Author: Julie Campbell

Marketers now need to use these barcodes for more than just pushing content.

According to data from an Ofcom study, more than half of smartphone users in the United Kingdom regularly scan QR codes and perform other tasks with their devices while they’re out shopping.

It also noted that 21 percent of shoppers use their devices for scanning barcodes.

This means that over one in every five consumers in the U.K. are scanning the QR codes that they see in advertising, on product packaging, and in other locations, in order to obtain more information about the products that they are considering for purchase.

As there are 25 million British people with smartphones (as penetration of these devices has reached 51 percent in that country), considering that one fifth of them are using QR codes on a regular basis, this means that 4.5 million people in the U.K. are regular scanners while shopping.

The implications of this heavy use of QR codes should not be overlooked.

Marketers and retailers alike should recognize that this presents a tremendous opportunity, and that the odds are that the number of users will only skyrocket along with the ever rising penetration of smartphone devices. Though NFC does still hold a great deal of potential, it is QR codes, and not near field communications, that are currently changing the way that British mobile consumers are engaging with brands.

Experts in the industry, such as Laura Marriot, the CEO of NeoMedia, believe that QR codes are now on the cusp of a time of rapid expansion, and that as an increasing number of verticals are starting to notice this trend, the importance of the barcodes to marketing will blossom.

The key is for marketers to understand that it is not simply a method of providing content to consumers. In fact, this tendency is doing more harm than good for the overall health of the use of QR codes. Instead of simply providing the barcodes in order to allow consumers to scan them and view a website or a page about a product, it is being recommended that they be used for a much more appealing and action based purpose.

Experts are encouraging marketers to use QR codes to share discounts, promotions, offers, and other attractive benefits that will encourage consumers to continue to scan, and to use what they receive in order to make a purchase

One of the top challenges to mobile SEO is the proper use of pre-existing content.

Those who are new to mobile face a significant challenge with their SEO efforts, as they fear using duplicate content from their traditional site onto their mobile optimized website, which could cause them to lose their ranks with the top search engines.

The reality is that properly formatted content will not be penalized if it is duplicated between traditional and mobile sites.

That said, it is vital that proper formatting and use be achieved, or the risk of losing the best ranks will still exist. The following are the characteristics which must be avoided by mobile websites in order to make certain that you are not causing yourself more harm than good:

• Splitting link equity with app promotion – don’t over-promote your app in the free space on your traditional website as there is a small chance that the platform-specific URLs will be linked and shared instead of the homepage.

• Diluting link equity with carrier pages – even though Google’s webmaster guidelines for mobile no longer state that a duplicate page should not be created for each carrier, it is still wise to avoid the behavior.

• Duplicates between indexed transcoder and legacy sites – if a transcoder was originally used to build a mobile presence, but an in-house site has since been created, the many duplicates could be the result.

• Cross domain duplicates in other forms – though the mobile content from transcoded sites is the most common form of cross-domain duplication of content, there are some other examples of the same site being hosted by several domains without canonical tags to tell search engines which is the primary location. This can hurt the ability to achieve a competitive rank.

• Showcasing the mobile optimized website on the traditional site – creating desktop pages meant to advertise mobile sites can generate mobile site results when they are intended for desktop users. Even worse, those results often outrank the official mobile site.

• Doubled WAP sites – this can occur when a site was originally created for a feature phone but another was built to replace it for a smartphone.

• Promoting the apps ahead of the mobile site – when the mobile app is promoted more heavily than the optimized website, content is often duplicated for the same channel and the link equity is divided. At the same time this will not create additional shares or links that would help to competitively boost the overall rank. The mobile web should always be promoted first.