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Posted: 07 Mar 2011 09:44 PM PST

In the wake of FinancialTimes.com stating half of their traffic arrives from mobile sources, many online marketers are asking. . . ,"what does this mean for search engine optimization?"

It's not like users will immediately stop normal surfing patterns and abandon Google, Bing and all organic forms of traffic. However, any semi-follower of the SEM industry would take a step back and ask a few questions:

Will users depend more on social recommendations or keep with traditional search behavior?
How will results change to reflect the needs of mobile users?

Instead of trying to answer each question directly – let's consider a few options. First off, FinancialTimes.com doesn't specifically state these are organic users, direct users, paid. . . etc.

Since FT is a news aggregation site, these type of stats should not be surprising to anyone following this industry. . . including FT's managing director, Robert Grimshaw.

In an interview with Beat.TV, Grimshaw stated, “approximately forty-five percent of digital news is now consumed via mobile devices…. Coupled with the growth in consumption, has been the interest in advertisers around advertising on the mobile platforms, which was nearly non-existant just one year ago.”

These may have been established users who switched over to mobile and didn't need any extra prodding. The bigger question in demand of answers: regardless of where traffic originates (organic or not), will your site be ready to handle mobile users?

Surprisingly, most are not excepting mobile usage to grow this fast.

Grimshaw went on to say, “That’s a number that surprised us,” he told Beet.TV at the paidContent2011 conference. “I think it demonstrates actually how quickly the audience is picking up mobile devices and shifting away from the desktop and into the many new digital channels that are emerging."

And, how does all this make money?

“When you look at the subscription side, what we’re seeing is that people are very willing to do business on a mobile platform. They’re buying subscriptions directly through their mobile devices and over 2010 we saw 10 per cent of our new digital subscriptions every week coming from mobile devices.”

This is what most advertisers / marketers should be focused on. Will users interact directly with mobile ready content? According to FinancialTimes.com, this seems to be true.

Internet Profits

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

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