The Official Google Mobile Blog announced that  phone numbers featured on some mobile ads are now clickable. This means that when you see a business phone number on a mobile ad  for a particular establishment, you can simply tap on the phone number and make the call.

To make this even more useful is the fact that mobile web search is location-enabled. So much so that the numbers provided are also based on the phone number listing of a particular establishment nearest to your current location.  That pretty much saves you the trouble of calling a phone number only to find out that the business establishment is miles away from you.

If you’re a mobile advertiser, here’s how you can include clickable phone number on your search engine ads:

1. Set up location extensions and add your business phone number. Customers will be able to click to call your business location nearest to them.

2. Check that you’ve chosen to show your ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers in your campaign settings

After doing these two steps do a search for your business name and you’ll see that the phone numbers you’ve listed are now clickable on your mobile phone.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Google Adds Click-to-Call Phone Numbers

Google has just added a useful button to its  mobile homepage – tagged “near me now”, this feature lets you search by using your location as the query.  Currently available for iPhone and Android phone users in the U.S., “Near me now” utilizes GPS for determining your whereabouts and then searches for results near your location.

The new Google mobile homepage feature lets you easily search for popular categories of nearby places. Just by clicking or tapping on the “Near me now” link right on the Google mobile homepage, you will find categories of places. And if you want more you can just select the “browse more categories” link.

You can also explore the whereabouts of specific locations including reviews or rants of other people about a specific restaurants and their menus and services.

To use this feature, make sure that the location feature of your iPhone, Nexus One or other Android phones is activated. Then visit google.com your phone’s browser and you can easily spot the “Near me now” tab.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Google Adds “Near Me Now” to its Mobile Homepage