SEO News

Posted by RuthBurrReedy

SEO is a seller’s market. The supply of people with SEO experience is currently no match for the demand for search engine marketing services, as anyone who has spent months searching for the right SEO candidate can tell you. Even in a big city with a booming tech scene (like Seattle, LA, New York, or Austin), experienced SEOs are thin on the ground. In a local market where the economy is less tech-driven (like, say, Oklahoma City, where I work), finding an experienced SEO (even one with just a year or two of experience) is like finding a unicorn.

You’re hired. (Photo via 
Pixabay)

If you’re looking for an in-house SEO or someone to run your whole program, you may have no choice but to hold out for a hero (and think about relocating someone). If you’re an SEO trying to grow a team of digital marketers at an agency or to expand a large in-house team, sometimes your best bet is to hire someone with no digital marketing experience but a lot of potential and train them. 

However, you can’t plug just anyone into an SEO role, train them up right and have them be fantastic (or enjoy their job); there are definite skills, talents and personality traits that contribute to success in digital marketing.

Most advice on hiring SEOs is geared toward making sure they know their stuff and aren’t spammers. That’s not really applicable to hiring at the trainee level, though. So how can you tell whether someone is right for a job they’ve never done? At BigWing, we’ve had a lot of success hiring smart young people and turning them into digital marketers, and there are a few things we look for in a candidate.

Are they an aggressive, independent learner?

Successful SEOs spend a ton of time on continued learning—reading blogs, attending conferences and webinars, discussing and testing new techniques—and a lot of that learning happens outside of normal work hours. The right candidate should be someone who loves learning and has the ability to independently drive their ongoing education.

Ask job candidates about another situation where they’ve had to quickly pick up a new skill. What did they do to learn it? How did that go? If it’s never come up for them, ask what they might do in that situation.

Interview prep is something I always look for in a candidate, since it shows they’re actually interested in the job. Ask what they’ve done to prep for the interview. Did they take a look at your company website? Maybe do some Googling to find other informational resources on what digital marketing entails? What did they learn? Where did they learn it? How did they find it?

Give your candidates some homework before the interview. Have them read the 
Beginner’s Guide to SEO, maybe Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, or the demo modules at Distilled U. How much of it did they retain? More importantly, what did they learn? Which brings us to:

Do they have a small understanding of what SEO is and why we do it?

I’ve seen a lot of people get excited about learning SEO, do OK for a year or two, and then crash and burn. The number one cause of SEO flame-out or burn-out, in my experience, is an inability to pivot from old tactics to new ones. This failure often stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what SEO is (marketing, connecting websites that have stuff with people who want that stuff) and what it is not (any single SEO tactic).

It can be frustrating when the methods you originally learned on, or that used to work so well, dry up and blow away (I’m looking at you, siloing and PageRank sculpting). If you’re focused on what tricks and tactics can get you ranking #1, instead of on how you’re using digital techniques to market to and connect with potential customers, sooner or later the rug’s going to get pulled out from under you.

Ask your candidates: what did they retain from their research? Are they totally focused on the search engine, or have they thought about how visits can turn into revenue? Do they seem more interested in being a hacker, or a marketer? Some people really fall in love with the idea that they could manipulate search engines to do what they want; I look for people who are more in love with the idea of using the Internet as a tool to connect businesses with their customers, since ultimately your SEO client is going to want revenue, not just rankings.

Another trait I look for in the interview process is empathy. Can they articulate why a business might want to invest in search? Ask them to imagine some fears or concerns a small business owner might have when starting up an Internet marketing program. This is especially important for agency work, where communicating success requires an understanding of your client’s goals and concerns.

Can they write?

Photo via 
Pixabay

Even if you’re looking to grow someone into a technical SEO, not a content creator, SEO involves writing well. You’re going to have to be able to create on-page elements that not only communicate topical relevance to search engines but also appeal to users.

This should go without saying, but in my experience definitely doesn’t: their resume should be free of typos and grammatical errors. Not only is this an indicator of their ability to write while unsupervised, it’s also an indicator of their attention to detail and how seriously they’re taking the position.

