Being Found Through Mobile Apps #SMX East 2012
Search Engine Optimisation

Being Found Through Mobile Apps #SMX East 2012

3rd October 2012

If you recognise the increasing significance of mobile apps, but don’t understand how they work or how to optimise to be found on them, this session was for you.

Andy Atkins-Krüger, Tomer Kagan, Adam Dorfman and Mary Beth Brendza take us through our mobile paces to share information such as how to get your app found, what’s important, how mobile app optimisation differs from standard search optimisation along with a number of top tips for Mobile App visibility.

Speakers:

Andy Atkins-Krueger, Group CEO, WebCertain (@andyatkinskruge)
Mary Beth Brendza, Founder & CEO, App Express (@marybrendza)
Adam Dorfman, Partner, SIM Partners (@phixed)
Tomer Kagan, CEO and co-founder, Quixey (@quixey)

Moderator: Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence (@gsterling)

Mobile Trends, Apps & Landing Pages – Andy Atkins-KrügerWebcertain

Impact of the iphone 5 ios

  • Mobile Broadband is bigger than fixed
  • more people accessing the internet via mobile than desktop
  • Everything mobile is growing are reference and retail
  • Mobile access is not mainly mobile using it at hone
  • 60% mobile users from apple
  • One third of mobile activity is search

Should mobile phone be called ‘always on’?

“An easier solution, if you can do it, is to just serve smartphone and desktop users from the same URL’s, using something like special stylesheets or CSS3 media-queries to optimize the content shown on smartphones. the advantage of that is that you don’t need special URLs, think about the crawling and indexing of them, nor would you need to consider how you’d redirect smartphone users” – John Mueller, Google Zurich

Looking at strategy for mobile seo

  • Use Google keyword tool to find out how important mobile is in your sector and help inform strategy
  • Think about what content you can provide
  • Choose strategic content marketing channels (mobile is a channel,
  • email is a channel)
  • Think about your audience and how are they going to want to digest the mobile information

Google Keyword Tool for Mobile

mobile version vs app

  • Who is going to use the mobile site / who is going to use the app
  • Should they be different how should theybe different
  • what people tend to do is construct mobile version and app which may not be the right approach
  • App discovery is led by app stores
  • Apple App Store for iPhone & iPad
  • Google Play Store
  • Amazon Appstore for Android
  • Blackberry App World
  • Nokia Ovi Store
  • Samsung Apps
  • Windows Phone 7/8 Marketinplace
  • GetJar
  • BREAKING NEWS: Yandex Launches Android Store as of 1st October. As the 3rd biggest index on the planet, this is significant

App Store Changes

  • As from June 27th – 2012 Apple changes App Store search without warning costing developers sales – Techcrunch article
  • Lists have gone – more scrolling
  • Different approach to language – you can’t buy a German Language app from the UK store
  • “Topic Detection”

Top Tips for scoring well with mobile app discovery and uptake

  • First Screenshot – to attract clickthroughs
  • Whats’ new screen
  • App Names must be short
  • Keywords are less important in the title and more important in the content
  • Target long tail searches
  • re-do keyword research as cards give a more limited view so users are likely to refine their searches
  • Get users to like your app
  • Promotion outside the store helps you rank better inside the store (users can now share directly in the app store)
  • You can’t pay to rank – use social media
  • Free apps are still a good idea – promote a free and premium version or charge fees in app

Takeaways:

  • There are significant new changes in App searches
  • Increased Search Sophistication with greater sophistication to come
  • There will be an even bigger opportunity for those who optimise

The Future of the App EcoSystem – Tomer KaganQuixey

 


  • Apps are live across all platforms and there are more everyday which means that the ecosystems are fragmented and developers need to be in every store.
  • ASO your Apps for search terms – the majority of downloads are coming from search and start at the search bar

What Matters?

  • Build a good product
  • Title
  • Description
  • Keywords
  • Downloads
  • Star ratings
  • Buzz

Think about your app as a business

  • Know your custonmers
  • Continuously promote your aoop
  • Look for your niche
  • Form partnerships
  • Launch your app

Interesting App Facts

  • Spending on Apps is increasing
  • There are apps that are being used now more and more than even watching TV in some countries – makes a lot mroe sense than TV viewing
  • There is a fragmentation of the markets – all android downloads were from the store not from Google
  • 7 stores in china outperforming google App store
  • Facebook new appp discover is also doing well
  • Places where apps are being discovereed are appearing at an increasing rate
  • App developers are taking advantage of niches
  • Partner activity is increasing eg samsung apps – is looking for apps to partner with and feature
  • There is a new trend in App search optmisation – showing up is becoming more and more important

How to win?

Make your description clean and clear

Titles important but avoid generics like ‘game’ as you are less likely to be found

Local Apps & Local Automated Marketing – Adam DorfmanSIM Partners

This session was too fast paced to be able to make reasonable notes so we will upload the slide as soon as it becomes available. The overall message was:

  • Report problems within an app
  • Claim your local app listing
  • Know who provides the data for all apps

 

local_search_ecosystem

For more info – visit the local search ecosystem update

Mobile Apps + Local + SMB – Mary Brendza, CEO, App Express

 

  • 40% of all Mobile search is local search so it is becoming increasingly important to know what users want from a mobile app.
  • 76% request location or operating hours
  • 61% ‘click to call’
  • 54% send an email
  • 53% download an app
  • 48% get to the social networking page
  • 41% view a video clip
  • Users spend 4 our ot 5 minutes in Apps

Types of Mobile Apps

  • Core utilities – calendar, camera, texting
  • Episodic Utilities – uber, open table, yelp, usefull for certain circumstances
  • Notification Driven – scheduling, reminders, sales
  • Time Wasters – entertainment, facebook, angry birds games etc

Shopping

  • 50% of smartphone shoppers use a GPS mapping app to find a location
  • 34% downloaded retailers app
  • 24% search for a coupon to use at the checkout

Starbucks App

  • Mobile payment, loyalty reward, store locator
  • $42 million mobile payments in 15 months
  • 10% Egift via apps in 2011
  • Millions of customers have downloaded the app

Customer Loyalty / 80:20 Rule

  • Offer deeper engagement to customers you care most about

Encourage Downloads

  • Instore signage and promo
  • coupon offers
  • QR codes
  • Mobile Website
  • Social Sharing
  • Search
  • SEO of App landing page

Mobile Website v App?

  • Not an either/or should be both!

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Written By
Jackie Hole is an Award Winning Search Marketing consultant specialising in Paid Search, Conversion Improvement and Organic Search / SEO for the USA, Canada and European markets. Starting out in Multimedia & Interface Design, Jackie has over 15 years experience in online marketing and was recently awarded European Search Personality...
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