When the iPad first came out, like many people, I didn't really get it. My initial thoughts were something along the lines of "Steve... what the hell?! You've produced a giant iPod and are somehow trying to claim its some sort of brilliant new product." I resolved never to buy one, considering it simply a folly for overly wealthy businessmen or an iPod designed for the visually impaired.
18 months later, a lot of words have had to be eaten with very little garnish or dressing. Now the proud owner of an iPad 2, I consider the tablet to be the coolest gadget ever made and the piece of technology I use most at home and when out and about.
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My belief is that the form-factor of the tablet PC will become the primary device for personal computing over the coming decade and will form conduit for the bulk of consumer search queries.
While this “tablet revolution” may end up meaning very little for the classic SEO model, unaffecting the nature of link-building, keyword targeting, on-page optimisation, content creation or social media; It will form a catalyst of change for the world of CRO, analytics and offer new vertical opportunities so far mostly untapped...
In this post I hope to scratch the surface of things that will need to be considered by the SEO community going forward.
Why the iPad?
Tablets have been common-place now for a over year and a half. Yet, the world as a whole, still seems relatively baffled by them. Where do they fit in relation to the notebook and the smart-phone? Are they a mobile device or a static home-based device? Are they more useful in a personal or a business environment?
The answers to these questions remain somewhat elusive as we see tablet devices used creatively and strategically in numerous different arenas for multiple different purposes, but without a singular, uniting core function.
Some of these uses have been inspiring in their creativity and originality...
Some of these have amused us with their breathtaking ill conceived stupidity.....(fast forward to 0:24)
In beginning to question the exact USP of the iPad, it becomes clear that the mutually exclusive definition of “personal computer” and “mobile device” is broadly defunct, false dichotomy.
By displaying multifunctional appeal, eluding concrete definition, yet morphing its value and form to fit the subjective perspective of the user, the Tablet PC defines itself as a post-modern tool for personal computing - doing nothing particularly new, but a number of things much better, than any other device.
The defining feature of the tablet is clearly its UI. While the touch screen technology used in smart-phones and tablets is essentially the same, the way that translates to end usability differs considerably. The size of tablet allows for multiple fingers to be used simultaneously, allowing for a wider frame of user interaction with content previously viewed primarily on laptops or desktops; made navigable through the integration of a full two-handed QWERTY keyboard.
The touch-screen tablet interface on the iPad is extremely intuitive, feeling responsive, flexible and mutable to the chosen behaviours of its user. Using the device feels effortless compared with the computing via a keyboard and mouse, requiring considerably less mental investment or formal effort.
When we are on a desktop/laptop computer, we are normally entirely using a computer; unable to be simultaneously cooking, brushing our teeth, watching the television or walking to work. The same is not true of a tablet device, where the “pick up and play” nature of the hardware and operating systems allows for genuine multi-tasking and partial engagement with technology.
As such, the tablet perfectly fits the frame for what the PC always felt a bit forced into, casual web usage and content consumption. Most of the time we use the web in a personal frame, it is for an immediate task - be that finding the answer to a question, reading the news, communicating with our friends or making a necessary basic purchase.
Last week Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, a tablet with a similar 7inch 16:9 form-factor to the Blackberry Playbook and the original Samsung Galaxy Tab.
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The fire looks to be an incredible product and an un-missible bargain at $199 (£130), but while the eBooks, music, movies and gaming functionality on the Fire may be superb, I do not think it will prove to be a viable or productive device for mobile computing and therefore search.
I played with the original Galaxy Tab for a while when it was released and found it the screen far too small and restrictive, with too low a resolution to be used effectively as a tablet computer. It was not large enough to be more functional than a large smart-phone, yet too cumbersome to be used instead of one. I expect the same to be broadly true of the Playbook and the Fire.
For my money, the 9-10 Inch 3:2 screen will push forwards and the main tablet form factor for years to come, with screen-size slightly expanding to 11-12 inches, - increasing when technology allows for smaller, lighter batteries and even thinner devices. Until the Android UX improves and the App store expands dramatically and a hardware manufacturer is able to produce a device with design quality on par with the iPad for significantly less cost, I can’t see Apple’s sales figures or market share slowing down anytime soon. Even if the iPad doesn’t gain users, it probably won't lose many due to the core Apple ecosystem i.e. those with iPhones, Macs etc will probably not switch to Android. According to technology research firm Gartner 69.7 million tablets were sold his year, of which a vast 68.7% were iPads. While Microsoft may eventually produce an exciting iOS competitor with Windows 8, this release is still a way off and with the luke-warm consumer reception to Windows Phone 7, one does have to wonder whether Ballmer and co will enthusiastically turn up just a bit too late for the party, arriving to discover the revellers have long-ago passed out drunk on Steve Jobs’ sleek, minimalistic, unibody aluminium sofas.
Therefore, I think it’s worth putting time and development resource into optimising for the iPad form factor, treating it as the only current tablet device worthy of consideration for site-optimisation.
The iPad, what is it good for? absolutely nothing
The iPad crosses the boundaries between mobile and desktop, being of particular value in the following locations and situations:
- In front of the TV
The iPad is great for finding out the names of actors, undertaking research alongside informational programming or casually engaging with twitter while keeping up to the date with the latest sit-com.
- As a TV
This morning, I could not be bothered to move into my living room to watch the Rugby World Cup matches at 8am GMT, so kept up to date with all the action without leaving my bed. This felt awesome, even if it was just laziness on an unprecedented scale.
- As a complementary device for meetings & conferences.
In an age of earth shatteringly boring powerpoint presentations, the iPad is a welcome visitor to help liven up even the dullest of boardroom presentation. You can easily pass round presentations, videos and images with the rest of the room.
- Travel
Trains and planes are not designed with laptops in mind. The iPad’s shape, size, weight and battery life take away the cumbersome hassle of trying to do work on the move.
- Reading
Not only books, but also reports, PDFs, articles and newspapers are a breeze to look through while on the move or multi-tasking.
- In and around the home
Particularly for casual browsing and quick enquiries, where the effort of loading up a PC seems unwarranted - the Tablet is the go-to device.
- Collaboration
Happiness is best when shared and the iPad works really well for watching Youtube videos with friends, reading articles together or sharing holiday snaps.
Which sites are likely to get the most traffic?
My hypothesis is that sites in certain niches are likely to see more growth from tablet devices than others.
Everyone who has currently bought an iPad will have tethered it to a personal desktop or notebook pc. While this will change going forward, with the introduction of iOS 5, most tablet owners will still have access to a desktop or laptop and probably a smart phone too, meaning they have an option for devices to search from.
Due to usability factors such as screen-size, technical incompatibilities, typing efficiency and to the poor integration of tabbing within the native Safari Browser; the iPad is not suitable for heavy or sustained internet usage, the kind of which you are likely to do at work or when undertaking serious research.
Where the iPad comes into its own is with quick, frivolous tasks and I think this nature is beginning to manifest itself in the sites generating the most tablet traffic. The graph below shows the percentage growth of access from iPads for Distilled clients in a variety of different niches.
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TV & Media
A Distilled Client in the TV & Entertainment Niche has had considerable growth of traffic from iPads over recent months, while maintaining a steady level of traffic across the board. Year on year for the month of august, traffic from iPads has grown from 0.47% of total traffic, to 2.52% of total traffic. While this may sound like only a small fraction of overall traffic, this growth represents a 400% increase. Meanwhile traffic from Windows devices reduced considerably over that time frame, by about 9.5% from 82.49 to 72.95%.
The further development of excellent TV & media apps such as TVguide, Sky remote record, Netflix & IMBD should be increasing the amount of traffic driven to entertainment and media sites via the iPad, as people choose not to switch devices in order to find out the name of that actor, or when the next episode of a certain program is on.
Travel & Tourism
If you’re going abroad, a tablet is great way to keep up with your communication and computing on the move, without worrying yourself over luggage allowance or battery life. Ticketing sites, restaurants, hotels and activity planning businesses should start to see sustained growth in visits from tablets.
Leisure E-commerce
If you’re making a major purchase, such as a car, business insurance or an engagement ring you’re going to want to meticulously check through different options, from multiple providers and make copious notes on all the actions as you go. This sort of purchase is unlikely to be undertaken from the armchair with iPad in-hand, however smaller, more frequent purchases often are. The touch screen interface can be a fantastic way to browse through the kind of items that don’t require as much research and planning. For example, when searching for a gift for a friend, people will often browse a store on a sofa while perhaps taking into account other's opinions.
News & Information Resources
We have all been in the situation where in the midst of a heated argument one side reaches for the last resort: Wikipedia. Alongside the smart phone a tablet is the ideal device for quick information retrieval on a particular topic of reference. Tablets also provide a great way to consume journalistic content as demonstrated in this recent article from Net Magazine. If you run a content aggregation site, a popular blog or a news resource – prepare for a shift in the devices comprising your overall traffic.
Social
For some reason everybody, when amongst friends and family, usually groans when somebody reaches for their mobile phone or laptop to access a social network. This stigma has so far managed to find itself inapplicable to tablets, their users and their peers. The pedantry associated with social network browsing on a phone isn’t applicable and the giant expedition that requires setting up a laptop with charger doesn’t make it seem like too much of an aside from maintaining the current real-life social setup. A tablet is a complement to a group trying to include, perhaps talk about or explore others who aren’t in their immediate vicinity.
Technical Optimisation
Flash
The iPad doesn’t support flash and from the vehemently stubborn quality of the comments made by Apple on this matter, I think it’s pretty safe to assume the iPad won’t be supporting flash anytime in the future either.
The SEO world have been pretty negative on flash for some-time, given Google’s inability to crawl it, but if you need another reason to take it down or convert your content to HTML5, here it is. Creating flash-style HTML5 content sounds extremely daunting to those of us without a front-end development background, but it really needn’t be. Check out Tom Anthony’s post on how to fix common issues with HTML5 and these sites for good tutorials:
Hype, a program for Mac OS X program allows even layman’s to create smart looking interactive HTML5 content and costs only $29.99 on the Mac App store.
Site Speed
Most of the time, tablets will run off reasonably speedy Wi-fi connections in homes, offices and coffee shops. But on trains, buses, cars, in airports and in meetings at other offices, iPads with the capability will often rely on their 3G connectivity to provide internet services.
The BBC recently conducted a comprehensive survey of 3G availability around the UK, which showed patchy connections in many areas outside of the major cities.
Despite an often advertised speed of 7.2Mbps for 3g connections, the BBC found most UK users get speeds of about 1.5Mbps, if stationary. In moving vehicles, connections can slow to a sloth like 284kbit/s – not enough to consistently stream video from YouTube. For iPad users opting to tether their device to their phone’s 3G connection for mobile browsing, the same sort of connection speeds apply.
This data simply reinforces the value of a fast loading, well constructed site, most easily achieved through:
- Ensuring your images aren’t bigger than they need to be
- Combining External Javascript
- Minimizing DNS lookups
For tutorials on how to achieve these and more hot site-speed tips, check out Craig Bradford’s guide
Make an iPad friendly site, but not a duplicate
Mobile websites create unnecessary duplicate content, which can have bad consequences for your crawl bandwidth and keyword targeting, yet most desktop sites are not ideal for use on either smart phones or tablets.
The best solution is to serve different versions of the same site, perfectly optimised for each device, through changing CSS. Check out CSS zen garden to see how the same content can be delivered in totally different visual styles.
If you have built a mobile version of your website which you automatically serve to mobile devices, ensure this does not happen for users on an iPad. Although I can’t find any research to back this up (I’d be interested to hear if anybody else can), I expect that the vast majority of web browsing on tablets is done in landscape mode, where most full-sized sites can be navigated without any difficulty. The only reason I can see for supplying a mobile site to an iPad is if the full-sized site contains heavy elements of flash, which you are reluctant to lose.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Simplify the check-out/conversion process
Using the keyboard on a tablet is a little bit arduous. In small doses, it’s not a problem, but typing stuff in does often require the user to put down the device and engage two-hands on the keypad. If you’re looking for a simple conversion to purchase, try to minimise the amount of content a user has to manually input.