Any kind of writing experience is a major plus for me when looking at a resume, but isn’t necessarily a requirement. It’s helpful to get some idea of what they’re capable of, though. Ask for a writing sample, and better yet, look for a writing sample in the wild online. Have they blogged before?
You’ll almost certainly be exchanging emails with a candidate before an interview—pay attention to how they communicate via email. Is it hard to tell what they’re talking about? Good writing isn’t just about grammar; it’s about communicating ideas.

I like to give candidates a scenario like “A client saw traffic to their website decline because of an error we failed to detect. We found and corrected the error, but their traffic numbers are still down for the month,” and have them compose a pretend email to the client about what happened. This is a great way to test both their written communication skills and their empathy for the client. Are you going to have to proofread their client emails before they go out? That sounds tedious.

How are their critical thinking and data analysis skills?

A brand-new digital marketer probably won’t have any experience with analytics tools like Google Analytics, and that’s OK—you can teach them how to use those. What’s harder to teach is an ability to think critically and to use data to make decisions.

Have your candidates ever been in a situation where they needed to use data to figure out what to do next? What about tell a story, back up a claim or change someone’s mind? Recent college grads should all have recent experience with this, regardless of their major—critical thinking and data analysis are what college is all about.
How comfortable are they in Microsoft Excel? They don’t have to love it, but if they absolutely loathe it, SEO probably isn’t for them. Would it make them miserable to spend most of a day in a spreadsheet (not every day, but fairly regularly)?

Are they a citizen of the web?

Even if they’ve never heard of SEO, a new employee is going to have an easier time learning it if they’re already pretty net savvy. An active web presence also indicates a general interest in the the Internet, which is one indicator of whether they’ll have long-term interest in digital marketing as a field. Do some recon: are they active on social media? Have they ever blogged? What comes up when you Google them?

Prior experience

Different applicants will have different backgrounds, and you’ll have the best idea of what skills someone will need to bring to the table to fill the role you need. When I’m reading a resume, I take experience in any of these areas as a good sign:

• Marketing 
• Advertising 
• Public relations 
• APIs (using them, creating apps with them, what have you) 
• Web development or coding of any kind 
• Web design 
• Copywriting

Your mileage may vary

Photo via 
Knowyourmeme

Very few candidates are going to excel in all of the areas outlined above, and everyone you talk to is going to be stronger in some areas than others. Since digital marketing can include a wide variety of different tasks, keep in mind the things you’d actually like the person to do on the job; for example, written communication becomes somewhat less important in a non-client-facing role. At the very least, look for a smart, driven person who is excited about digital marketing as a career opportunity (not just as a next paycheck).

Hiring inexperienced people has its risks: the person you hire may not actually turn out to be any good at SEO. They may have more trouble learning it than you anticipated, and once they start doing it, they may decide that SEO just isn’t what they want to do long-term.

On the other hand, hiring and training someone who’s a great fit for your company culture and who is excited about learning often results in a better employee than hiring someone with experience who doesn’t really mesh well with your team. Plus, teaching someone SEO is a great way to make sure they don’t have any bad habits that could put your clients at risk. Best of all, you have the opportunity to unlock a whole career for someone and watch them grow into a world-class marketer—and that’s a great feeling.

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From stone tablets, to papyrus, to vellum, to paper, to computer screen to mobile phone to…

We see that whilst technology constantly changes over time, it’s still the message that is the primary objective of publishing, the act of communication goes from one to many, from many to many. Communication that influences, persuades, angers, motivates… etc.

But what is this to an SEO?

The objective of an SEO is to efficiently get as many people as possible from a search engine to a web page. This is done by ranking that web page higher in the search engine rankings that other web pages.

A good SEO who has mastery of the technology is able to increase the audience of the published message.

Whilst a focus on the technical aspects of this process serves an SEO well, a thorough understanding of the methodology of the art of publishing can take a professional SEO to the next level.

Indeed, we can look at those who are SEO thought leaders and observe that they have a very good understanding of the art of publishing and have attained mastery in the subject.

