Many business now understand the capabilities that SEO, or search engine optimization, and how it works. It basically makes your company website appear at the top of the search engines when someone looks up you type of business, with keywords that describe what you do. This is primarily for desktop and laptop computers. This is important of place you in the community for people who are new in the area, or have never heard of you.

As important as that can be, there is a new phase of the SEO planning that everyone needs to be aware of, and especially here in Chicago. Chicago is a large metropolitan area with many suburbs, and people are passing through all of the time. A recent study showed that as many as 60 to 65 percent of searches are now occurring on mobile devices. That is too large of a percentage to ignore.

Now you must also optimize your business information to appear at the top of these lists that are showing up on smart phones, and other mobile devices. It takes a different type of programming to have a mobile website simply due to the smaller size of the screed on a mobile device.

So what you, as a Chicago business person, will want your business to be prominent when someone searches for your type of business on their smartphone, for example. Say, you own a hardware store, and a person is out shopping and they need a part for a lawn mower.

The type the search into their smart phone, and if you have done your homework well, they will find the name of your business up high, if not first, on the search results. If you are smart, you will have had a service optimize that for you so that your Chicago SEO package is up to date.

The other new factor in mobile marketing is SMS, or text messaging. For example, you can strategically send a text to every cell phone in zip code and invite them to lunch, if say, you own a sandwich shop. Studies have shown that 98% of people who get a text will open it just out of curiosity and that is the best 'eye on the ad' percentage in all of advertising.

If you haven't yet, bring your Chicago SEO up to date, otherwise you are going to be missing out on a whole lot of business in this coming year.