SmallBusinessNewz

Would you agree that search is one of the most important elements of an online marketing strategy? If you answered yes, you've got to constantly consider where search is headed, because this is an industry that doesn't just sit still. At the Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara this week, there was an interesting keynote discussion on "the state of the search union". Participants in this panel were a Google employee, a Yahoo employee, and a couple of experts in the industry.

Watch the entire keynote here or check out my liveblog coverage here.

One of the points discussed was mobile - how "mobile is here" and how it is changing the way people search. Businesses must keep this in mind. Google's Avinash Kashik probably illustrated the point the best when he shared a story about being out with his kids and wanting to find a place, which he was able to do tha by simply talking to his phone, and getting driving directions in a few seconds.

Now the point isn't specifically that this kind of local search is where we are or where it's headed. That's only a tiny part of the whole picture. Just browse through the Android Market or the Apple App Store, and you will see many, many different apps people are using to gain access to the information they want. In some cases, that is directly related to businesses.

When people have their phones with them (generally all day long), and the phones they are using are more advanced than they were in the past, they're likely to be doing more of their searching, and more of their web activity in general on their phone, and when they're doing so, they're not just staying in the web browser (although they're certainly still doing that as well). If you gain nothing else from this, just know that the world is going mobile, and it's going to become increasingly important for businesses to stay ahead of the curve on the ways consumers are using their devices to access business info.

That means keeping up with popular apps, making sure you have a usable site when its viewed on different mobile devices/browsers, and it means watching for new apps that come out that could have a direct relationship to whatever it is that your business offers.

Don't think of it as things getting harder. Think of it as having many more opportunities than ever before to get in front of the consumer, and that is increased by the fact that they have their phones on them all the time. That means while they're out shopping too.