Mobile SEO can be a lifesaver, no joke. If you pay attention to the news, you may have heard that a significant part of the U.S. was hit hard by a “derecho” storm system on Friday, June 29. We were hit with hurricane force winds (82 – 90 MPH), rain, thunder and lightning that was non-stop for about two hours. A car across the street from us got crushed by a large tree. Fortunately, nobody was in the car when it happened.
I was without power for five days. Conveniently, Mother Nature decided that was a good time to send record heat to the region. It was downright dangerous, given the high heat and humidity.
I live in a neighborhood that is on the water. We can’t have natural gas, because we’re at sea level. We are not on the county water system – we have a well. I’m renting, and the permanent residents are too damn cheap and stupid to vote in spending the money to get on the county water line.
So, not only did I not have electricity, I had no water. And it was 100 degrees. Bad, bad, bad.
But the point of this post is to talk about mobile SEO for better performance during disasters. And I wanted to check some sites – the power company mostly – to see about restoration progress. I’m not going to call any names, but the blankety-blank power company didn’t have a mobile-friendly website, and it was absolutely hellish trying to navigate the desk top version for information about when my ‘hood would get power back.
So, business owners, listen up! You might not think your site is a good candidate for mobile. After all, you’re not a restaurant, a food delivery service, a movie theater, a mini-golf course, etc.
But what I learned the hard way, along with thousands of others was that we had a need for more mobile websites than you can imagine. Here ae a few:
- Power company
- Camping supplies
- Water delivery
- Marina
- Bookstore
- Grocery store
- Pet sitting service
The reason why I list these is because we wanted to figure out what stores nearby might have camping supplies – specifically air mattresses. We were going to camp out in our basement.
Water delivery services that were still operating would have been a good resource for picking up or getting water delivered to our elderly neighbors.
I wanted to know if my marina was operating, to check on my sailboat. I would have liked to have checked another marina to see if their wi fi was working.
The bookstore would have been nice, in case it had power and was open with working wi fi.
It would have been nice to know if the local grocery store had power back and was stocked up.
A pet sitting service that was still operational would have been handy, so we could have gone away to find a hotel to stay in and get out of the murderous heat.
So all you business owners who might think a mobile site won’t do you any good – think again – and think about how you can serve your community after a natural disaster.
There are very cost effective mobile platforms out there that will create a mobile version that renders well on iphone, ipad and android devices. Here are a few to check out:
Also check out Mobdis, Wapple and Mofuse. So please…help us out! Get a mobile-friendly version of your site up and running sooner rather than later, and be sure to apply mobile SEO to it, umkay?
Just saying.
About Nancy Wigal
Great post Nancy, inspiring to see SEO used in such a help way
Scott, thank you! I also hope this can be a selling point for SEO consultants who are moving into mobile. Before this storm, I had limited thinking around what businesses should optimize for mobile, but there’s nothing like being directly impacted by a natural disaster to change your mind.