What Is App Indexing?
As an app owner you need to take advantage of all the available tools that will help you to increase the visibility of your app. For this reason you need to use App Indexing. If you don’t know much about this, then stick around because we will detail its benefits in this post. App Index is the service from Google that allows users to discover your app in top of search results when they use their mobile devices to search on Google, words related to your app. In this case, there are two situations available. If that user already installed your app before his search then he will see your app icon with a button for opening the app, but if he doesn’t have your app on his phone, then he will see a preview of the app with a button that will lead him to Google Play Store if you have an Android App or to Apple App Store if you indexed an iOS app. But how this technique got in the shape it is today? First, it started in October 2013, but only as a restricted program. 2015 was the year when Google added support for Android in April and one month later, for iOS. This year Google App Indexing became Firebase App Indexing with all the facilities for Android and iOS apps.
Image Source: https://branch.io/mobile-search/app-indexing/
How Do You Benefit From App Indexing?
Besides the fact that the whole service is free there are other advantages for you to consider indexing you app on Google:
Improve Your App Visibility On Google Search For Mobile
The general motive of indexing your app on Google is to increase awareness for all the people that need your app. This is a great opportunity to show your app to possible users in the exact moment they are looking for something like your app. Just imagine your app icon in top of Google Search results above all the websites related to the topic.
Increasing Your App’s Organic Installs
Since all happens when user search for an app like yours this means that the user’s lifetime value is high. There are more chances to engage with the app and fewer chances to delete the app after the first use. Although, it is this service’s role to bring your app first in your users’ list, it is your job to be sure that your app is the desired one for your user. If he searches for something not related to your app then he will uninstall it when he will realize it is nothing that he wanted. In the same time you need to be sure that he goes on the desired page of your app and for this you need to use Deep Linking. Deep linking is a link that takes user to a specific page in your app not to the main page. This is why is so important to guide properly your user throw your app.
Increasing Your Traffic And Retention Rate
These are the main advantages of indexing your app: user acquisition and user retention. The entire mechanism of app indexing is set for these effects. If somebody never heard about your app this is a good moment to present it to him, and in the same time, it is great that you can remember your users to go back to your app and to use it according to their needs.
Increasing CTR (Click Through Rate) On Google Search For Mobile
Your app will be listed in Google Search along with your icon or with a preview of the app. These visuals increase the number of clicks more than just words. Rich description is more tempting than just some few lines of text. Just look at this picture. It practically invites you to click on it.
Image Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-app-indexing-google-can-index-link-to-content-in-your-android-app-175692
How To Index Your App On Google?
If you understood the importance of implementing this service, let’s see the main steps you need to make if you want to index your app on Google.
How To Index Your iOS App On Google?
For iOS apps we will summarize the stages that you need to pass in order to show it in Google Search:
- Use UIApplicationDelegate methods to link the results to the specific page of the app.
- Create the association between the app and your site.
- Test what you realized so far. Remember that you can’t test universal links on the Xcode simulator.
- Improve the performance of your implementation.
If you follow these steps soon you will see your app in Search results.
How To Index Your Android App On Google?
To understand better how app indexing works you can try a Codelab provided by Firebase. On the other hand, these are the steps to follow in order to implement this system for your Android app.
- Add Firebase to your Android Project.
- Add App Indexing Library.
- Support the links for the content of your app. Don’t forget to set the back navigation, if the user wants to go back to previous page.
- Enable public content indexing.
- Enable personal content indexing.
- Log user actions.
- Test everything you have done so far.
- Improve search performance.
- If you want, you can migrate to the latest API
This is it. It requires some time and a lot of attention but the results worth the effort.
Final Thoughts
Even if you have an extraordinary app, it is very hard to raise it over the crowd if you don’t do anything to show it to your users. For this reason app indexing is a free service from Google that can help you to increase the number of downloads and to remember your users which already have installed your app that they should use it. We presented you the most important advantages of using this system along with the steps required for implementing it. Now, it’s time for you to start your work and to connect your app with your users’ interests.
