Besides building amazing websites and providing search engine optimization services… we also build, optimize and market mobile apps.
In many ways app optimization and marketing is similar to search engine optimization and online marketing… you start with a great app (or website). You ensure that app (or website) is built with a strong foundation for optimization. For a website you want to make sure it is crawl-able by the search engines, with friendly URLs and great content. With an app you want to be sure the app is optimized for strategic keywords. In both scenarios you start with keyword research (https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner) to identify keywords that are relevant to your app (or website) and that have the best opportunity to be searched for by your target market.
Title tags are important for SEO and the title of an app (Android or IOS) is also very critical. The name or title of the app becomes the Title Tag on the app store and it usually becomes the title tag on dozens of other app review sites or sites that aggregate apps. For IOS apps, Apple allows the app publisher to designate 100 characters worth of keywords to each app. These keywords are also important and could be thought of like meta-keywords-in-the-early-days-of-seo. If you don’t know what I mean.. back in the day a webmaster could “stuff” his meta-keywords full of strategic terms and the search engines used these signals in their ranking algorithms. Too many people went overboard and now meta-keywords are of no SEO value. But the 100 characters worth of keywords Apple allows, do hold value- so use your 100 characters wisely.
Once we go off page- links are important for any website. The same holds true for apps. Building links is usually one of the most difficult SEO related tasks. F ortunately with an app, it is usually easier to get links because many apps are interesting or useful tools. People like to link to useful or interesting tools (think about it, would you rather rank to some eCommerce website or a really cool iPhone App?). There are also many app review websites that will review and link to apps.
Social media is key as well. Social links, likes and mentions will only help a website. These social cues are like “votes” for your content. The same is true for apps. One of the interesting things with app optimization is that the more installs you get, the higher your app will get ranked and things can snowball. So getting social links and buzz and links from app review sites can lead to more installs, which leads to higher rankings and even more installs. Earning a review for an app today can lead to more installs tomorrow, higher rankings the next day and more subsequent installs in the future.
When it comes down to it SEO is all about value. Sometimes people over-complicate it. Google wants to return a relevant result that provides the most value for the searcher. The same is true for apps. The app stores want to return the best app for the relevant search. Optimizing your website or your app for your target market is a very important step, but always remember that delivering a great product, and value is going to be the key to long term success.