Driving AppStore Rankings in Google with Links

February 28, 2011

Driving AppStore Rankings in Google with Links

Apps can rank in Google and other search engines. As the world of applications becomes more and more crowded, people will be looking to Google for application search. Google’s algorithm is much more sophisticated. It also has the potential of ranking applications that the AppStore does not approve for download on the growing number jailbroken phones. You can review previous posts about optimizing your AppStore Submission, but this post is just about driving links to the HTML page after the submission is done.

As far as we can tell links to applications in the AppStore (or any other application marketplace) are just as valuable as they would be to a product page on an eCommerce site. The good news is, there is a whole community of people who really-really care to hear, review, comment on, and possibly even link to your application. Start with some mobile specific keyword research using the Google External Keyword Tool with ‘all mobile devices’ selected in the advanced options, as shown below:

 

(https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)

The same data is available right here on MobileMoxie in our own Mobile Keyword Research tool. It pulls search volumes directly from the Google API, and you can get to it without leaving the site. Just visit https://mobilemoxie.com/tools/mobile-search-simulator/. We tried to simplify the process a bit; it only pulls mobile search volumes, though it can break things down by match type, industry, country or language.  The MobileMoxie mobile keyword research tool looks like this:

 

You can look at both mobile and traditional searches, since you are trying to push app rankings in both, but the best bet is probably to focus on the mobile keyword search volumes, since these will drive more immediate downloads (since you can download directly to the phone doing the searching, rather than downloading to the computer and transferring)

Just like in traditional SEO, you should be creating press releases to promote your mobile application(s). In the press releases(s), you should include links to the AppStore page using the top keywords that you would like the application to rank for as anchor text. Below is a list of PR and news websites that would be interested in the launch of a mobile application. Again, just like in traditional SEO, you can use press release distribution services to help get the word out. In some cases, the links will be removed or no-followed, but it is still worth the cost and time, because some will get through, and even without the SEO benefit, there is awareness and direct traffic to be gained from strong press releases.

General Online Press Release Distribution

General Mobile Marketing/Tech News

iPhone/Apple News:

General Mobile Application News:

You can also flow normal protocall, reaching out to bloggers in your niche, to sign them up as app beta testers, ask them for a review or suggest an article. Here is a list of some generic-topic blogs that might be valuable for this task:

Tech:

Mobile/Apps/iPhone:

Mobile Marketing:

Finally, there are directories for application submissions and reviews. These are great for generating buzz and links to your application:

Review Sites & Forums: