A Complete Guide to Mobile App SEO: How To Make Your App Stand Out

Want to make your application stand out in app stores? This article has you covered. Learn the importance of SEO for apps and how to implement it to make your product reach the masses.

Creating a compelling application that resonates with the target audience is essential for achieving success. However, it is not the sole factor that contributes to it. Marketing also holds significant importance (as it can amplify visibility) and considerable effort must be invested in this area before the momentum of word-of-mouth can take effect.

Search engine optimization for apps is among the most effective strategies. This approach is advantageous because, unlike traditional paid advertising (or seeking opportunities for media promotion), it enables the acquisition of new customers daily with minimal expenditure.  

You must focus on optimizing SEO prior to any substantial influx of traffic, though. This article aims to guide you through the critical aspects that require your attention. However, before delving into those details, we should first clarify what mobile app SEO actually entails.

What is Mobile App SEO?

In application marketing, your most important digital asset is the app store listing on Google Play and Apple Store. Users will find your app store page when browsing the store and convert if they need your app. Optimizing the store page to appear for more in-store searches is called app store optimization (ASO).

But that’s not the only asset you have. You also have a website, and optimizing it to appear for more Google searches can bring relevant traffic that can be converted. The process of optimizing your website is app SEO.

While ASO and mobile app SEO focus on different digital assets, the end goal is the same — attract more traffic to your app and get more active users. ASO focuses more on directly converting the users to the app store. SEO uses a top-of-the-funnel approach where you can work with informational searches and try to convert or retain people interested in your industry.

Including both approaches in your app marketing campaign guarantees the best long-term and short-term results.

Steps to Planning Your Fool-Proof App SEO Strategy?

1. Craft a Compelling Landing Page

Your landing page is the face of your app on the web, so it needs to captivate visitors instantly. Use concise, impactful language that clearly communicates your app’s unique selling points. Include a hero image or video that demonstrates the app’s features, helping users envision the value it brings.

CTAs like “Download Now” or “Try for Free” should be strategically placed, ideally above the fold, to make the conversion process seamless. Also, ensure this page is optimized for both desktop and mobile users, as a significant portion of traffic will be mobile-driven. Also, integrate trust-building elements.

This can be in the form of user testimonials or badges of industry recognition to reassure visitors. A landing page that’s visually appealing, informative, and user-friendly enhances credibility. It also significantly improves the chances of downloads. With effective SEO strategies, this page can rank highly on search engines, attracting organic traffic.

2. Keyword Research for App SEO

Keyword research is something you should do with full vigilance to build a global or local SEO strategy. Why? To determine when to show a page, Google primarily looks at the keywords mentioned on it. If a user searches for “time tracking app” and your main page doesn’t have that keyword, it probably won’t appear on the search engine result pages (SERP).

You can take that concept further and optimize a single page for multiple keywords. If your main page is optimized for keywords like “time tracking app,” “time tracker,” “time manager app,” and “app for time tracking,” you’ll be receiving traffic from all of these relevant keywords.

So, your first task in mobile app SEO is to find all related keywords and decide which to include.

To start, brainstorm seed keywords that come to mind about your app and describe what it does. Then, put those keywords into keyword research tools and find similar and related keywords.

For app-specific keywords, you can use App Radar. For all the general keywords, use Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, and SE Ranking’s Keyword Generator. We have seen that the latter can return hundreds of relevant keywords and phrases based on your seed keywords and show metrics like keyword difficulty and search volume to help you choose the right keywords.

You can also use SE Ranking to analyze competing websites and find keywords they rank for that your website doesn’t. Anyone can use this approach to find different kinds of keywords.

Our experts say that there are four main types you have to focus on.

• Branded keywords: The keywords that include your brand name. You should be ranking first for them.
• Competitor keywords: The keywords that include competing brand names. Typically, like “brand alternatives.”
• Feature-related keywords: The keywords that describe key features of your app.
• Informational keywords: The keywords that form a question related to your product.

The first three types of app keywords are either commercial or transactional, and they might lead to a conversion directly. The informational keywords require you to create interesting content for users and showcase your app to try and convert them.

