I’m going to tell you something, and it isn’t going to be anything you haven’t already heard. Mobile is getting so big it’s likely going to increase the ‘Internet’ by more than double in the next few years. I’m only 30 and I can walk into a high school and see everyone with a laptop, smartphone out, snapchatting their Instagram of them tweeting about a Vine they saw of a boy getting slapped in the cafeteria because of a foursquare check-in that landed him in hot water… “crap, these kids got me feeling old.” #oldguytweet.

Big Data is a word that doesn’t hold the weight it deserves. When you read it, it should feel like Big-Gigantic-Massive-Ginormous-Colossal-Huge-Gargantuan-Monstrous Data. Imagine our world as one big computer that is about to get plugged-in and turned on.

But lets look at this from a business perspective: If 80 percent of Internet connections are going to be made by mobile devices by 2025, that means that in 11 years 80 percent of your customer base is going to be mobile-first. Eight out of ten people are going to only know your brand, company or enterprise through a mobile device.

You might think 11 years is plenty of time to get your mobile strategies figured out, but did Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare even ‘exist’ in your world a few years ago? The answer is likely no. So if you’re already behind the proverbial 8-ball, how are you going to sprint to catch up with the race that’s already started? You don’t have a good net to capture eight percent of mobile actions, let alone the 80 percent you’re going to need.

Big Data tactics + the drag-net that is required to capture that mobile data is the future of both commerce and communication. And despite being late to the party, search was invited. Mobile SEO is going to become the gateway to being discovered by the ’80 percent’ customer base of the future. With every passing day mobile SEO is becoming increasingly important to your bottom line, whether you realize it or not.

You haven’t ‘won’ if you get them in your store. Your physical store isn’t safe, so slap yourself if you think it is. Smartphones are changing the in-store experience. In fact, 84 percent of smartphone shoppers use their phones while in a physical store. You could lose a purchase in your store and they’re gone before your associate ever realizes they were even there. (Is this dramatic enough for you yet?)

So where is the first place to start to tackle mobile SEO from an enterprise perspective? Here’s a few key considerations:

5 tips : Optimizing Big Data for mobile SEO

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The right tools

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BloomReach, an emerging, data-driven marketing specialist, has garnered significant industry support for its plans to disrupt SEO. Ashutosh Garg, co-founder and CTO of BloomReach, says machine-learning + natural language processing is a good place to start. Garg first revealed this secret sauce behind his team back in May 2013, in an interview with SiliconANGLE Senior Managing Editor Kristen Nicole.

“Our Web Relevance Engine combines machine-learning with natural language processing,” Garg told Nicole, “making it a continuously updated and smarter machine each day. In addition, we realize the value that humans bring to the table. By merging our algorithms with our staff and our customers’ expertise, we think we provide a pretty fast and reliable system to compete.”

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Ensure your website is responsive

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Shawn Aguilar, a Digital Marketing Manager at TapSense recommends a responsive website. “A responsive designed site, will adjust the layout automatically to alter the text, images, content to fit the device that site is being displayed on. This should include iPhone/iPad, Android devices, and even desktop versions. While having a mobile specific HTML site is helpful and Google does recognize it, Google does prefer responsive designs over mobile HTML sites. Lastly, a website that has a responsive design is much easier to maintain since you are managing one website rather than multiple websites for different devices.”

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Localized search

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Hassan Bawab, Founder and CEO of Magic Logix, shares the importance of localized search – specific to wearable tech like Google Glass.

“Have you ever searched for products and services and the results are either too far from what you are looking for, or are literally located on another side of the world? Google Glass sets out to address this issue by making your searches more localized. The idea is to better find establishments, business offices, and sellers near your current location if need be.”

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Mobile URLS and redirect mapping

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Vanessa Fox, Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, shares what she calls a first and best thing you can do.

“The first and best thing you can do for both search engines and users is to ensure that both your mobile and desktop pages redirect appropriately. Mobile user-agents that access the desktop pages should be redirected to the mobile versions and desktop user-agents that access the mobile pages should be redirected to the desktop versions. Sounds so simple. So many sites don’t do it.”

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Engage your mobile users

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I found that Bill Parlaman, a contributor at Business 2 Community said it best.

“One of the most important elements of any mobile website SEO strategy is to engage users. As smartphone users are typically on-the-go and do not have much time to find what they’re looking for, businesses must create content that can be found quickly and painlessly. In essence, offering specific content that gives mobile users exactly what they need is pivotal to creating and sustaining customer engagement.”

Cloud + mobile leading the revolution

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The International Data Corporation (IDC), a market research firm, forecasts a 44-fold increase in data volumes between 2009 and 2020. Cisco and SAP both support that with their reports that in six years there will be 50 billion ‘things’ creating that increase in data volume. Big Data is going to lead the next revolution of the mobile markets and that includes commerce, communications and search. The better you understand the data, the better off your business will be. Data is calling the shots. Checkmate.

photo credit: flickingerbrad via photopin cc

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photopin cc