Current local (South Africa) trends show that:

• There are ten million mobile Internet users in SA (Five million PC Internet users in SA)
• One in six Google searches in SA originates off a mobile device.
• In South Africa about 40 percent of mobile phone users have WAP-enabled phones.
• The top Mobile Applications currently in South Africa are: Mxit – with 15 million+ users – and Facebook.
• Mobile search and eCommerce will be a large area of growth in 2010.

In short, this indicates an importance for businesses to target mobile searchers and users of mobile applications.

Some of the best Mobile Site examples I can give include BBC, the Goal mobi site, and College Humour (N/B: “these examples obviously look better on your mobile phone – feel free to suggest your favourite mobile sites below“).

However, when creating a Mobile Site it is also imperative to build and optimise the Mobile Sites so it is user-friendly and accessible on the Mobile Web.

Mobile Design and SEO Best Practices
When designing a Mobile Site one aspect to consider is that one must understand that mobile searchers/users are different from PC searchers/users. In order to cater for Mobile users designers must:

• Provide an elegant experience by considering whether individuals possess a smart phone (for example an iPhone with fully featured web browsing) or a standard mobile phone (with stripped site features).
• Consider that phones are not used like PC’s – users are usually on the go therefore the site should be more goal oriented – Relevancy and Simplicity is key.
• Mobile designs are to conform to the new W3C standards in order to create mobile-friendly style sheets (CSS).
• Mobile Sites must be small, lightweight and fast-loading site – (< 20kb / page).
• Consider User Agent Detection –  this is another form of transcoding which takes into consideration the type of mobile phone an individual uses to search and provides more uniform browsing experience for various device types.

Once the Mobile Site has been built, Mobile SEO steps can now come into play. These include:

1.    Validating the page with the .Mobi Validator or the W3C Validator
2.    Following ‘traditional’ on-site  SEO Best Practices such as:

• Major keywords in the title tagging
• H1′s and body text
• Rich keyword Meta Titles and Descriptions
• Keyword-rich anchor text for internal links

3.    Mobile Search results tend to reflect ‘Local Search results’ – your site must be optimized for local type searches. Also submit your business info to local directories making sure your site is verified and included in sites like Google’s Local Business Center.
4.    Get the Mobile Site spidered and indexed – submit to major search engines:

• Google Sitemaps
• Yahoo! Submit Your Mobile Site

In short, the above Mobile Design and SEO factors are to be strongly considered when building a Mobile Site. These aspects help provide a solid Mobile Site foundation for your Mobile Campaign or Strategy. For further Mobile Campaign or Strategy enquiries, visit our Virtuosa website.

What was truly interesting to me was that Africa showed the strongest gains over the past two years and more than two thirds of all mobile subscribers were from developing countries by the end of 2007.

Mobile subscription growth stood at 39 percent annually in Africa between 2005-2007 which is “a positive trend that suggests that developing countries are catching up”, the report said.

The report further highlighted that “Mobile phones are eclipsing traditional fixed lines” and that “in Africa they account for nearly 90 percent of all telephone subscribers”.

Fascinating stuff indeed. For me, that means that 9 out of 10 people who have a phone use mobile technology to communicate. Perhaps people in developing countries use a mobile phone mainly for phoning and keeping in touch, but just think about it, this remains a huge target market for online marketers to look at.

Mobile vs. Fixed Line
When comparing the growth in the mobile sector to fixed telephone penetration, it is not surprising that fixed-line usage is stagnating (based on the report). The report shows that growth is just under 20 percent globally for the last years and has been below one percent between 2005 and 2007″.

In the fast paced world of today, we are required to be available and stay connected, 24 hours a day. More people “connect” using mobile phones, mainly because it is more affordable and it means we can indeed be more “mobile”. The end result will be that the trend is going to continue and that mobile user numbers will continue to grow.

Is Mobile the way of the future?
Well, that seems to be a no-brainer! Past reports on such trends have already shown that, so nothing new there. But, does this mean that mobile is the only medium to look at? My opinion is no, but one can certainly not overlook the fact that as more and more people are making use of mobile phones, this market is wide open.

So, are you looking at mobile solutions and mobile marketing as part of your marketing strategy for your business?

Something to think about!

For more on this and also broadband penetration in high-income and low-income countries, read the full article at iafrica.com.