App Indexing - Why It Matters for Your Apps

App indexing has more recently found itself at the centre of attention when Google announced its mobile friendly algorithm change in April 2015. Ever since then SEO professionals and webmasters have been busy ensuring their websites are mobile friendly. In addition to this, Google announced that apps with more relevant content will start to show up in search results.

'Starting today, we will begin to use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for signed-in users who have the app installed. As a result, we may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search.'

This blog looks into app indexing and how you can prepare your app for search results.

What is App Indexing?

App indexing allows Google to index apps in the same way that it does websites. For example, if a user conducts a Google search on a smartphone, the results will include web pages as well as apps. This gives mobile users the chance to find the most relevant content both on a website and apps.

How long has app indexing existed?

App indexing was first announced by Google back in 2013. It works by enabling deep linking within apps which allow Googlebots to index the apps content in a very similar way to website content. Since the launch of app indexing, Google has allowed search results to include apps that users don't have installed on their phone, which helps with app discovery. Google has also announced that app indexing will be available on both iOS and Android.

Is it important?

In a word, yes. This is just the beginning of the evolution of mobile search. There are many questions about what the future may hold. What extra information will be used for search results? Will it be important for all businesses to own an app? How will this impact mobile usage?

How should businesses react?

There are some things that businesses need to do to keep up with the ever-changing mobile search landscape:

• Index your app - if you already have an app, it needs to be indexed
• Build a mobile-centric authority - if you haven't already started to shift towards mobile, the time to do that is now. Mobile is the future of marketing.

This latest development catapults mobile search and marketing further into the limelight making it more and more important to shift focus to mobile. How are you doing this with your business? Share with us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Prototype, mobile app development company, offers a full suite of  - from strategy to marketing. Contact us for more details.