This can be achieved by:
- Only forcing the user to input the minimum amount of data you require
- Using cookies to store data from previous visits
- Automatically matching addresses from postcode/zipcode inputs
- Allowing payment through paypal
Create an App
My iPad has a folder on it labelled “Shopping”. If I have something i wish to buy, then my first port of call will be the two clicks required to open up one of the apps in this folder, rather than the lengthy process of searching Google then trawling the results. Ebay, Asos, Amazon and Ocado have all done really good iPad apps which are worth taking a look at for anyone with an E-commerce focus.
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Apps allow you to permanently store your payment details and ensure you can produce a graphically rich online store without the concern of page loading times. While an app will likely provide conversions in its own right, they are also valuable tools for generating brand-trust and can act as fantastic bits of linkbait for improving overall domain authority.
Pagination
Scrolling through lengthy pages is a breeze on a tablet, requiring only a casual flick of the finger to move the page down. Clicking through to another page, however, can be time consuming – especially if the clickable icons are difficult to locate and the page contains heavy graphical content.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t paginate content when serving tablet devices, providing your “next” and “previous” icons are suitably tablet friendly, but simply that the visual impact of long pages is not such an issue.
Tabbing
While there are decent third party browsers available for the iPad; particularly Opera Mobile, Diigo Browser and Dolphin HD, the vast majority of users (around 96%) use only the native Safari browser, which currently offers an inelegant solution to tabbing.
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If you’ve set all your external links to open up in a new tab or window in order to keep users on your site, beware that this may have an adverse effect for iPad users. Clicking back on the iPad is not nearly as dull or time consuming as going back to a page in another window.
Scrollers & multitouch
Smart use of HTML5 and CSS3 allows you to integrate scrollers and multitouch into your site delivery, as seen in Google tablet search and the upcoming BBC site redesign, currently in beta testing.
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The best of use tablet UI and architecture is where traditional vertical scrolling is combined with horizontal navigation, to allow a great deal of content to be delivered on a single page. This lessens the need for tabbing and 3+ click journeys to deep pages; which feel irksome on the iPad, while allowing users to locate content without spending a long time finger-flicking through giant pages.
Check out the way my previous company, LocateTV, integrated horizontal navigation, and the way the extremely pretty Sky News App displays big pages of rich content.
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Button Size
Fingers are bigger than cursors and therefore require more space to be clicked. Having to zoom-in in order to make a selection gets extremely tiring, so nip this issue in the bud by making small adjustments to your CSS.
Downloads for Quality Content
One of the most useful and natural functions for the iPad is as a portable eReader. The iBooks application contains an extensive bookstore, offering a wide variety of both paid and free content. The iBooks App also works as the primary PDF reader on the iPad, allowing you to bookmark places, zoom in and out and store the content in an extremely visually appealing library.
One way we can utilise this functionality as website optimisers is to ensure quality content is PDF downloadable, giving users to option to store our content on their tablet device for viewing in environments absence of an internet connection. With many iPads only offering Wi-fi connectivity and frequent usage in internet free areas such as the London Underground, having offline readable content can improve long-term user engagement.
Two ways to make effective use of this would be to ensure that any HQ content you produce has a PDF download option as per the SEOmoz Beginner's Guide or hitting mail subscribers with PDF versions of your new content so they can quickly upload it to iBooks in the morning before beginning the train journey into work.
When building the acrobat files, carefully consider the formatting of your document. The standard PDF looks like this:
An iPad in portrait mode has a width of 728px , considerably less than the average 15 inch laptop monitor screen, which clocks in at about 1440px. It’s best to test out your PDF document on an iPad so you avoid the need to excessively zoom in and out in order to make the text legible.
With the introduction of Apple’s reading list into the latest version of Safari on OS X Lion, expect iOS 5 on the iPad to provide an integrated system, which may open up more possibilities in off-line downloadable content.
Analytics
Google Analytics make it very simple for you to work out how much traffic your site is getting from iPads, by treating the device as an operating system entirely separate from iOS on the iPhone or iPod touch.
Just go to Visitors > Browser Capabilities > Operating Systems to see a basic report.
However, I think setting up an “Tablet” Advanced Segment is the best way to go with this, so you can include the appropriate Android versions and other tablet devices in overall analysis.
You may notice unusual referrers coming in through GA, ones which don’t drive any traffic from other devices. These will most likely be Apps and if you’re getting significant traffic off the back of these, it’s well worth delving a bit deeper to see if you can leverage further opportunities in this area.
The vast majority of traffic on the iPad will come through Safari, with small amounts through Opera mobile and other niche browsers. However, there are also a few other quasi-browsers that may pop up their heads. The Twitter app for the iPad contains an integrated webkit based browser, which should show up in GA as “Mozilla Compatible Agent”.
Don’t be immediately alarmed if you see higher than normal bounce rates coming through from tablet traffic, it may be that many of these visits are coming in via social references and through apps such as twitter, Facebook, iReddit and Flipboard. The things to be wary of are low times on site, low conversions and any pages which may contain iPad hostile flash or aspx server-side scripts.
The Future of Tablets
TV Companion Devices
One of the major futures for tablets will be as the “Second Screen” for home-based broadcast media. When watching sport, meta-data will be pushed live to the viewers phone and tablet, allowing them to browse through statistics, replays, commentary and static shots. Users are already beginning to make moves in this direction, with the plethora of Sky Apps released for the iPad. The current function of “The Red Button”, will be replaced by content wirelessly pushed to an App on a tablet.
For marketers, there will be opportunities within these integrated broadcasts systems; be it ads, creative content or affiliate recommendations. For example, imagine seeing the outfit a character is wearing in a TV show, then being provided with an image and a link to an E-commerce seller for that outfit on your tablet device.