But it is not about being a thought leader and delivering conference presentations, blog posts, and video demonstration regarding SEO.

It is the understanding that the end result of all these processes and methodologies is all about people receiving a message, and is not about robots crawling the web, or algorithmic changes, or even latent semantic indexing. It’s all about that one person getting the message and for the message to perform its task.

SEO has nothing to do about link building, or does it?

The definition of an SEO has always been blurred around the edges.

It is a new process based on new technology that is constantly evolving, and whilst individuals burn through bytes to expound their own interpretation, there is something that an SEO cannot do without.

Links!

You may argue that an SEO is not about link building, but for the purpose of this argument I have defined an SEO as to efficiently get as many people as possible from a search engine to web page. This is done by ranking that web page higher in the search engine rankings that other web pages.

You cannot do this without links. Links are essential to the SEO, it has to be factored into the process, I don’t know of any SEO who does not concern themselves with links. I don’t know of any SEO who has not deliberately built links for this purpose.

But here is where it gets tricky. You need something to link to, this will be in the form of web content, be it a blog post, infographic, video… etc.

Content is therefore essential, you can’t have links without something to link to, and the mindset of an SEO is not necessarily the mindset of a content creator.

The SEO is usually knee deep in spreadsheets analysing keywords, backlinks, ratios of ‘no-follow’ to ‘do-follow’, tags, disavowing links… etc., rather than something more conducive to the publishing process. 

This is where we need to switch to the publishing mindset. In a large agency they will have people whose task it is to be content creators, specialists who can excel in that particular task. Smaller operations can outsource this task to a specialist, but the danger then comes with quality control and project management, while smaller operations and one person set ups will do it all themselves.

It is possible for one person to have mastery in both SEO and publishing, and those who are able to switch between these skills have an edge over those who cannot.

Development of the Publishing Mindset is the most practical way for an SEO to scale their effectiveness

A publishing mindset focuses on the people it wants to attract to its websites. It does this by creating content that has a specific purpose to do achieve the following:

• Attention
• Attraction
• Delivery
• Response

Attention

Content must get attention else it will die.

For a message or web page to get no attention means it may as well not exist.  People pay attention to what is important to them. This is mostly not conscious though but is actually controlled by the sub-conscious and primal brain.

When we understand that the sub-conscious can perform 11m cycles, and the sub-conscious can perform 40, we clearly see where the cognition is occurring.

Clearly, our decision making process and what gets our attention is not conscious. The primal brain meanwhile is dealing with the basics of survival, sex, money, death… etc. It keeps us alive and controls our adrenal gland. It excites us with chemicals. No need for a cup of Joe when a Sabre Tooth Tiger has your scent.

The fact that some people sometimes make irrational choices in the content they consume, makes it difficult for someone with a completely logical process to work out what people want in terms of content.

Attraction

Content not only needs to get our attention but it needs to draw us towards it. The headline or the short piece of text posted on social media is the main component of what draws us towards a particular piece of content.

It must act in a magnetic fashion, pulling us toward the content and make it irresistible to our brains, using techniques such as curiosity, greed, cognitive dissonance… etc.

It does this by promising fulfilment. The headline is not the full meal, it is the whiff of a meal, and its intention is to make the mouth water, to induce anticipation. It is not a detailed description of what is contained within the body copy.

This is because of what is happening beneath our conscious thinking. Attraction mostly takes place in our sub-conscious thinking. You have a deadline looming and you are not sure you can make it, and for some reason you end up watching a YouTube video about cats making organic donuts whilst dancing the Merengue.

This is not rational, it is not what you intended, and yet time and time again you as a reader will find that attraction to content goes against your conscious thinking. 

What attracts us is not simply the headline, the headline is an important part, but there are other factors at work such as:

• Who is the creator of the content?
• What brand is associated with it?
• Has the content been produced by a member of our tribe? 
• Will reading this content make us wealthy?
• Does this content help me achieve my goals?
• Has the content been produced by an acknowledged thought leader within the niche?

We are members of tribes who have allegiance to various groups of people. If the head of that tribe puts their name to a piece of content, or it comes from a tribe you are desperate to be a part of, then it will play a part in being attracted.

