Great news, you have created a publishing app that’s brimming with quality content. Now, how do you make sure your content is found? You may hear the term app discoverability all the time, but what do digital publishers need to consider to ensure that their hard-worked content lands in the hands of their targeted audience?
App owners need to optimise their publishing apps for mobile searchability to ensure that they are discoverable on mobile web, driving higher install volumes and rising in the app store rankings. As discoverability plays an essential part in our Fit to Market programme, we’ve compiled a list of things to consider that can really help optimise your app’s discoverability.
Deep Linking
Many publishers share similar content across web and mobile. To simplify the journey between web and app, you can direct your users to your app content by supporting deep linking. Deep links refer to specific content that you have within your app and will direct you there or to the app store listing rather than to a web page.
For example, if a user shares an article of interest from their favourite news app, the deep link will allow a fellow user to bypass safari all together and open the specific page straight in the app.This is key in creating a seamless mobile experience and should be an essential part of your sharing strategy.
Why is this essential for discoverability? If a deep link is opened by someone who does not have the app, it will direct them to the app store listing to download the app before taking them to the specific content. Having a comprehensive view of users’ journey is fundamental in attempting to converting them from mobile web to app and will also enlighten readers who are engaged with your brand about your mobile app offerings.
Smart Banners
Another similar example of directing users to your app from web is through the use of smart banners. Once implemented, smart banners present themselves at the top of a webpage with essential information about your app from your listing, including your icon, ratings and the price of your app. A button will also present itself to take users to ‘view’ the page within the app if already downloaded or, as with deep links, take them to your app store listing to ‘install’.
You want as many users to know about your app, especially those already engaged with your content elsewhere, implementing smart banners is an elegant way to join iOS apps to the web.
Apple News
Publishing with the Apple News format means your content can be discovered on a whole new platform that is optimised for iOS. Apple News, a pre-installed application on Apple devices on iOS 9 and above, is emerging as a significant traffic driver. The app collates content across video, photo and text from a variety of publishers, spanning from magazines, websites and newspapers.
This is a great way to reach a larger audience. And by ensuring you have a way to link users back to your app at the start of each article, it is also a whole new platform to entice readers to your app through your quality content.
Firebase App Indexing
Let’s not forget your android users. A great way to ensure that the content from your app will appear in a relevant Google search is by implementing Firebase App Indexing. If users have your app installed, they can launch your app and go directly to the content they searched for. This is particularly useful taking into consideration Google’s sheer dominance in mobile search.
For searches that bring up an app you have not yet installed, relevant queries trigger an install card for your app in Search results, increasing traffic to your app store listing.
Google AMP
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP allows publishers to create alternate versions of their pages that have been optimised by conforming to specifications indicated by the AMP project. As described, they essentially allow for your articles to load quickly on mobile devices.
How will this help the discoverability of your publishing app? Well, your articles could be prioritised and we have recently seen AMP-optimized news stories now appear at the top of Google’s mobile search results. Like Apple News, optimising your content in this way will only allow your content to found through different avenues that drive significant traffic, which can only be good for the discoverability of your app.
Want to find out more about optimising your app and keeping up with the latest OS capabilities? Make sure to subscribe to our Mastering Mobile Marketing video series. You can also get in touch by visiting the Contact Us page. Follow us on LinkedIn, chat with us on Twitter @yodelmobile, and join our #mobilemarketingUK LinkedIn group.