Mobile apps and SEO – Relationship that grows strong to meet the future

The days are never the same. The period changes. Same for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In the past, it was like the SEO was only for web pages and the web page related items. But the present and the future is all about mobile and SEOs should focus more on indexing apps and also the play store ads.

Many tech gigs officially call this year (2015) as the year of mobile. As it is evidently known that 80% of the search takes place on mobile than that of desktops, it is the right time for the SEOs to concentrate more on the mobile side. Justin Briggs deliver a speech about the future of SEO at the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) conference 2015. He said that Search Engines should act on behalf of you to start the marriage between the structure data and mobile applications.

Recently in Google I/O 2015, Google revealed “Now on Tap” and the magic it does with the micro-messaging. The announcement gave a definite statement of the relationship between the SEO and the mobile app market. And also recently, Google launched it mobile-friendly algorithm that apparently targets only on the mobile market. This also directly stated the importance of the mobile market.

Why Mobile app should have a relationship with SEO?

The answer is so obvious that if your mobile app is not found in the search results, then the app is sure to get out the race resulting in no conversions. That’s where the new era of the mobile SEO comes in and it is called as the app discoverability.

There are more that 1.4 million apps in the Google Play store and to find your app in this sea is merely an unreachable task unless you have an appropriate named as SEO. Promoting apps in many ways like advertisements, following the Play store algorithm, and many other are quite resourceful. But, the effective of all these is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and that’s why SEOs have to concentrate more on the mobile market.

What is App Indexing and how will it help?

App indexing is same as that of web page indexing i.e. letting Google index your mobile apps just like what it does to web pages to make sure that your mobile apps are getting listed top on the appropriate search result pages. What does this mean in natural terms? When a user search for a keyword on a mobile device, the Search Engine Rank Page (SERP) displays not only the web pages but also the relevant mobile apps.

As a result of the recent Google Now on Tap launch in the Google I/O 2015, many brands like to have their mobile apps indexed. App indexing helps index your mobile apps and their related content via deep links to make sure the mobile crawlers consider your app to be listed on the search results page.

How to enable app indexing?

Google always keeps everything straight forward and easy to make developers play around without any hassle. To enable app indexing, the following practices has to be employed.

• Enabling Deep Linking: Add intent filters in your app manifest to enable deep linking to specific content in your app.
• Opt-in to Googlebot Crawl: To index app content, opt-in and allow Googlebot to crawl and index your app content through the app’s APK in the Google Play store.
• Annotate: The app links can be annotated to the web pages on the website or even in the sitemap.

For SEOs who didn’t get with the process of indexing, this is the apt period to consider app discoverability since everything is going mobile. Don’t restrict yourself to web pages only; the future of mobile marketing and branding is in the hands of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).