We associate with people who share our values and prejudices, content which comes from these types of people will have a stronger attraction.

Leadership can be a powerful thing. When previous success in a niche has been acknowledged, the thought leader in that space does not have to work has hard to gain attraction.

Delivery

Mastery of the art of delivery or production is the mechanical part of the process, and comes down to such fundamentals as discerning which social media platform to promote on. 

It is essential to build relationships with people who can help boost your particular message on various social media platforms. Building your own tribe which supports you and viewing it as a valued asset is crucial to a successful publishing strategy. Thus, knowing the difference between Twitter Vs Facebook becomes hugely important, and can mean the difference between success and failure.

But it also comes down to how the content is formatted, what content management system you use, is it set up correctly, are images spaced in a consistent way… etc.?

The mechanics are part of the process just as much as the type of content.

Each publishing platform is different and it’s the little things that could end up making or breaking a well promoted piece of content.

It’s important to note at this point that consistency is also an important part, as a lot of people will be attracted to the content simply because of the content that has preceded it, or that there is a brand attraction, which could be an individual or a corporate brand. Habit is something which plays a large part in this, which we can discuss further in another article.

Response

Getting the desired response from the reader is the point of the whole exercise. 

If you are selling a publication, eBook, course… etc. the response may not be as important to you, as you already have the cash in your pocket.

Even then you should still be focused on getting a reaction to your content which satisfies your particular business model.

However, most will be publishing information and communication that is free and so the reaction or response to it becomes the reason the content exists in the first place.

Reactions can be:

• Sign up to an email list
• Buy a product or service
• Build on the emotional attachment to a brand
• Drop a link (remember those)
• Initiate a social signal
• Bookmark the web page
• Increase recognition of a person or brand
• Initiate a social media follow

It is crucial you set the specific objective for the content before the content is even imagined, as it is this that will guide the direction of the content.

In the same way the headline should also be thought of before the content is created as this enables the content to be built around a highly effective headline, rather than trying to fit the headline to the content.

A pre-defined headline will also help to guide the spirit of the content to where it should be.

Type of audience

A publisher should know their audience. They must specifically know what content is going to attract them, and have their desires fulfilled by reading that content.

An SEO is already on the way to knowing the audience in a niche, as this is a part of the SEO process when perfoming keyword research. This gives a valuable insight into the words that the niche is using to search for specific information.

However this only gives a partial insight into the audience, its motivation and desires. We must craft our content to the hungry market and feed them juicy morsels which they cannot resist, and we can only do this if we know exactly what makes their mouths water.

How to research the motivations within a niche

Keyword research, if you are an SEO I assume you already have a grip on this.

Audience research:

• Forums
• “I hate….”
• Offline magazines
• Authority websites
• Thought leaders

Forums

Forums have existed as long as I have used the web, they are often forgotten in the trendy world of social media and content marketing, but they are still very popular and are fantastic sources of data.

Hangout at forums, analyse the repeated gripes, notice what people complain about. These problems will be the most powerful and pressing issues that people will be seeking solutions for.

I hate

Search for “I hate (keyword), “(keyword) is rubbish”, (keyword) is lame… etc. Think of many different types of phrases that are written as an emotional response to keywords in the niche.

These will mostly be negative and will give you are very good idea of what really gets under the skin of people.

Offline magazines

It is still very useful to stand in front of a news stand and digest the headlines displayed on the front cover of a glossy paper magazine.

Headlines writers, particularly for women’s magazines, have a specific task to do, which they need to do using the least amount of words possible.

We often forget, or ignore the offline market, but there is still clever stuff happening in offline publications. 

Authority websites

We can quickly ascertain, simply by doing a visual search on Google, which are the websites which have authority within a niche. There are quite a few social media tools that allow us to quickly identify important, authority websites in bulk.

Authority websites may be part of your competition. But never copy the competition, think one step ahead of the competition. If they have thoughts about a new product that is out, position a story that says the product is already out of date.

