Today, mobile applications have made the world smarter. Plenty of mobile apps are launching on daily basis. Thus, the increasing number of apps has increased the level of competition. Every application owner wants more people to download his application. And this can be achieved only when an application secures its position on the App Store and Google play store.
But how it can be achieved?
Keep patience, you will get the answer soon
You might have heard about search engine optimization, which optimizes websites to get visibility in SERPs. Just like websites, mobile applications can be optimized by the ASO technique to achieve ranking on various play stores. The process is somehow similar to SEO, but a little bit different.
So, Read this blog to the end and know everything about App SEO. We will be discussing every factor of ASO and how it can be performed and discover some ASO strategies.
First of all, lets us understand what is SEO for
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, it is a process of generating organic traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. by certain keywords. The search engine optimization process is performed for the websites.
Similarly, ASO is performed for mobile app optimization, and the process is exactly alike SEO.
The search engine optimization process requires various SEO reporting tools, which can inform you of the overall health of your site. Having tools is crucial for the success of any business.
What is Mobile App SEO?
App SEO is also called App store optimization or mobile app marketing. In short, the process is also known as ASO.
ASO is an iterative process to increase the visibility of your app in the mobile application store. Just like SEO, its main goal is to increase the ranking of your app in app stores like Google Play store or Apple Store.
The main difference between ASO and SEO is, ASO is mainly performed for mobile app stores while SEO focuses on Web searches.
Why is App Store Optimization Important?
Mobile phones have compacted the world into the palm of our hands. These tiny devices have made our life simple and smarter by meeting almost every requirement of our lives. That is why, today it has become an essential part of our daily life.
Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm update has brought some important changes to search engine ranking. According to the algorithm, mobile-friendly sites would have a higher ranking on Google. This applies to both websites and mobile apps. Apps that are optimized for mobile searches are given more preference and get the ability to rank higher on search engines. That is why it is important to optimize your app for search results to boost your application visibility.
Google states that 40% of mobile users look for a new app on the mobile app store and search for the applications they want. The app store consists of plenty of apps based on different categories and that is why you will need to optimize your app to aid its visibility on search engines. Therefore, you need to refine your ASO strategies so that your target audience can find your application on the app store.
How can you Create an Effective Mobile App Strategy?
App store optimization increases your brand awareness, encourages downloads, and helps you to increase your conversions.
Here, we will discuss some Mobile app SEO strategies for application marketing
App Strategies for Mobile App Marketing
Having a Website
Website support is crucial for any business to grow and especially in the case of online marketing. But many application owners do not focus on this fact. They don’t take any advantage of mobile apps and they miss out on a great opportunity.
A large number of users get familiar with apps by searching on Google, so it is important to give them the option of a website to explore. Additionally, some users want to learn about your app from websites, if they have already known your app from different channels like social media.
That is why, it is essential to have a website because it is a business card and a salesperson in one. And not having a website is missing out on the opportunities of acquiring local customers.
Keywords Research
Keywords play a lead role in your SEO marketing. Because it lets your users discover your site. Therefore it is essential to find out the right keywords that ensure success. This helps your site to gain higher visibility on search engine result pages and increases the optimum traffic to your site.
Rather than finding new keywords, we recommend you find out the keywords which are already bringing traffic and conversions to the site. So, think about the generic keywords that would you like to get traffic from and vice versa optimize the existing page, and create a new page for the discovered keywords.
Keywords Research
Keywords play a lead role in your SEO marketing. Because it lets your users discover your site. Therefore it is essential to find out the right keywords that ensure success. This helps your site to gain higher visibility on search engine result pages and increases the optimum traffic to your site.
Rather than finding new keywords, we recommend you find out the keywords which are already bringing traffic and conversions to the site. So, think about the generic keywords that would you like to get traffic from and vice versa optimize the existing page, and create a new page for the discovered keywords.
Implement App Indexing
App indexing enables your app to appear on search result pages along with other relevant web results. It allows Google to crawl and index your application just like another web page. App indexing can help you to reach a wide target market that is searching for the products and services you offer.
