As an increasing number of mobile users access the web, merchants may be unsure exactly how to react. Should they build a mobile optimized site, design and submit an app to be approved by the Apple App Store or Android Market, or something else?

Mobile users have different web needs than laptop or desktop users. For one, their searches tend to differ from desktop and laptop users. According to a 2005 study conducted by Google, Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon University, mobile users perform less overall searches because it takes them more time to enter information on a mobile keypad.

It has become much easier to enter information quickly on a mobile keypad than it was in 2005. Yet many mobile users can still become frustrated with the tedious navigation and slow loading of traditional web pages. Many retailers and media companies are opting to design mobile websites to appeal to increasing mobile traffic.

Affects Search Rankings?

It is difficult to determine whether or not having a mobile-optimized site affects search rankings. Using popular search keywords via Google on both my iPod Touch and MacBook, I noticed that sites seem to have the same rankings on both devices for the keywords I selected. (Google itself has a mobile-optimized site, with the organic search results rendered for easier viewing on mobile devices.)

Search "electronics," and the highest-ranked site is Best Buy, which has a mobile version. So does Sony, which comes in at number two. Number three, RadioShack, has only a traditional site.

Using the wildly popular keyword "shoes" yielded similar results. Number one is Shoes.com, which has a mobile site. Zappos is number two with no mobile. Sites ranking even lower do not seem to have mobile versions.

So it seems that while searches are ranked the same on both devices, most top-ranked sites have mobile versions. The question is do they rank highly because of their mobile optimization, or do these large retailers dominate their competition in both organic SEO and mobile development?

Google would not provide specific details on how it ranks mobile content, but spokesperson Jake Hubert responded to our question as to whether a mobile optimized site can boost rankings on searches.

"Google uses more than 200 signals to determine the rank of a website," Hubert said in an email. "We're constantly iterating to refine our algorithms to surface the most relevant web content."

Stephan Spencer is vice president of SEO strategies for Covario, a leading SEO software and services firm. He is also the longtime SEO contributor for Practical eCommerce. He says, "It's not likely that the existence of a mobile-optimized site affects the rankings on Google's main web search. But the signals that Google's web search utilizes are ever expanding. Perhaps Google engineers will find that site owners who make the effort to create a mobile site for their visitors are more trustworthy and important, and thus more relevant."

We asked Spencer whether Google's mobile-optimized site favors other mobile-optimized sites in the search results. To that, he replied, "Theoretically speaking, mobile optimized sites should be favored. It's generally agreed upon in the SEO community that it's best practice for a mobile site to use well-formed mobile-optimized markup (in WML, cHTML, XHTML Basic or XHTML MP), along with DOCTYPE declarations and HTTP response codes.

"Unfortunately, in reality, mobile sites (which offer a much better user experience to the handheld user) don't, as a rule, outrank their main site counterparts in Google mobile search or the Google mobile iPhone app.

"For example, search on the Google mobile iPhone app for 'weather underground' and the iPhone site (i.wund.com) and the mobile site (m.wund.com) are both below the fold, whereas their main (non-mobile optimized) site is number one. Frustratingly, Wikipedia outranks both aforementioned mobile-optimized sites for 'weather underground'.

"Another example: 'fox news' returns the main site, the iphone.foxnews.com site and foxnews.mobi sites are indexed in Google but rank nowhere on pages 1 or 2.

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