Websites that command authority are there for a reason, they have perhaps had to blaze the trail, but it is you who will benefit from that and get to build your homestead on fresh and fertile lands.

Watch for articles that repeat. What evergreen content is working, I recently researched a piece for cognitiveseo.com and found it very useful to be able to identify evergreen content in competitors:

By identifying usable, evergreen content in your niche and publishing your own version you can boost the traffic and branding of your website.

Graham Charlton on Evergreen content and why it’s important.

Evergreen content is that which is still interesting and relevant weeks, months or even years after its initial publish date. It doesn’t date like news, and the value is that it can deliver traffic, leads, social shares and can occupy valuable search positions for a prolonged period of time.

Isolating what are evergreen content within a niche is very important in being able to understand what content is working and what is not.

Conclusion

Some call all this content marketing, and whilst that may be an accurate term for certain parts of the publishing process, it does not connect all the dots needed to have a complete understanding of the process involved.

A deeper understanding of the publishing process from creation, to promotion to measurement, is a vital tool for the SEO to add to their skillset.

Posted by Justin_Briggs

Mobile isn’t the future. It’s the present. Mobile apps are not only changing how we interact with devices and websites, they’re changing the way we search. Companies are creating meaningful experiences on mobile-friendly websites and apps, which in turn create new opportunities to get in front of users.

I’d like to explore the growth of mobile app search and its current opportunities to gain visibility and drive engagement.

Rise of mobile app search

The growth of mobile device usage has driven a significant lift in app-related searches. This is giving rise to mobile app search as a vertical within traditional universal search.

While it has been clear for some time that mobile search is important, that importance has been more heavily emphasized by Google recently, as they continue to push
mobile-friendly labels in SERPs, and are likely increasing mobile-friendliness’s weight as a ranking factor.

The future of search marketing involves mobile, and it will not be limited to optimizing HTML webpages, creating responsive designs, and optimizing UX. Mobile SEO is a world where apps, knowledge graph, and conversational search are front and center.

For the
top 10 leading properties online, 34% of visitors are mobile-only (comScore data), and, anecdotally, we’re seeing similar numbers with our clients, if not more.

It’s also worth noting that
72% of mobile engagement relies on apps vs. on browsers. Looking at teen usage, apps are increasingly dominant. Additionally,
55% of teens use voice search more than once per day. 

If you haven’t read it, grab some coffee and read
A Teenagers View on Social Media, which is written by a 19-year old who gives his perspective of online behavior. Reading between the lines shows a number of subtle shifts in behavior. I noticed that every time I expected him say website, he said application. In fact, he referenced application 15 times, and it is the primary way he describes social networks.

This means that one of the fasting growing segments of mobile users cannot be marketed to by optimizing HTML webpages alone, requiring search marketers to expand their skills into app optimization.

The mobile app pack

This shift is giving rise to the mobile app pack and app search results, which are triggered on searches from mobile devices in instances of high mobile app intent. Think of these as being similar to local search results. Considering
mobile searcher behavior, these listings dominate user attention.

As with local search, mobile app search can reorder traditional results, completely push them down, or integrate app listings with traditional web results.

You can test on your desktop using a
user-agent switcher, or by searching on your iOS or Android device. 

There are slight differences between iPhone and Android mobile app results:

From what I’ve seen, mobile app listings trigger more frequently, and with more results, on Android search results when compared to iOS. Additionally, iOS mobile app listings are represented as a traditional website result listing, while mobile app listings on Android are more integrated.

Some of the differences also come from the differences in app submission guidelines on the two major stores, the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Overview of differences in mobile app results

1. Title – Google uses the app listing page’s HTML title (which is the app’s title). iOS app titles can exceed 55-62 characters, which causes wrapping and title truncation like a traditional result. Android app title requirements are shorter, so titles are typically shorter on Android mobile app listings.
2. URL – iOS mobile app listings display the iTunes URL to the App Store as part of the search result.
3. Icon – iOS icons are square and Android icons have rounded corners.
4. Design – Android results stand out more, with an “Apps” headline above the pack and a link to Google Play at the end.
5. App store content – The other differences show up in the copy, ratings, and reviews on each app store.