The benefit of app indexing is that searchers can discover your app while scrolling for informative content. This will allow the app to reach the audience outside the app store. This can lead you to generate more traffic and get more downloads.
Optimize the App Name and Meta Data
The ASO marketing strategy begins with optimizing your app name, title, description, and URL which includes the main keywords which you would like to rank for. Ensure that your metadata, and title have relevance with each other and share the same strategy. Hence, it is important to maintain the similarity with the overall approach. Keep in mind, that the name you give to your app must give the information about your application.
Blog Content
The blog writing process can help you to increase the authority and traffic of your website. It is not usually seen, that websites full of blog pages aren’t getting traffic. This happens when articles are short, not have researched keywords or have low-volume keywords, and don’t provide any value to the users. Hence, with some deep research, you can optimize your page for keywords. This can enhance your brand awareness.
Link Building
Link building is an external ASO strategy, that helps your site to increase its value. This increases your website and app ranking over time. The process involves creating high-quality links from other sites to yours through guest blogging, infographics, directories, and other SEO-friendly activities.
Optimized Landing Page
Creating an app is not the final step. If you want to drive as much traffic to your app, you should create a landing page, which links users to the app store where they can download it. Optimizing the landing page for the mobile app is crucial to ensure that it ranks highly on the search engines.
You can optimize the landing page just like the traditional approach where you can use keywords in the title, and the heading throughout the page. You can write an optimized meta description for the page including meta tags, and titles containing keywords.
Rating and Review
Customer ratings and reviews help you to build trust and credibility. These improve ranking on Google search and the app store. Ratings and reviews help Google to determine the trustworthiness of your application. So, encourage your customers to review your apps to improve your rankings. User feedback in ASO helps the users to try out your app.
Optimizing App Icon
An icon is an important element of an application. It should be well-optimized. Design app icons that make you stand out from the others. It will help your users to identify and connect with it. The app icon should be relevant to the brand and product. For example, the Google play store and app icons have different standards regarding shapes and sizes. So, be sure to give proper attention to these criteria, otherwise, it may negatively impact your business.
What do Marketers have to consider while performing Mobile App Optimization?
Optimizing a mobile app for SEO is similar to optimizing the piece of content in many ways.
Below are some of the few things, that you should keep in mind before you begin your optimization ➖
- Design and Optimize your site for both speed and mobile-friendliness
- Identify and determine the demand for mobile vs desktop
- Understand different online consumer signals
- Optimize the mobile content and mobile pages
- Track, measure, and compare your mobile as well as desktop results in
App SEO Tips for Application Marketing
Let’s have a look at some SEO tips for your mobile application marketing.
Optimize Your Homepage
If you aim to drive traffic to your app, then your homepage would be the first place to optimize. So, just make sure you have used these elements
Make a Clear Call to Action
Make sure that the primary purpose of your call to action is to download the
application. So, add high-intent keywords and keep this visible. You can add
an actionable phrase like “Get Started” or “Download the app” and make it
visible on the top so that users can recognize it.
App Promotions and Purchases
Mention all your app’s best deals like discounts, events, new features,
bonuses, etc.
Add QR codes
You can add a QR code to download the application. So, desktop users
would be able to download the app directly with the scanner. Once the code is
scanned, a clickable link will appear. You can also send the link to their phone
or email.
Add Credible Review
Adding honest and verified user reviews can encourage potential customers to download the app. You can use their names too. Adding reviews will not only help users but also help Google to trust. This can improve the authority of your site.
Use Visual Aids
Ensure that the user is aware of your application’s updates and features through visual appearance. We recommend using the video above the design so that users don’t have to scroll down to watch videos. Because users can rarely go below the webpage for further activities.
Optimise Name and Subtitle
You must be thinking name as a simple component, but do you know? App name has a greater impact on your app store. Because, unlike the website, the app will not provide any before content. People will download your app, by recognizing its name only. So, choosing the right name will boost your App Store SEO. So, ensure to enter the relevant keywords, so that people are more likely to click on the app store.