The tablet will fulfill the main role as the TV companion device, as it’s informal, flexible nature makes it much easier and less cumbersome to use than a laptop while curled up on the sofa with most of your attention focused on your big screen.
Content Creation
The thing currently limiting tablets from becoming realistic content creation devices is not the hardware, but the creative software.
I can foresee voice-activated document creation coming back into the fray with tablets. While this technology has been around for a while, the speed and accuracy of dictation software has held back any wide ranging adoption. Tablets may become mainstream devices for illustration and design, video and music creation once innovations in UI take the next step and cloud syncing systems have been properly established to allow heavy processing tasks to be shared with more powerful computers. However, I do think it’s unlikely that heavy multitasking or database creation will find a mainstream form within the tablet functionality.
4G
Within the next few years, along with phones, tablets will take advantage of the 1Gbps 4G networks, improving the ability to watch HD videos on the fly and edit large documents stored in the cloud.
Operational Remotes – Media Libraries
Apps already exist to allow the iPad to be used as a remote mouse for Mac computers or Apple TV and if you have the money and the tenacity to set it up, it is possible to use a tablet device as a control for a large home-media library stored on a static disk. I expect this functionality will improve and expand going forward, with fully integrated media control across devices, service providers and screens.
Cloud Computing
The upcoming iCloud service will allow users to edit documents and content originally created on their larger personal computer, while also allowing access to their full iTunes library anywhere they have an internet connection. Full cloud integration will lessen the need for large hard discs and for users to pair any tablets with a desktop/laptop personal computer. We will start to see more individuals having a tablet as their only personal computing device and people in the same household having personal tablets, while sharing the use of a larger desktop/laptop machine.
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the possibilities the tablet world is bringing to search marketing. If there are any areas I’ve raised that you would like to delve practically into, let me know in the comments and I’ll see if I can find some good resources.
Many thanks to John Warnes at https://www.transparency.org who helped me with this post and my girlfriend Kim for making me a brilliant cake while I was typing away.
Follow me on twitter @philnottingham
Nice post but too bad this was not SEO advice for the ITUNES APP STORE.
There are many many apps in the app store; besides doing a nice app your app being easily found in the iTunes app store is the key factor for a successful app and many downloads!
I can write a post purely targeted for optimizing an app in the iTunes App Store if ppl are interested. Being an experienced SEO and playing with iphone/iPad apps I have many experiences to share! Didnt post anything thought since past reviews I posted were not even looked at by moz staff after 1 months time after posting them.
Here are a few pointers!
1. Title of you app and keywords are limited and that that's what counts in the app store.
2. Make your app title long and descriptive. not short. the rest of the important keywords can go in the keywords field.
3. App Descriptions DO NOT COUNT AT ALL, anything you write in the description of the app cant be found using a search!!!!!
4. Localizing your app title,description,keywords in other languages will increase the visibility of your app in many languages! this is a must!
5. Facebook, or Google Ads do help in rankings since much more people view your app. i have seen spikes in rankings when starting Ads even if downloads did not increase much.
6. Your App icon is VERY important! will help increase click through in the APP Store and increase rankings!
7. Getting reviews in the app store helps rankings a LOT, getting friends and relatives to review an app helps a lot!
8. App Title and Keywords can be changed ONLY when you submit a new version of an APP you can not change them otherwise! You have to think twice before posting an app!
9. Many many other factors I am willing to spend some time share if a few ppl are interested.
Hi Paris,
Thanks for your pointers. I'd love to see a comprehensive guide to iOS App Store optimisation. +1 from me if you fancy putting it together, i'll certainly link out to that.
Thanks Phil
i'll take try and write comprehensive post for moz blog. I see many apps that are nice but there is no way to find them since they do not know at all where to put thier important wording.
iPad is my best friend as well for the past 1.5 years.really helps with my SEO work since i can easily check up on client sites from everywhere and even connect to my work pc to check up on that rankings report that takes hours to build if you are chekign for many keywords.
Yep, I'd be interested in App store optimisation, even though it's a little out of remit for SEOmoz perhaps! I've been wrestling with this for some time, and now fighting the same battle on Android market. This seems a little different, as for example description text does seem to count.
Hi Paris
I'd also be very interested in a post on App Store optimisation. Let me know if you'd like any assistance.
Hi Phil, nice post and a good degree of prescience blended in - I agree on a lot of points.
One point I feel differently on is the capacity for tablets to be used as a real work device: I think the only thing limiting this now is the software, a couple of improvements that should make tablets hustle for work:
Before I can finish my spiel, must depart as have a train to catch and 4km to walk to get there!
Thanks again,
Matt
(I'm writing this reply on my iPad, so that certainly says something . . .)
Just givin' my two cents. I think it's worth mentioning the potential value of getting your site/blog in content aggregators like Flipboard or Zite. I use these apps more than anything and they are great at finding new content for me that I'm ACTUALLY interested in.
The other thing is RSS feeds. . . Anyone who proclaims 'RSS feeds are dead' clearly does not own a tablet. It could be a good idea to make sure that 'subsribe to rss' button is still on your site.
I feel I don't use my iPad as much to do real searches with a specific intent in mind. I'll normally do the bulk of my research on my desktop and then usually I'll find a hundred awesome PDFs or buy a couple ebooks and go relax on the couch.
tl;dr - Tablets are awesome.
Great shout, Markacianfrani.
Flipboard is awesome and there's tons of these great apps that pull together content from all over the web. If anyone had the time and tenacity to compile a database of content aggregation apps, that would be a fantastic SEO resource. Also with you on the RSS feeds, i do similar.
Ya know, I just might take up that call! One of the strange perks of unemployment--lots of free time!
You'll get a link from me!
I don't mean to be a party pooper, but what has this post got to do with search engine optimisation? "SEO for iPad"?
Sorry for to say.. but just thought to share my views with you... this post gave me info regarding the websites to be built specifically for the portable devices like iPad. as we all know that in future the usage of internet the way of computing is going to change in immense manner(according to me,the post,and the general scenario) So if we make websites optimized , and easy to load, appealing in the portable devices like iPad, that can be called as "SEO for iPad".