Ranking in mobile app search results

Ranking in mobile app search results is a
combination of App Store Optimization (ASO) and traditional SEO. The on-page factors are dependent upon your app listing, so optimization starts with having solid ASO. If you’re not familiar with ASO, it’s the process of optimizing your app listing for internal app store search.

Basics of ASO

Ranking in the Apple App Store and in Google Play is driven by two primary factors: keyword alignment and app performance. Text fields in the app store listing, such as title, description, and keyword list, align the app with a particular set of keywords. Performance metrics including download velocity, app ratings, and reviews determine how well the app will rank for each of those keywords. (Additionally, the Google Play algorithm may include external, web-based performance metrics like citations and links as ranking factors.)

Mobile app listing optimization

While I won’t explore ASO in-depth here, as it’s very similar to traditional SEO,
optimizing app listings is primarily a function of keyword targeting.

Tools like
Sensor Tower, MobileDevHQ, and App Annie can help you with mobile app keyword research. However, keep in mind that mobile app search listings show up in universal search, so it’s important to leverage traditional keyword research tools like the AdWords Tool or Google Trends.

While there are similarities with ASO, optimizing for these mobile app search listings on the web has some slight differences.

Differences between ASO & mobile app SEO targeting

1. Titles – While the Apple App Store allows relatively long titles, they are limited to the preview length in organic search. Titles should be optimized with Google search in mind, in addition to optimizing for the app store. Additionally, several apps aggressively target keywords in their app title, but caution should be used as spamming keywords could influence app performance in Google.
2. Description – The app description on the App Store may not be a factor in internal search, but it will impact external app search results. Leverage keyword targeting best practices when writing your iOS app description, as well as your Android app description.
3. Device and platform keywords – When targeting for app store search, it is not as important to target terms related to the OS or device. However, these terms can help visibility in external search. Include device and OS terms, such as Android, Samsung Note, iOS, iPad, and iPhone.

App performance optimization

Outside of content optimization, Google looks at the performance of the app. On the Android side, they have access to the data, but for iOS they have to rely on publicly available information.

App performance factors

• Number of ratings
• Average rating score
• Content and sentiment analysis of reviews
• Downloads / installs
• Engagement and retention
• Internal links on app store

For iOS, the primary public metrics are ratings and reviews. However, app performance can be inferred using the App Store’s ranking charts and search results, which can be leveraged as proxies of these performance metrics.

The following objectives will have the greatest influence on your mobile app search ranking:

1. Increase your average rating number
2. Increase your number of ratings
3. Increase downloads

For app ratings and reviews, leverage platforms like
Apptentive to improve your ratings. They are very effective at driving positive ratings. Additionally, paid tactics are a great way to drive install volume and are one area where paid budget capacity could directly influence organic results in Google. Anecdotally, both app stores use rating numbers (typically above or below 4 stars) to make decisions around promoting an app, either through merchandising spots or co-branded campaigns. I suspect this is being used as a general cut-off for what is displayed in universal results. Increasing your rating above 4 stars should improve the likelihood you’ll appear in mobile app search results.

Lastly, think of merchandising and rankings in terms of 
internal linking structures. The more visible you are inside of the app store, the more visibility you have in external search.

App web performance optimization

Lastly, we’re talking Google rankings, so factors like links, citations, and social shares matter. You should be
conducting content marketing, PR, and outreach for your app. Focus on merchandising your app on your own site, as well as increasing coverage of your app (linking to the app store page). The basics of link optimization apply here.

App indexation – drive app engagement

Application search is not limited to driving installs via app search results. With app indexing, you can leverage your desktop/mobile website visibility in organic search to drive engagement with those who have your app installed. Google can discover and expose content deep inside your app directly in search results. This means that when a user clicks on your website in organic search, it can open your app directly, taking them to that exact piece of content in your app, instead of opening your website.

App indexation fundamentally changes technical SEO, extending SEO from server and webpage setup to the setup and optimization of applications.