Furthermore, great subtitles and taglines enhance your website’s visibility. The subtitle should look attractive to the buyer’s eye because it gives more context clues about the application.
Optimise App Icon
Your application icon is the first visual experience people see when they search through the application store. If it will look appealing, they may take a closer look.
So, while creating an application icon. A few things, you should keep in mind, your app icon design should be simple but attractive. Match the color scheme with the app itself. And build your app icon as per the app icon requirements.
Number of Downloads
The number of downloads is important for your app’s discoverability. The more download your app has, the more it will have the higher value.
The application store likes to see the download of your app like how quickly people download your app. Has the downloading rate increased after it was released? That is why it is important to focus on the downloading option.
Should You Optimize Your App?
The answer is a big “YES”. You should definitely optimize your app. Not only ASO but you should also apply Search engine optimization for your brand awareness. It can increase visibility and can let you find out the potential customers.
What would you do, if you find any problem? You will Google it right and it will suggest you plenty of websites and applications as a solution. Exactly like this only, you will require optimization of your app, so that Google can show your app as a solution.
App store optimization is something that will make your website stand out from the crowd.
Besides this, there are other various reasons you should perform application optimization.
Can Grow Your Organic Installations
In order to expand your reach, you would need advertising, and this is how you would plan and reach your customers. But the fact is advertising comes with a huge cost and it will be like draining money more than gaining.
But if SEO and ASO are performing well, then there is a possibility of getting organic customers and downloads, which could save you a huge amount of money for advertising.
After all, the bad thing about advertising is, you can’t achieve long-term results. Once your budget will drop, your advertisement will also stop. If we compare PPC vs SEO, definitely there is more gain through search engine optimization.
Relevant Users will discover your apps
Your application might reach out to many users, but the matter of concern is if they really need your app or not.
Well, in the case of app optimization and search engine optimization, the users who are looking for your app with the relevant keywords are directed to your page. And, it makes sure that, with the right keywords, you can target the customers who are actually looking for your app and desires to download it.
App store optimization picks out the right keywords to optimize your app so that the most relevant users can download it.
Relevant Users will discover your apps
Whenever your application gains broad visibility, there is an increase in the chances of reaching out to the more relevant customers. And, you might observe a higher amount of growth in your organic customers and an increase in the number of downloads.
Therefore, SEO strategies can be quite impressive in terms of revenue enhancements and application stability. While in the case of advertising, a considerable amount of money is drained, and even if the budget drops, the advertisement will no longer persist.
A significant increase in revenue is also dependent on the design of your mobile application. So, it’s important to make your mobile app design as per the market trends.
Improves your Brand Awareness on Google
Google is itself a big brand now, we don’t say “check on search engine “in fact we say “Google it”. Therefore, it’s just not a brand, it is the act of using the internet that has been named after the Google search.
You might have noticed that your mobile phones have pre-installed Google and Chrome. See, we come across Google many times a day and it has now become our comfort zone.
Therefore if Google recognizes your app and features it on your search engine, it will automatically boost your credibility.
Benefits of App Store Optimization
App store optimization is necessary, if you want to grow your app visibility and get your app in front of the right users.
The most important benefit of app store optimization includes visibility and exposure in the app stores as well as better discoverability by high-quality and relevant users.
Here is the list, that will show how you can benefit from app store optimizations and what kind of results you will achieve. Let’s have a look
Improves Visibility and Makes Your App Stand Out
People can’t find and download your app if it is not available on the internet. So, no matter, how great your app is, if it’s not discoverable, you can’t improve it.
But ASO makes your app stand out from your competitors. Correct optimization of your application makes your application discoverable on search engines and relevant customers can download it. So, it is important to perform ASO, to enhance its visibility.
Always get discovered by high-relevant users
It is not enough that your app is discovered, but if the right user finds your app then it is worth it. And app store optimizations make your app reach the right and the relevant users, because it matches your app to the relevant keywords. So, if you incorporate relevant keywords into your site, it increases the chances of your app getting discovered.
