until I can get online and read a couple of reviews. Mobile product search capabilities would allow me whip out my iPhone (if I had one!) and read a couple of reviews on the spot, and save me a return visit to the store. The product information comes neatly formatted for phone browsers (as pictured), with easy access to ratings, reviews, price comparisons and more.

Google has stated that those who have already submitted their product listings do not need to do anything to be eligible for displaying on mobile, but it represents a good opportunity to create and optimise your product landing pages for mobile users.

Now this is all well and good for those eCommerce stores in the US that utilise Product Search, but Australian sellers are missing out and have been for too long in my opinion. Google Australia still isn’t showing those shopping results seen in Google.com when a search is made.

On a related note, SEORoundtable have reported a new option within Google Base admin where you can now choose to ‘Share with Adwords’ your product listings. This new feature offers a searcher the option of displaying products from a particular seller showing an ad in the sponsored listings. This represents another engagement opportunity that Australian sellers will be missing out on until such time as a full rollout of Product Search happens here.