The iPhone bandwagon. All aboard!

Ahhhh. The Apple iPhone. It’s here at last! All hail! CHRIS THOMAS

By Chris Thomas

There’s a fair bit of hoopla around the iPhone, isn’t there? As I see it, if there’s a bandwagon rolling past, why not jump on for the ride. Let’s make this a fun trip!

To date the iPhone been running on the 2G network which is slow (and expensive), but with the new and improved 3G version, internet browsing will be, well, fast. And if we’re lucky, a bit cheaper.

Optusnet has already created a new website and is running a targeted AdWords campaign for user interest registration. Hats off to you Optus; you’ve got the jump on Vodafone (the other named carrier).

Optus is forking out big time on its Google AdWords (it’s ranking 1st for every search you can think of on iPhone) – with Vodafone snapping at its heels, a close second.

But a quick click on the Vodafone AdWords link delivers you to a page that has nothing to do with the iPhone. There is a strong possibility that Vodafone is paying more per click than Optus, but until it fixes what must be a miserable Google AdWords Quality Score, Google will probably never let it rank first, no matter how much they pay.

But I digress.

The new iPhone also features an inbuilt GPS unit (using Google Maps) which would have a number of local and international businesses more than a little concerned.

If the iPhone becomes as popular in Australia as everyone is predicting it will be, could this mean the slow demise of the old fashioned street directory? What about dedicated GPS unit manufacturers?

And where does this leave Sensis’s Whereis? Perhaps that’s why Telstra hasn’t announced anything about the iPhone yet because it’s insisting on using Whereis maps instead of Google Maps.

Does anyone know? I haven’t read any reports about it.

Just a quick tip before I go…

By looking at screen resolutions usage in your analytics, you can discover how many people are using small mobile devices to visit your site.

If you’re interested in finding out how many people are visiting your website using an iPhone, you can lookup your Google Analytics screen resolution stats. Simply look to see how many people visited your website using a screen “res” of 320 x 396 (the iPhone screen resolution). One of our clients is receiving around 0.5% of their visits from iPhone users already.

I’d expect those percentages will jump significantly in the next few months!

Chris Thomas heads Reseo a search engine optimisation company which specialises in setting up and maintaining Google AdWords campaigns, Affiliate Programs and Search Engine Optimisation campaigns for a range of corporate clients.

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