No. That is not "SEO for iPad" it is just plain old usability/UX principles. Should we have a "SEO for iPhone", "SEO for Playbook" articles as well?
The post is more of an appraisal of on-page elements, technologies and aspects of CRO that need to be considered in response to the rise in popularity of tablet devices. I focussed my research specifically on the iPad due to it's total market dominance in the tablet PC sphere and the amount of iPad traffic beginning to appear on a number of sites i work with.
I can understand why "SEO for the iPad" is perhaps not the most appropriate title for this post, given the lack of actual technical SEO covered.
>I can understand why "SEO for the iPad" is perhaps not the most appropriate title for this post
So why on Earth did you call it like this?
I think we both know why.
Brilliant post. Anyone that includes a live video of Kanye West with a guy holding up an iPad gets a thumbs-up from me.
I'm not quite as pro-tablet as you, but I'm seeing all the same things across the sites i work on. One thing I've been playing with is the PadPress theme (https://padpress.org/), which uses Sencha touch and some other advanced web technologies to emulate the feel of a native app.
Cool stuff - it's fun to be an internet professional in a time when the internet seems to be, in Marc Andreesen's words, "Eating the World."
Cheers Matt. Originally saw that video on Gizmodo and thought it was brilliant.
I haven't seen PadPress before, but it looks great. Thanks for sharing!
Great Article. In the beginning I was wondering where you were going with it.
Education is a market that is fast adapting tablets, with some schools giving every student an I-Pad. (All I got was a #2 pencil). You can carry all your books with you in your I-Pad and pretend your reading when your really playing games.
I must admit I've thumbed you up for the great avatar :).
tablets definitlly provide a platform to convert more customers. As far as web traffic, I think sites who post often, and have low low times, and effective snippets will win. But as more and more popele start to use apps, in stead of search (on iPads and iPhones) I think it will be important to have a presence in those markets as well.
When I saw the title of the post, I was apprehensive about reading it, but decided to give it a go and boy oh boy am I glad I did. Thank you for such a diverse and well rounded post Phil.
Wow, quite the comprehensive guide here. I own an iPad and, while I'm not sure it's going to become the default computing platform of the millenium, it's certainly going to be a major component in the connected world. I got a lot of good things out of your article here, and I thank you for it.
While I'm not the huge tablet fan you may be, I'm very intrigued by the increased prominence of touch-based navigation. With the success of smartphones and the iPad as well as Windows 8 being built with native touch-screen support, touch-based navigation is going to become a huge part of website optimization.
Do you know how many people you exclude programming in html5. Many more people still use IE6 than people surfing the Internet with the iPad. In Germany nearly 37% (Source: www.webhits.de/deutsch/index.shtml?webstats.html - based on a counter that has got nearly 400000 visitors daily). To many companys and private users never update their browser.
And by the way Apple products suck: No Flash, toxins in their products (Source Greenpeace: https://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/news/hp-and-apple-s-toxic-laptops-e/) and foremost the dependece on the Apple Store that sucks the money out of your pocket.I hope this iPad and iPhone Hype is soon over and Samsung kicks them out of the market. Samsung has better products for less money anyway.
When buidling a site, there comes a point when you need to make a dichotomic decision to cater for the audience at present, or the audience of the future. Going out of your way to cater your design for IE6 users is painstaking, restrictive and will be ultimately redundant in a few years time.
He who dares wins and those who sieze new front-end programming technologies with both hands will ultimately reap the rewards, even if they lose some traffic in the short term. Smart, interactive and nice looking sites get links and generate brand-trust.
I am sorry but if you talk SEO you should make your site available for most people at the present time. Come on: More than 30% IE6 user is not a small piece of cake. And I am talking as well of IE7 and IE8. They don't fully support html5. And all the other older versions of other browsers. If you don't want to exclude to many people you should not use Html5. And by the way: You can not do as many things with html5 like you can do with Flash. It is realy a pain in the ass. It is bad for the webmaster and it is bad for the user. Many company sites are in Flash, many games and video site employ Flash. If you have an Apple iPhone or iPad product you will not see it. How silly is that!!! I would suggest to people who haven't desided yet what to buy not to go for iPhone or iPad. I would suggest Webmaster to redirect with .htaccess so that iPad and iPhone users will be redirected to a htm5 site while the main site still uses Flash.
Web designers like I am can thank Steve Jobs for the extra work or the time spend explaining it to the customers why Flash is not playing. I am thankfull for every wise customer buying the better products from Samsung or from many other brands that do a better job than the apple products.
There's a lot of music already on record, cassette, CD. So don't download any music.
There's a lot of cars that already run on gas. So don't buy silly green / electric cars.
Innovation & change is hard and sometimes painful. But necessary. Personally, I'd rather have digital music than a bunch of records.
Html5 would be rather a downgrade because you can do less things with it. And of course I would only start selling CDs when enough people have got CD players. And of course I wouldn't buy an electric car when there isn't enough places to charge the car. Inovation is good. I am all for it. But the people should have the chance to use or in this case to see it. When one third of the people she shit then do not wonder if you sell less. I suggest you download IE-Tester https://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage and have a look how your beautiful html5 site will looks like under the different versions of Internet Explorer. Maybe you will understand what I mean.
I think you make a good suggestion here Michael -- a redirect for iOS users could work really well and allow you to maintain quality flash content on the desktop version of your website.
Just as you wouldn't make an entire website using flash, it would be silly to create your whole site using rich HTML5 elements; for the reasons of IE compatibility you mentioned. However, i don't think that's a sufficient reason to avoid using HTML5 altogether.
I can understand your frustration with Apple products, but unfortunately, a large bulk of consumers don't share your distaste. Unless Samsung, Motorolla and the other Android manufacturers dramatically pick up the pace with their sales soon, we're all going to have to bite the bullet and consider serving Apple users with good, visually rich content. By the sounds of things, it seems like actually already are, just with general ill-will and frustration!
