How to Rank Your Mobile App and Increase Visibility Create QR codes on your desktop site to give visitors quick access to your mobile application

Retail products that have popular mobile applications are really benefiting from the prominent visibility of mobile apps in the organic search results of Google. Along with the brand site listings, social profile, and local listings, searchers are beginning to see the links to the Android, iPad, and iPhone app profile pages of these brands, right on Google's first page. The URL pages of these apps are presenting powerful opportunities to occupy the first page of Google SERPs for mobile and desktop searchers.

App Popularity Optimization via Organic Search

The opportunity is a product of the collision between mobile and desktop worlds. The increasing popularity of mobile applications is reshaping the link graph of the Web around the Android Market websites and App Store. It is not a surprise that apps with high popularity listed in the Android Market sites and App Store are driven by their rating quality and their download volume. But the profile pages of these applications and the directories are also web pages.

As search engines continue to rank, display, and index pages of apps for mobile users that are search-dominant, app-mania is also promoting geometric expansions of the links and popularity of these web pages, giving them more influence over Google organic search results. The popularity of App Store gets rewarded by the increase in Google visibility. The higher Google visibility an app as, the more download it induces. Increase in download results in an increase in the popularity app Store or Google Play Store.

This might not be good news for some mobile app development companies that have good mobile applications, but not among the most popular applications listed. This is sometimes due to poor SEO. But the truth is, this shows the urgency and opportunity for a mobile app development company to optimize the pages of their apps for organic search rankings, this will help increase the popularity of the app as well as other benefits.

Here some mobile application SEO tips to help you optimize your applications for the first page of Google rankings on queries of brands.

Your Brand Should Be Prominently Featured in the App

The name of the application doubles as the anchor text link in the Android Market and App Store. Using the name of your brand as a link, getting these websites to link to the profile page of your app, is vital for tapping into their very large equity of link. For instance, see eBay, Amazon, and Groupon, make sure you feature the name of your brand in the URL of the download page as well.

Link to the Profile Page of Your App from the Homepage and the Footer of Your Site

You should aim the equity of link of your most relevant and vital pages at the download pages of your app. A lot of brands tend to ignore these vital links. Consider developing a section dedicated to your application or a landing page to your applications with the feature, reviews, and screenshots, etc. But your application should also have links from the most relevant and vital pages of your website, and adhere to the rest of the tips here get your mobile app on the first page of Google organic search results when brand queries are made.

Include the Name of Your Brand in the Link Text That Leads to the Download Pages of Your App

A lot of brands and mobile app development companies make the SEO mistake of linking to the profile page of their application without adding the name of their brand or company, as in something like this "Download Android App" leaving no trace to the brand or company that owns the app. It is even worse in some cases, as some brands just link via the "Available on App/Android store" graphics. This is a great opportunity you can use to promote your brand or company, so use your anchor text wisely. Make sure the name of your brand is included in the link text that leads the download pages of your mobile application. You have to indicate that Android app page or App Store is all about your company or brand, for instance, "Get the "brand-named" App for Android" or "Download the "brand-name" iPhone app."

Create a QR link for the Download of the App from the Landing Page of Your Desktop Site

Create QR codes on your desktop site to give visitors quick access to your mobile application. The QR has to trigger the download of the app on the right device once the QR is scanned. Do not forget to compress the download link before you generate the QR. The URL pages of traditional Android and Apple Applications exceed 40 characters; this produces high-density QRs that can't scan when links are displayed in small sizes. To get the best result, make sure you compress your link or use a QR platform that will show the crawl requests of bot QR. QR will become a mobile SEO ranking signal in a couple of years to come. So it is better you start experimenting it now.

You Should Cross-Promote Your Mobile Application to Mobile Users, Bots, and Searchers

Here is how it works. You already have a lot of active mobile audience waiting for you to make it easier for them to find relevant mobile apps or your web pages. When Android, iPad, or iPhone browsers visit your website (mobile or desktop), you should make a link available at the top or footer of your homepage for them to download the right application made for their device (based on the platform of the device that landed on your page). Even if the pages of your site indexed in search engines adequately redirect searchers to the appropriate mobile page, you don't have to stop there. Make sure the new smartphone Googlebot of Google is crawling the links of the apps from your mobile pages also, using anchor text that is appropriately branded (not photos).

Android Play Store/Market app pages and App Store are new ranking opportunities that are powerful for mobile and desktop searchers. Media brands and retailers that have a lot of traffic, link networks, social popularity, or page content can easily use these SEO digital assets to influence the relevance of the profile page of an application, and they can also use it to influence the popularity of an application at the same time.