How (and Why) Should You Do Mobile Keyword Research?

Mobile computing is increasingly becoming the trend nowadays, and webmasters are only now realizing the implications of optimizing their websites for mobile devices. Admittedly, Mobile SEO is not something we have been talking about much. But that’s about to change. More than 12% web ussers now are using mobile devices, and this rate is rising sharply, what with a plethora of inexpensive and affordable mobile devices out in the market. Needless to say, the need for mobile optimization has never been greater. That said, let us now talk about mobile keyword research, and how to do it properly.

Mobile vs normal Keyword Research

But how is mobile keyword research different from normal keyword research? To better understand this, you need to put on the boots of a mobile user, and think from his perspective. For one, mobile users want specific details instead of long descriptions. They also want the information to be as accurate as possible, since a lot of the times, they don’t have the luxury of spending so much time looking for the right answer.

Mobile searches sometimes also tend to be location sensitive. For example, people might be looking for good restaurants near their location to dine at. Hence, the keyword ‘nearby’, as in ‘best sushi restaurants nearby‘ etc. Hence, mobile search is somewhat different than desktop search. And unless you realize the importance of this fact, you could be losing all the potential traffic opportunities mobile search has to offer.

Using tools for keyword search

For you to align your site towards mobile devices, you first need to find out what makes mobile visitors come to your and your competitors’ sites. For this, you can use many tools at hand.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster is one of the best ways of finding out what your best performing keywords are. If you have set up and optimized for some keywords, only then can you see what keyword lands you the most visitors. But without optimization, this won’t do you much good. You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to find out your top pages, and more. You can find out information about mobile devices by going into query report, and filter search type by Mobile.

Google Keyword Tool

Out of all the tools we are going to list here, this is probably the best one. It is the only tool that will give you insights into keywords you haven’t already ptimized your site with, unlike Google Webmaster Tools. It will let you know about the trends, and if you enter a keyword, it will provide suggestions, and more. You can then check out what keywords are better performing.

From the Advanced options, you can select multiple mobile devices, such as tablets, feature phones, or smartphones. You can then analyze traffic pattern for different types of devices, and combined with Google Webmaster Tools, you can decide the best way of optimizing your website.

Bing Ad Intellegence

Besides Google, you should try other tools out as well. Bing Ad Intellegence is a good one. Although not as comprehensive as Google Keyword Tool, it does give you some unique insights. It can give you demographic info on mobile users, and can also estimate tablet search volumes.

If used in combination with Google tools such as AdWords, GWT, and Google AdSense, Bing Ad Intellegence can help you optimize your site for mobile search pretty well. We will be sharing more on mobile SEO, so stay tuned! Peace 🙂