Here is a sampling of the results:

Sprint Navigation for the BlackBerry Pearl 8130

I was desperate, so I decided to scroll through the results. Not one of the results on the page is for Sprint’s standard GPS navigation software, but it got me thinking of some of the ways that good search experiences have completely spoiled me:

• I constantly look for search kiosks in grocery stores.
• I get mad when I do a local search and it doesn’t bring up a OneBox result.
• I refuse to click next page if I don’t find what I want.
• I only type in a few letters to most search boxes and anxiously wait for suggestions.
• The first thing I look for on a complex page is a search box.
• I suffer anxiety at the thought of having to browse through a directory.
• I have become very, very bad at finding anything in the Yellow Pages.

I’m a little extreme, but I’m also part of a very valuable segment online for all kinds of businesses. There are a lot of us, and there is a lot of bad search. As a retailer, I’d want to know exactly how that segment felt about the experience I was providing, and optimize it as effectively as I could.

How much money do you think Sprint loses to bad search?

(I know, I know. Buy an iPhone. On it.)

The answer is a resounding “Maybe!”And here’s why: It depends on the site. Let’s look at the two options. I’ll also discuss one of the key SEO strategies of mobile search.

1. No. Don’t even bother with a mobile version of your website.
Let’s face it. For some websites, the cost of building a mobile website outweighs the benefits. This is especially true in the short run. During a recession, most eyes are focused on the short run. You might hear something like this from your client: “We understand that mobile sites have the potential to drive an exponential amount of revenue in the long run, but we need revenue now. And we need it from our current cash cow – our website.” Don’t be surprised to hear that right now. In a turbulent economy, your client might decide that money allocated for mobile website development could return higher marginal benefits from other campaigns, such as PPC, SEO and/or Conversion Optimization. Ultimately, mobile websites don’t make financial or practical sense for everyone.

2. Yes! Build a mobile version of your website already!
Okay. Awesome. You’re ready for a mobile site. You are committed to the long-term increases in traffic and revenue that come from mobile search. Now you must develop a mobile search strategy. Oh great. Wait. Can I choose option #1? Oh c’mon, it is not that bad. Along with some mobile search resources, I’m going to guide you to a solid mobile search SEO strategy.

Subdomain vs. One Site
First, you will need a URL strategy. Many websites choose to build their mobile site on a subdomain, such as m.yoursite.com or mobile.yoursite.com. This can be a great solution for some sites, but essentially it creates another website. Now you have 2 websites to manage and update. This can give problems for many companies, and typically what happens is the mobile site is often forgotten. It does not get the regular updates, and before you know it, your mobile site is out-of-date. Furthermore, a duplicate version of your website can create headaches for search engines, as now you have 2 distinct websites with the same content. In SEO, this is called a duplicate content issue. Done incorrectly, it can get you punished. But the real problem comes when your mobile site outranks your regular site. If you have ever loaded a mobile website on your laptop screen, you will understand why most visitors will bounce when presented with the mobile version of a website on their laptops or desktops.

Now that I have destroyed the subdomain strategy, let’s take a look at my recommended strategy for your mobile website. Here it is: Just have one site. You are probably thinking, “The whole reason I wanted to build a mobile website is so we can have a site that is optimized for mobile devices. What do mean ‘just have one site’?”

It’s actually very simple in theory. Using a simple piece of code on your server, you can detect how a user is accessing your site. If they are on a laptop or desktop computer, show them the regular site. If they are using a mobile device, return a version of the page that is optimized for mobile devices. This means that your dev team will have to build a mobile-optimized template. Populate the mobile site with the same data as the regular site, but optimize the mobile site for mobile devices. This will eliminate duplicate content issues, and it will also eliminate the need to keep 2 sites optimized. Everybody wins! [Note: There are cases where mobile users prefer to see the full version of the site. In this case, provide a link that allows users to view the full version of the site if they choose.]

Now, I won’t go into all the items of a mobile search SEO strategy. That blog post would be rather long. Here are a few SEO resources for your mobile site:

• Mobile Search Ranking Factors
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/mobile-search-ranking-factors

• Google’s Mobile Webmaster Guidelines
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40348

• Submit a Mobile Sitemap to Google
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34627

• Places to Submit Your Mobile Website [Mobile Search Engines]
http://www.rank-mobile.com/mobile-search-engine-submission/

• Places to Submit Your Mobile Website [Mobile Search Directories]
http://www.rank-mobile.com/mobile-web-directories-good-mobile-seo-links/

Apparently, out of the roughly 250MM cell phones in the US, 10%-12% of those are smartphones. Of those on a smartphone, 36% use this to access the web over a traditional PC.

Pretty impressive stats, by themselves, but I’m more interested in putting them in a different context. If you hopped into the Delorean (the flying one that runs on garbage, not the plutonium-fueled one that gets you chased by Libyans) and go back a decade or so, you’d probably read headlines about traditional media losing a chunk of its audience to digital. You can probably see where I’m going with this. Digital stands to lose a chunk of its audience to mobile. The monarch of Media Mountain is starting to lose some of its serfs.

Of course, it’s not like digital is dead (far from it),but if you’re one those brands who has a pretty big stake, say in something like search, you might want to start thinking about this – like right now. Mobile adoption by brands is still pretty low, which means you can actually get in and work out the channel’s intrinsic kinks at unbelievably low prices. Get in while the tickets are still cheap.