You can find them by running your main keyword through an SEO tool and looking for question keywords. You can also do competitor keyword analysis to find ideas for long-tail informational keywords.

If your app is tied to a location, you’ll need to find local keywords as well.

After a long research, you’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, of potential keywords. When deciding which to focus on first, consider keyword difficulty and search volume. You want to optimize for the keywords that are easy to rank for and have a decent amount of potential traffic.

3. Optimizing App Title and Description

The first thing you’ll have to optimize is your app’s title and description. These elements of your site will appear on SERP if you include the right keywords in them. Good wording in the title and description can also convince users to click on your website, thus helping your SEO for apps.

For a lot of feature-related keywords, you’ll find links to app stores in the SERP.

You’ll also find website links, but typically under the app stores.

This means you’ll have to optimize both your website home page and app store listings for this keyword.

Add your main keyword, the one with the highest search volume, to the title of both the app listing and the website homepage. You’ll have to balance the inclusion of the keyword and branding in the title because its length is restricted to 60 characters in Google SERP. On App Store and Google Play, the length is even lower, 30 and 50 characters.

The character limit of the meta description on your website is 160 characters, so make sure you include the main keyword and try to interest the user in clicking on the link in two or three sentences.

The description on app stores can be much longer. Include the main keyword in the first 160 characters so it can appear in SERP. Use the rest of the space to explain the benefits of your app.

Optimize titles and meta descriptions of blog and category pages on your app website similarly, and they’ll appear on related searches.

4. App Icon and Visuals Optimization

The next step is optimizing images on the listing and your website. Icons and app screenshots can appear in search and serve a role in both brand recognition and click-through rate optimization.

The best solution for the app icon is to make it the icon on your website. This way, users can easily recognize your brand across searches on app stores and search engines. The app in the example above uses the icon on the website, following this best practice.

This improves brand recognition across the platforms.

App previews and screenshots are a part of most app store listings, and optimizing them for search can help with brand recognition and click-through rate (CTR). They can appear in SEPR and showcase your app before the user clicks on the link.

To optimize images for SEO, make sure they’re high quality, relevant to your page, and have captions and alt text tags that include a keyword.

For website pages, you’ll have to add images with structured data. Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to add data points for images and check it with the Structured Data Testing Tool.

Images you optimize but don’t add to the page with structured data markup can appear in image searches like this.

5. App Store Reviews and Rating Optimization

You might have noticed that in broad feature-related searches like “stargazing app,” the results from app stores in Google SERP tend to be apps with a lot of reviews and a high rating. This is because in app store searches, reviews, and ratings also play a major role in ranking. So, you need to work on attracting good reviews for both mobile SEO strategies and app store ranking.

Good reviews also improve user trust and can improve click-through rate and conversion rates, making it a must-have for SEO for apps.

Gathering many positive reviews is a long process that you have to influence. Apart from creating a great app with quality customer support and regularly improving it, here are a few ideas we suggest that can attract good reviews.

• Consider including a free tier in your pricing strategy. This attracts a lot more active users who can leave a review.
• Prompt users to leave a review in-app at an appropriate moment. Track app usage to figure out the best point for conversion.
• Offer incentives for leaving a review, but make sure to keep it within the app store guidelines.
• Handle the negative reviews with grace.

The last one won’t affect SEO and ASO for mobile apps as much but will improve your brand image. When you answer negative reviews, engage with disgruntled customers, and try to solve their problems, other users will trust your brand more.

6. Backlinks and Off-Page SEO

Google and other search engines determine which pages to show for a particular keyword based on multiple factors. The most prominent ones are relevance influenced by keyword optimization and domain authority. It’s influenced mainly by which websites talk about yours on the web, in other words, by backlinks.

So, the more high-quality backlinks you can earn, the better off your site will be in terms of ranking across all pages and keywords.

Here are the best strategies to build links for an app website.

• App listing websites: Websites that function as catalogs of apps can provide a link to your site from a listing.
• Guest posting: Reach out to blogs that actively post content in your industry and offer to create an article for them. You can include a link or showcase your product if it's appropriate.
• Best apps listicles: Reach out to writers and editors who have created app review articles that do well in SERP and offer to review and add your app to the article.
• News media: If you have a newsworthy story or can provide valuable comments to the news media, reach out and try to get a mention on news sites. You can also try platforms like HARO.

