iPhone SEO will make you money and also strengthen your non-iPhone website targets.

Why SEO an iPhone ported site?

Several reasons.  An additional site will displace your competition in organic search results. They can make you money.  They’re unique and offer greater capability to your customers.  Most importantly,  THEY GARNER HONEST LINKS!

An SEO’d iPhone site will strengthen your “normal site”.  First, get the webapp template and build your site.  Follow the code notes and keep basic SEO in mind while doing so.  Don’t go crazy over-optimizing, just be honest.

You can put it in is a sub-directory of your normal site, a sub-domain or under a unique domain.  If your goal is to displace competition, then choose a unique domain.  If your goal is to purely strengthen a current site, then choose a subdirectory or subdomain.

You can choose to add an iPhone detection/redirection script in the header of your normal website to throw users to your iPhone friendly site.

Use unique but relevant content (to your non-iphone version site) on the iPhone site.  Follow the notes in the template to build your menus and content.  Phone linking, maps, and image examples are built into the template.

Don’t just assume having the mobile version live is enough, link to it from the normal site.  ANNOUNCE it.

SUBMIT it to Apple if it’s useful. (Follow their TOS and they’ll usually take it)

Why is registering with Apple and submitting your dumb app worth it?  Because the Apple site will feature your new “web app” and contain a good followed link to your site with anchor text of your choice!  (the anchor is the app name – think about that when naming it.)

The click through to your site will amaze you, honest and natural links will follow and this is where you capitalize.

Link OUT to your normal sites from within the iPhone friendly version to pass some Google love.  Though visitors will only return to the iphone site if you use the detection script, spiders will still pass love to the target site.

Now you have a new site, growing click through and natural link building from iPhone enthusiasts, you’re passing juice to the sites that matter – this is a good thing.

Now you have traffic – now add AdSense.  AdSense units fit perfectly on the LCD.

iPhone users don’t click – they play. Sloppy clicks add up to money in your account.  I’d suggest using the Image ad type, not the text adds.  Only the Titles of the text ads are clickable, but the entire Image is live – much better chance of acquiring a click.

Make it FREE.  Though they will be free inherently anyway, SAY it’s FREE.  Make a point that it’s free.  Apple forum users and iPhone lovers will link out and talk about it, I promise.

Even if your app is dumb – there will still be link love coming from apple.  Apple/iPhone fanatics will still click through to your app.

Make your app bookmarkable with the iPhone Bookmarklet function.  (included in the template.)  Make your own clever icon so users can have your web app saved on their home-screen.

I’m rambling but I know this works – very well, and it’s honest link building.

Get the template.
Submit to Apple.
Promote it on your site.
Enjoy Apple click-through.
Enjoy the links built by other users.
Add AdSense.
Enjoy the money.
Find any and all excuses to port every site you can:)
Lather, rinse, repeat.

It’s not all about clicks and ads though.

The heart of this is to garner lots of natural links from Apple enthusiasts in blogs and forums, as well as some powerful links from Apple.  I’ve even gathered several natural PR 7 links from C-Net and more simply by getting the buzz from Apple users.

Your web app doesn’t need to “change the world” – it can be boring.  Even a bad app can get attention!  Look below in a c-net crave blog article.

I got a link simply because someone else tried to charge what I offer for free.  Even though that app was getting bashed – it got a strong link, and I know a LOT of traffic.  (I got over 8 thousand uniques the day the above post was written).

So – now your app will show up in natural search.  If it’s actually relevant and interlinked with your normal site, you’ve just taken another spot in Google that your competition doesn’t get. SEO your iPhone webapp and you strengthen your normal site.  And – you can make some extra cash on the way. If you aren’t a “coder” and don’t want to work with the HTML template, then try the WordPress Themes written to format sites to function as iPhone websites.

Disclaimer – though I say “fanatics” when referencing iPhone users, I need to admit that I’m one of them;)