This also fundamentally changes search. Your most avid and engaged user may choose to no longer visit your website. For example, on my Note 4, when I click a link to a site of a brand that I have an app installed for, Google gives me the option not only to open in the app, but to set opening the app as a default behavior.

If a user chooses to open your site in your app, they may never visit your site from organic search again.

App indexation is currently limited to Android devices, but there is evidence to suggest that it’s already in the works and is
soon to be released on iOS devices. There have been hints for some time, but markup is showing up in the wild suggesting that Google is actively working with Apple and select brands to develop iOS app indexing.

URI optimization for apps

The first step in creating an indexable app is to set up your app to support deep links. Deep links are URIs that are understood by your app and will open up a specific piece of content. They are effectively URLs for applications.

Once this URI is supported, a user can be sent to deep content in the app. These can be discovered as alternates to your desktop site’s URLs, similar to how
separate-site mobile sites are defined as alternate URLs for the desktop site. In instances of proper context (on an Android device with the app installed), Google can direct a user to the app instead of the website.

Setting this up requires working with your app developer to implement changes inside the app as well as working with your website developers to add references on your desktop site.

Adding intent filters

Android has
documented the technical setup of deep links in detail, but it starts with setting up intent filters in an app’s Android manifest file. This is done with the following code.

<activity android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity"
android:label="@string/title_gizmos" >
<intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_title_viewgizmos">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<data android:scheme="http"
android:host="example.com"
android:pathPrefix="/gizmos" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

This dictates the technical optimization of your app URIs for app indexation and defines the elements used in the URI example above.

• The <intent-filter> element should be added for activities that should be launchable from search results.
• The <action> element specifies the ACTION_VIEW intent action so that the intent filter can be reached from Google Search.
• The <data> tag represents a URI format that resolves to the activity. At minimum, the <data> tag must include the android:scheme attribute.
• Include the BROWSABLE category. The BROWSABLE category is required in order for the intent filter to be accessible from a web browser. Without it, clicking a link in a browser cannot resolve to your app. The DEFAULT category is optional, but recommended. Without this category, the activity can be started only with an explicit intent, using your app component name.

Testing deep links

Google has created tools to help test your deep link setup. You can use
Google’s Deep Link Test Tool to test your app behavior with deep links on your phone. Additionally, you can create an HTML page with an intent:// link in it.

For example
:

<a href="intent://example.com/page-1#Intent;scheme=http;package=com.example.android;end;"> <a href="http://example.com/page-1">http://example.com/page-1></a>

This link would open up deep content inside the app from the HTML page.

App URI crawl and discovery

Once an app has deep link functionality, the next step is to
ensure that Google can discover these URIs as part of its traditional desktop crawling.

Ways to get apps crawled

1. Rel=”alternate” in HTML head
2. ViewAction with Schema.org
3. Rel=”alternate” in XML Sitemap

Implementing all three will create clear signals, but at minimum you should add the rel=”alternate” tag to the HTML head of your webpages.

Effectively, think of the app URI as being similar to a mobile site URL when
setting up a separate-site mobile site for SEO. The mobile deep link is an alternative way to view a webpage on your site. You map a piece of content on your site to a corresponding piece of content inside the app.

Before you get started, be sure to
verify your website and app following the guidelines here. This will verify your app in Google Play Developer Console and Google Webmaster Tools.

#1: Rel=”alternate” in HTML head

On an example page, such as example.com/page-1, you would add the following code to the head of the document. Again, very similar to separate-site mobile optimization.

<html>
<head> 
... 
<link rel="alternate" href="android-app://com.example.android/http/example.com/page-1" /> 
...
</head>
<body>
</body>

#2: ViewAction with Schema.org

Additionally, you can reference the deep link using Schema.org and JSON by using a 
ViewAction.