What are you talking about? Android is already way ahead: Source: https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2106625/android-market-share-doubles-apple-ios-falls-cent
iPhones and iPads are a Hype of the past like the Macs in the 90s. Good inovation, good design but at the end you are not flexible enough (Like with iTunes and the silly M4P Format. It just sucks!) and end up buying overpriced apple products while others have the freedom to choose. And consumers like choice especially when it gets less costly.
Thats why the most people are not going anymore for Apple products. Instead they go to the better competition.
I guess Apple will play the old game again: Hype and then beeing forgotten again!
I think you can get the best of both worlds by coding intelligently such that your site is backward compatible with older browsers. One thing you shouldn't waste time on though is making the site look good in older browsers. Ensure that it functions and nothing is buggy, but spend your design resources on making it look good for the 60-70% of people who have modern browsers and likely care more about the aesthetics of a site.
Ok, if we talk staticaly than it is not worth it to optimize for iPad and iPhone at all. Only about 20% of all smartphones have the iOs from Apple. Over 50% are using Android. So actually this article should be "SEO for Android". Anyway: Normal web sites will have maybe 1% of the users / visitors browsing with an iPhone or iPad. And this number will decreasing now rapidly because more and more people buy tablet pcs and smart phones that use Android which is modern enought to understand and display Flash. It is better anyway. Just imagine you fancy another smartphone or tablet pc that runs most likley an Android system. How can you transfer your Apple Apps. You can not. With Android Apps probably not a problem.
Although Android is currently the dominant smartphone OS, Apple still command the vast majority of the growing tablet market and are expected to maintain over 50% market share until 2014. Check out this article: https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/22/tablet-forecast-gartner-ipad which has some great illustrative graphs of the sales so far and predictions going forward.
While Android tablets are selling well (11m this year), iPads are selling in vastly greater numbers (46mil this year). By the end of the year, Apple will likely own 73% of the market share, with the sum of devices running Android (samsung, motorolla, Asus, HTC etc) making up a cumulative 17.3%.
As shown in my graph earlier in the article, many websites are seeing iPad visits at 3% plus with a stready increase. While that level may not apply to everybody, those for whom it is applicable may want to think about how they can effectively optimise for tablet devices. With the iPad still the dominant force in the tablet PC world; including flash on a tablet optimised site will be far more of a hindrance than a virtue.
That's not to say Android devices wont eventually overtake iPads in terms of spread and market share, but that day currently looks to be a long way off. If you fancy writing a post about optimising for Android, you'd certainly get a link from me.
Michael,
I'm afraid your stats are very far off the mark; I'm not sure where Webhits are getting their figures but they are massively different to what all other sources say. They claim that IE6 is the dominant browser on the net and that Chrome doesn't even exist!
Having access to analytics for many sites, all the data we are seeing across different markets is in line with what others are also reporting:
https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer
https://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201104-201109
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Estimates all indicate that real IE usage (putting asides fake user-agents, such as AVG that represent IE6) is in the 2-5% range. Furthermore, the demographic of most of these is thought to be corporate machines that cannot upgrade due to technical restrictions. Were you figures accurate you can be pretty sure that sites like YouTube wouldn't have already withdrawn support for IE6.
Secondly, the Kantar Worldpanel Comtech report covers smartphone usage, not mobile device usage. This discounted iOS on the approximately 100 million iPod Touch and iPads. It turns out when we account for those, that iOS is still ahead of Android:
https://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/03/report-suggests-ios-hit-all-time-market-share-high/
However, both Android and iOS support HTML5 very well. Secondly, a well designed HTML5 site can include graceful degradation to support a good experience for those browsers that don't support certain features.
Secondly; like it or not, but iOS doesn't support Flash, so your same logic about not using HTML5 could apply to not using Flash. However, HTML5 is going to see improved report, and Flash looks like it is going to be left behind (it is proprietary and not easily machine readable).
I agree that obviously, you need to inspect your own sites demographics before making a decision, but many people are using HTML5 more and more (often partially, some fully). It will see improved uptake over time, so if you can use some elements of it to improve the experience for some whilst not blocking others from viewing, then why not?
T
Thank you - Very nice argumentation. But still: 3% usage. Is it really worth it to optimize for that?
I would suggest to put up 2 Divs with z-index. The one with the lower z-index has got a picture (or whatever) - So it is not empty and the upper one the flash file. I guess it is a very easy solution withouth the need to put up a iPhone/iPad-Version. Navigational items like links and buttons should not be in the lower layer because it is not clickable.And by the way: Flash is already around for a while - So many people do have Flash already installed. Dear Tom - You should use stats that do represent the brought mass of people not tech people. For example W3Schools.com is for people with an interest for web technologies. Of course they will have updated their browsers.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer . But even there IE 6 has got a high value (about 17%)
When you see the last link that you send https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers. In the mobile section you can see that Android and iOs is even. And when I think that iOS had much more time to spread then it is clear that Android will take over the market soon. Actually this is a pretty good evidence!!!! It shows as well that PhilNottingham source article form the guardian is not usefull.Just check out your link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsersWhich is a very nice link by the way.You will see the developement very niceley that Android is taking over and will leave iOS way behind.
Michael,
I am a bit confused about what you are talking about with divs and Flash so can't answer that.
You refer to the old stats figure for IE6 from the Wikipedia page for Internet Explorer... I linked to various sources, including that page, and here are the latest data points I saw:
https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp
IE6 usage: 1.8%
Appreciate what you mean about the demographic though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer
IE6 usage: 9.2%
Strikes me as very high.
https://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201104-201109
IE6 usage: 2.57%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Contains a section dedicated to overestimating, stating: "AVG Linkscanner, using an IE6 user-agent, outstripped human link clicks by nearly 10 to 1".
Given we don't know the sources of these stats; I sampled myself from analytics data from 3 sites:
Adventure Travel Site
IE usage: 42.68%
IE6 usage: 1.83% sampled from ~5000 visitors.
Consumer Site
IE usage: 44.09%
IE6 usage: 1.47% sampled from over ~855,000 visitors.