Increases Organic App Downloads
A good ASO strategy will enhance your organic installs and provide long-term results. Whenever people search for the keywords that your app has, search results will contain your app. And regularly working on ASO, will keep your search engine ranking high.
Cuts Down User Acquisition Costs and Enhance Continuous Growth
Instead of spending money on advertisements, you can lower your user’s acquisition costs by focusing only on the organic growth of your ASO. This not only will save you money but also ensure the continuous growth of your applications.
Increases App Revenue and Conversion Rates
There are many ways to legalize your apps such as in-app ads, in-app purchases, as well as subscription models. Thus, many of you will run ads to bring out more users and earn more revenue. But if the app store listing fails to satisfy your users then your money and efforts will be wasted. Always remember that app store optimization includes conversion rate optimization and getting people to click through downloading an application.
Reaches Global Audiences with App
In app store optimization, there is a process called app localization, which makes your app available in other languages. This way, your application can reach the global level and people from various countries can discover and download your app.
How to Drive Traffic to Your App from Other Channels?
Just like SEO, Application Store Optimization is a long-term process, so you should always need to be prepared with a backup plan. Here we will mention how you can drive traffic to your app from other channels.
Social Media
Social media is one of the most popular traffic-driving channels. So, ensure that your app has dedicated pages and profiles on social media and other platforms. You can also consider the influencers, who can advertise your app to attract customers.
Incorporating Strong SEO Strategy
The other way to drive traffic is application store optimization i.e ASO. You just make sure that the keywords you are targeting are relevant and they are optimized for each platform. Be sure that, they are properly placed in the metadata. This will not only improve the page ranking but also improve your overall performance. And, also make sure to optimize your app icon, feature, graphics as well as screenshots.
User Acquisition
You can make paid efforts to reach your targetted audience. Facebook ads and Google ads are the strongest ways to acquire large audiences who are interested in your industry and could become your customers. Also, keep in mind you can use customer product pages for running your other paid campaigns.
Record Podcasts
Another SEO strategy which can be used to optimize your application is creating podcasts. In podcasts, you need to record your audio and video content and that kind of content is more likely to get viral and be shared. Podcasts has the potential to share your content with the listeners and convert them into the users.
The Conclusion
Success of a mobile application depends upon the various factors and it’s not enought to just optimized the mobile app only for the application store. And performing only ASO is not just enough you have to take care of it’s branding , because the most popular apps even have branding and drives a steady flow of traffic towards your application.
If you are really looking for the app optimization, then you are at the right place. UPSQODE is the leading SEO agency offering comprehensive ASO services at affordable costs and keeps the potential to boosts your online presence.
FAQs
What is SEO for Apps?
It is basically the activity of optimizing the app strore or Google play apps to rank higher on search engines and reach the people who are searching for.
Do apps need SEO ?
The right use of SEO Tools and plugins are essential for the success of your website. And App Store Optimization is the subset of SEO, and it assures that the applicatins are visible to your customers and brand rich wider.
How much Does SEO Cost for an app ?
SEO Price varies and depends on the factors like SEO plan , Service provider , and more. And SEO price ranges from $1500 to $7500 per month and to $100 – $150 per hour.
Is SEO Important for an app ?
Yes, it is important for an application. As it helps to discover the potential weaknesses as well as the opportunities for the imrovements. Correct usage of SEO tools and plugins has the ability to succeed your website.
Does SEO need money ?
SEO can be extremely worthy if you it is done correctly. Because it takes time, efforts and the hand full of determination. Therefore , it is good to invest in SEO, if you want to make your brand reach wider.
How do I Optimize for the mobile apps ?
Below are the four key steps to improve your mobile app SEO through organic research :
Make sure that your in-app content is optimised for the search engines
Create a powerful landing page for your mobile applications
Properly optimized the title and meta – description of your application
Design and optimise the site as per speed and mobile – friendliness.
Is SEO Different on Mobile ?
Actually , SEO Focuses on the general public usually with no any geographical focus. But Mobile SEO focusses on the local search because majority of the mobile users are looking for the local search results.