<script type="application/ld+json"> 
{ 
"@context": "http://schema.org", 
"@type": "WebPage", 
"@id": "http://example.com/gizmos", 
"potentialAction": { 
"@type": "ViewAction", 
"target": "android-app://com.example.android/http/example.com/gizmos" 
} 
} 
</script>

#3 Rel=”alternate” in XML sitemap

Lastly, you can reference the alternate URL in your XML Sitemaps, similar to using the rel=”alternate” for mobile sites.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> 
<url> 
<loc>http://example.com/page-1</loc> 
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" href="android-app://com.example.android/http/example.com/page-1" /> 
</url> 
... 
</urlset>

Once these are in place, Google can discover the app URI and provide your app as an alternative way to view content found in search.

Bot control and robots noindex for apps

There may be instances where there is content within your app that you do not want indexed in Google. A good example of this might be content or functionality that is built out on your site, but has not yet been developed in your app. This would create an inferior experience for users. The good news is that we can block indexation with a few updates to the app.

First, add the following to your app resource directory (res/xml/noindex.xml).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<search-engine xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> 
<noindex uri="http://example.com/gizmos/hidden_uri"/> 
<noindex uriPrefix="http://example.com/gizmos/hidden_prefix"/> 
<noindex uri="gizmos://hidden_path"/> 
<noindex uriPrefix="gizmos://hidden_prefix"/> 
</search-engine>

As you can see above, you can block an individual URI or define a URI prefix to block entire folders.

Once this has been added, you need to update the AndroidManifest.xml file to denote that you’re using noindex.html to block indexation.

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.example.android.Gizmos"> 
<application> 
<activity android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity" android:label="@string/title_gizmos" > 
<intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_title_viewgizmos"> 
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/> 
... 
</activity> 
<meta-data android:name="search-engine" android:resource="@xml/noindex"/> 
</application> 
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/> 
</manifest>

App indexing API to drive re-engagement

In addition to URI discovery via desktop crawl, your mobile app can integrate
Google’s App Indexing API, which communicates with Google when users take actions inside your app. This sends information to Google about what users are viewing in the app. This is an additional method for deep link discovery and has some benefits.

The primary benefit is the ability to appear in
autocomplete. This can drive re-engagement through Google Search query autocompletions, providing access to inner pages in apps.

Again, be sure to
verify your website and app following the guidelines here. This will verify your app in Google Play Developer Console and Google Webmaster Tools.

App actions with knowledge graph

The next, and most exciting, evolution of search is leveraging actions. These will be powerful when
combined with voice search, allowing search engines to take action on behalf of users, turning spoken language into executed actions.

App indexing allows you to take advantage of actions by allowing Google to not only launch an app, but execute actions inside of the app. Order me a pizza? Schedule my meeting? Drive my car? Ok, Google.

App actions work via entity detection and the application of the knowledge graph, allowing search engines to understand actions, words, ideas and objects. With that understanding, they can build an action graph that allows them to define common actions by entity type.

Here is a list of actions currently supported by Schema.org

• AchieveAction
• AssessAction
• ConsumeAction
• ControlAction
• CreateAction
• FindAction
• InteractAction
• MoveAction
• OrganizeAction
• PlayAction
• SearchAction
• TradeAction
• TransferAction
• UpdateAction

For example, the PlayAction could be used to play a song in a music app. This can be achieve with the following markup.

<script type="application/ld+json">
 {
 "@context": "http://schema.org",
 "@type": "MusicGroup",
 "name": "Weezer", "potentialAction": {
 "@type": "ListenAction",
 "target": "android-app://com.spotify.music/http/we.../listen"
 }
 }
</script>	

Overview of mobile app search opportunities

In summary, there are five primary ways to increase visibility and engagement for your mobile app in traditional organic search efforts.

The growth of mobile search is transforming how we define technical SEO, moving beyond front-end and back-end optimization of websites into the realm of structured data and application development. As app indexing expands to include iOS, I suspect the possibilities and opportunities associated with indexing applications, and their corresponding actions, to grow extensively. 

For those with Android apps, app indexing is a potential leapfrog style opportunity to get ahead of competitors who are dominant in traditional desktop search. Those with iOS devices should start by optimizing their app listings, while preparing to implement indexation, as I suspect it’ll be released for iOS this year.

Have you been leveraging traditional organic search to drive visibility and engagement for apps? Share your experiences in the comments below.

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