Consumer Site
IE usage: 46.25%
IE6 usage: 2.24% sampled from ~9.98 million visitors.
It looks like the usage is extremely small. Furthermore IE6 has be abandoned by YouTube, Google, Facebook, and many others.
However, all of this is academic; all that really matters to a company that is facing this decision is the demographics that visit them now, and will likely be visiting them in the lifetime of the website revision they are making.
Secondly, you refer to the Wikipedia's page on Browser Usage and claim it demonstrates they are even. I'm confused about this... There are 3 organisations listed who gathered data for mobile browser usage (each taken from most recent data point listed):
Statcounter
Mobile Safari: 1.42%
Android: 1.34%
Net Applications
Mobile Safari: 3.32%
Android: 0.96%
Wikimedia
Mobile Safari: 5.22%
Android: 1.8%
They are pretty variable; so I took the average over these 3:
Average
Mobile Safari: 3.32%
Android: 1.37%
These results show that Mobile Safari is 2.5x more prevalent than Android, so I am really confused how you understood this to show they are even.
Also - I'll mention again, when working on HTML5 sites, much of what you do for Android and iOS is going to be identical. I guess Phil decided to write about the iPad because tablets have fueled the uptake of browsing the 'full' web (as opposed to 'mobile' web) more and more and many companies see siginificant enough visitors from them to justify it. I nightclub chain I worked with 8-9 months ago launched an iOS/Android optimised site and saw that immediately on launch it became the prefered site for new subscriptions [with most coming from iOS... ;)].
If you are right, and Android leaves iOS in the dust, then I think you'd still be in a significantly better position having an HTML site with elements of HTML5 than a Flash site (which is an SEO nightmare...).
Thank you for you detailed and professional answer. But you have to take not only into account IE 6 but as well IE7 and IE8 when trying to use html5 as well older versions of Firefox. Please not that html5 it is not even officaly released yet. Will be 2014. So it is not save at all to use html5
I think it's worth reiterating that i don't think SEOs should be thinking of Tablets as "mobile devices" and lumping them with smartphones when considering CRO and visitor analysis.
That said, this article on Mashable may of be interest https://mashable.com/2011/10/11/ipad-web-traffic-2/ to you Michael as it explains how the enormous growth in iPad traffic has pushed the iOS platform to No.1 spot for mobile browsing.
They see the 3% overall iPad access that i've been seeing on some of my sites and show that 97.2% of tablet visits are coming from iPads.
I'm afraid i don't quite see how you can claim iOS is being left behind by Android. Both platforms are growing extremely fast, but as far as tablet browsing is concerned, there's only one major player at the moment.
It is like with the screen resultion 800x600. Designers stoped to optimize for it when the number of visitors went under 10% which was 4-5 years ago (source: here). That's why I think that it is not worthwhile to optimize for iOS. If you want to create an alternative website for mobile phones (which will be redirected for mobile phone users) then it is totally fine and worth it. But to change your main site to a worse design only to please this 1-3% - I don't think so. And I don't think that iOs will ever come over 8% because the competion will be very strong and take off all this market shares away from Apple. You will see.
By the way the 97,2% stat is bull. The fact that pre-Honeycomb devices couldn't be detected as tablets could be one explaination for this. But I am quite optimistic that Apple has promoted this missleading information and people who belive everything without varification are happily to promote this false numbers.
Just check this artikel about this 97,2 fake stat.
Just checked one of our sites and we've got 4.5% visitors using iPads now - we've got a redesign coming up for this site so I'll be sure to pass your post on to our design team.
To me it seems like you should get insane conversions on those iPad visitors if you create a really good experience for them in the redesign. My reasoning is:
Totally agree, great comment. Also, lets not forget that tablet owners tend to have a bit of money behind them - you could think about appropriate product placement and ad choices.
Wow Phil a great post indeed. My iPad is now my best gadget friend. It enables me to do so much when I'm on the move but also has taken up a major role in the home. My laptop rarely gets turned on unless I am writing a blog post for The Social Penguin. Like you say the casual browsing/quick research aspect makes a tablet so useful. I now book holidays, flights and shop from it too. Great to hear your thoughts on optimisation. Do you think that enough web people are thinking about this or will we see slow pick up like we did (are still) seeing for phone based mobile web experiences?
P.s. the seomoz commenting system is the easiest to use on an iPad nice one!
Cheers Mike!
I think there's been a general reluctance from the web community to plunge head-first with tablets and mobile; mostly because it potentially heralds a lot of change that we aren't necessarily comfortable with.
In the beginning, no-one was really sure that tablets would catch on; so we became reluctant to invest too much time into creating content for them. Now we're faced with the prospect that the a popular browsing device will force us into adopting new technologies, which will require a lot of time, effort and hassle.
With the multiplicity of new opportunities appearing across vertical search, personalised search, apps and social integration; we're having to accept that the classic SEO model is fast becoming less and less relevant - which means that ultimately, unless we change, we're less relevant.
I think, going forward, we're going to see a lot more web people talking about tablet and mobile specific content. What SEO needs is for masses of creative experimentation; for the web community to embrace these new mediums with the willingness to lose time and money in order to uncover some golden opportunities.
I agree, Moz have done a good job on making an iPad friendly site.
Thanks for the response Phil! I guess it always needs people to push something forward, if folks like yourself can guide that then great!
good day phil! well its really cool to know that we can use iPad for SEO works, good write up! this article was very informative. thanks a lot!
[link removed]
Cracking post, Phil. Very comprehensive. I confess that I was an iPad agnostic, until I got one to test apps we were developing, and it weaselled it's way into my life. What are your thoughts on serving up a "choice" page to new web visitors using tablets to alert them to an app? We use one on italyum.com which detects and serves messages specifically for ipad, iphone and android devices and it certainly increases sales, but are there any dos and dont's you'd suggest?
Hi Jeremy,
I think generally speaking, a choice page is a great idea - particularly when the site in question has rich editorial and the app makes effective use of multi-touch UI to make the content more graphically appealling and easy to navigate.