Link building doesn’t just help with SEO; it can also attract referral traffic to your site. To convert them effectively, make sure your landing page is well-optimized and has download links for different devices.

You can also attract referral traffic through social media activities and by working with influencers.

7. App Indexing for Search Engines

Integrating app indexing into your app marketing strategy can significantly enhance the visibility of your app on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) in mobile marketing. During mobile searches, your app is likely to appear alongside a download button directing users to the app store. This can, in fact, lead to a substantial increase in conversion rates.

If a user has installed your app on their device, they can navigate directly to pages within the app rather than the website, thus optimizing and expediting the user experience. This is particularly advantageous for retail apps as users can access product pages through the app from mobile SERPs. Ultimately avoiding the need to engage with the website.

To implement app indexing, one should enable deep linking and associate website pages with the app. Publishing the deep links and activating app indexing is essential. After the pages are indexed, it is crucial to test their functionality in mobile SERPs.

For iOS apps, you can also activate App Clips. These features showcase a brief task from the app to potential users prior to downloading, which might enhance the conversion rate. By including a link to the App Clip on your landing page, users will have the opportunity to engage with the app before committing to a download.

Ongoing App SEO Monitoring and Analytics

No mobile app marketing strategy is complete without analytics. Monitoring performance, analyzing it to find out the reasons behind ups and downs, and changing the strategy accordingly helps you refine it and improve return on investment (ROI).

Here are the metrics you’ll want to track for mobile app SEO:

• Ranking positions for target keywords.
• Total traffic.
• New vs returning visitors.
• Click-through rate.
• Conversion rate.
• User behavior patterns on the website.

Monitor the performance of your pages in SERP. Subsequently, determine if a change in strategy is warranted. If you fail to observe them ranking for target keywords, it is crucial to enhance website optimization in general, keyword optimization and link building.

Although the pages may rank well, if you do not see a substantial number of clicks, then it becomes necessary to improve their appearance on SERP. This can be achieved by experimenting with both the title and structured data.

If CTR and traffic are satisfactory, however, you notice a lack of conversions, it is time to experiment with optimizing your landing page. Analyze the search intent behind the keyword and compare your page to those of competitors ranking for it. You might discover that users searching for this keyword are seeking information or services that your page does not currently offer.

Common Mistakes in App SEO and How to Avoid Them

Monitoring your campaign performance and fixing mistakes is often the right approach. However, you can avoid a lot of beginner mistakes by following the ASO best practices. Here are a few problems that most beginner SEOs do.

• Ignoring on-page app SEO optimization: It’s tempting to focus on keyword optimization and link building, but you have to build a good website first. When it loads fast on all devices, can be indexed, and provides a good user experience, its rankings will improve.Keyword stuffing. It’s easy to add too many keywords to the page and app descriptions. However, this will only lead to penalties from Google. Use keywords sparingly or consult an SEO tool for the number of keywords you need to include.
• Poor link-building practices: Buying links from dubious sources won’t help SEO, and it can only hurt it. This is why we suggest focusing on earning links from respectable websites instead.
• A mismatch between the page and the keyword: Not analyzing the search intent of a keyword can lead to a situation where you have traffic that doesn’t convert. Try to understand what users want to find when looking for a keyword and optimize the page accordingly.
• Not following app store guidelines: Make sure you’re following the app store guidelines when you’re optimizing the listings.

Keep these five typical problems in mind when you’re implementing your app SEO strategy for mobile apps, and you’ll avoid unnecessary issues.

Conclusion

So, there you have it—a roadmap to making your app a star in the crowded digital landscape. SEO for mobile apps can become a resource of traffic and conversions with the right approach. With every keyword, optimization, and piece of valuable content, you’re setting your app up for long-term success.

Remember, app visibility is a journey, not a quick win. Stay consistent, keep adapting, and watch as your app climbs the rankings and lands right where it belongs—front and center, in your users' hands. If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: your app deserves to be seen. Now, it’s up to you to make that happen.