The only thing to be careful of is that you don't serve up a totally duplicate landing page for tablets/smart phones and that the app you actually drive people to has access to all the most recently published site content. If you've created a buggy app, or something full of ads; then suggesting people download the app rather than use the website is going to ultimately lower your conversion rate and brand-trust.
You seem to have done a great job of all of this with italyum, so congrats!
Thanks Phil. I totally agree with the trust issue. We only offer the choice as we believe it's a better experience for the user - it's so much easier to follow the recipe on the custom built app, and we can add recipes to the app instantly without an update.
It looks like Apple created the product which can not exist yet. I mean that all latest apple products are so outstanding that it's hardly believeable they really here. Must be something to do with ALIENS.
Wow very thorough! I agree with most everyone; while this article was VERY helpful in terms of what iPad's limitations/intended use are, it did not touch on the SEO aspects of the iPAD.
I liked some of the points you made in regards to the Analytics for the ipad.
Honestley - This looks like a paid post. And some of the commentators as well.
Mandatory anti-fanboy statement: the iPad is deffective by design and pushes DRM to a new length.
Wow - this is a strong pleading for iPads - Apple will love you :-)
But of course great advises for best usage!
Big thums up for this comprehensive article. :]
Personally, I like in-depth analysis and heavy resource pages.
Great work.
This is a great starting point for discussion. I'd love to see a post about how to "do" seo on these things e.g. best text editors, ftp clients, tablet friendly seo sites etc. Also I know the Ipad is the 'market leader' but Android is worth covering as well!
Thanks again for getting this subject started.
Thanks for the suggestions.... Just started using "SEO Manager" app... looks like their on the right track... a little difficult to understand at first... but its a start.
Great Post rearding the Pros and Cons of the iPad and the SEO for the suitable websites specifically made for iPad , but as you said, the iPad doesn't support the Flash, on the other hand ,the blackberry's Playbook supports the Flash, so if the Blackberry playbook supports the Flash,we should presume, in Future Apple will also do the same.
I that's highly unlikely. Apple made a conscious technical decision not to support flash when developing the iPad and Flash is slowly becoming old technology; with more sites and developer opting to use HTML5 for their interactive content and videos. Google and Youtube both use HTML5 and this large-scale movement away from Flash will almost certainly define the engineering decisions regarding device compatibility going forward; rather than the differing capabilities of a competing device.
The Playbook has had poor sales so far and the ability to support Flash on Android, Blackberry and HP tablets doesn't appear to have been a significant USP for potential customers.
Surely the first all comphrensive guide for iPad centered web site optimization, because what you wrote goes further SEO. And it is surely needed, because - from what studies say - tablets are going to overtake the desktop sell volume in the next two/three years. About this, I remember a phrase by Steve Jobs saying that tablets won't mean the extinction of the pc as we know, but pc will become somehow a "specialized" tool for specific needs, but the mainstream use of the Internet will be via tablets and smartphones.
Let me underline what is the best contribution of your post and that make it different respect others of a literature that starts to be quite big: the coexistence - better, the convenience - of site and app. In fact, the discussion is always: better a site or an app? Which is a false question. In an inbound vision both are needed, because they are two ways of receiving traffic and expanding brand recognition. We have just to see what a site like Mashable does or news editors does too (even though they fail in the harmonization between free and premium content).
Finally, the best indicator that SEO for tablets/smartphone is a field of search marketing we have to dig, is Google itself, with its tablet version, the differences existing between YouTube for mobile and YouTube for desktops/laptops and the buzz they put every time they create or update apps for android and iOs. Or just because "mobile" is occupying at least half of their "what we are, what we do and where will be going" manifest.
P.s.: this comment was written on an iPad 2 :D
Thanks Gianluca! I totally agree with you. Apps provide another way into your content and in no-way replace the value of a good site. The Financial Times stand as a perfect example of this.
I think we're also likely to see the Search Engines eventually offering substantially different results for mobile and tablet searches - prefering sites with compatible technologies and high CTR's.
Wow, I expect to see this post to rank at 1st place soon ;-) Good job, very in-depth. You might just have changed my view of the iPad.
I like what you have to say about the future of tablets. I was wondering if we could start a discussion on this thread about more creative ideas people have for the future of tablet technology. I'm really interested to see how the tablet will evolve with all other tech devices.
I think there's going to be a great deal of evolution alongside TV and entertainment broadcasting technologies, especially Pay-TV platforms and multiplayer gaming.
I believe that the greatest contribution towards SEO for the "more portable" devices & browsers has to do with keyword research and content that will be consumed on the couch, in front of the tv screen. This is what someone has to keep in mind and if he is already working on seo for such a website then he has to focus on this devices as well (at least for now)
I believe there is no point in doing SEO for tablets for a social network as the most common use would be to go directly to that via browser or an application but it does make sense to focus SEO efforts for tablets on a news website as trending topics might be something that someone will look up on a tablet.
Hi Mate fantastic iPad resource, great information for any one thinking about buying the iPad. But also a shout out to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 it is a fantastic tablet too if you are looking for somthing a little different to the iPad.
very robust review / thought provoking article on how to use implement iPad techniques. I agree, it's the best device i've ever owned as well.
The iPad and iPhone have certainly changed the face of webdesign and not just SEO. So few of my clients now want Flash worried that it will hurt their site with iPad and iPhone users. Jobs can knock flash all he wants but we all know he just doesn't want people to have an option to go to flash based games and sites that negate the need to purchase an app to do something.
Personally I have an iPhone and it's superior to any smartphone I've seen or used, but I still carry my old fashion netbook instead of a tablet. On standby mode it's quick to boot up and I can run Office and get work done on the go which I can't do with an iPad.
Monumental post! You've converted me.
Phil Nottingham your article is the reason why I proud to be a Mozer. Really a fabulous article I never imagined that I would ever read this kind of article. But you made it possible really this a kind of article which should be published by apple first but you hit the strike first.
Congratulations for the great article.
Cheers Raunaq, that's very kind. I'm glad you liked the post!
cool opportunity 4 iPad! Thank You 4 this great rewiev!