Google's App Indexing Could Spell Big Changes for Mobile
In yet another giant step towards making mobile play nice with the traditional web—and bringing the tools and functionality of that web to the mobile world—Google recently rolled out its app indexing API and is encouraging mobile developers on both Android and iOS platforms to start making use of it.
Indexing offers a whole new opportunity to mobile developers, allowing your app and even its internal content to appear in mobile searches, even if they've never heard of let alone installed your app before (for Android apps at least). You can bet that this indexing will carry over to traditional web-based searches, first in a tricky of authority influence and then the in a torrent of direct search rankings for mobile app content.
That will have a significant ripple effect through things like PPC advertising, keyword competition, and targeting—not to mention user engagement and app installation opportunities. This inevitable turn of events is something both mobile and web developers will need to contend with, and the time to start planning is now.
Get Indexed, No Matter How You Feel About It
First things first: You need to get indexed. Not indexing your app is simply saying you don't want to be found even when users need you the most, and that you're cool with your competitors capturing interest and users at your direct expense.
According to Google's own numbers, one in four apps is never used at all, and only 26% of user installed apps see daily use. That's pretty low engagement for the majority of apps out there, and indexing provides an opportunity to change all that. Indexing your iOS app allows your app's existing content to surface in searches conducted by existing users; Android apps can be found by non-users in addition to having installed content rank for searches.
In other words, users (and potential users) will find you when you're relevant, and that can only mean a boost to engagement. Some will say that this is one more way for Google to wield authority in the mobile world, but...well, yeah. They're Google. They're sort of a big deal.
Start Developing for the Web
Google's app indexing will only work on mobile content that supports http requests so a modest amount of traditional web thinking is already an important part of current mobile development. Remember, though, that this is only one step in Google's (and others') quest to bridge the gap between the mobile and "fixed" or traditional Internet.
Users want a seamless experience. They want apps that function more like websites and websites that function more like apps, with information and functionality that translates from one to the other with ease. Google want to give it to them and App Indexing is a big part of that—it allows the search function on mobile devices to act more like search on a desktop or laptop computer, and it allows mobile content to be returned with the same likelihood as traditional web content.
Develop your apps for the web world as well as the mobile, and you'll start seeing the rewards right away.
Think About More Text-Rich Content
Here's where we get into the predictions, and this one might seem a little wacky at first. With video content all the rage when it comes to user consumption and to search rankings (for obviously related reasons), a recommendation to start creating more text based content might sound like suggesting you use a typewriter to write out your code.
Indexing is all about search rankings, and as much as Google loves to rank videos and other media-rich content it still needs text to crawl for the purpose of confirming keywords, determining relevancy, and establishing authority. You'd be amazed what a good description can do for a YouTube video's ranking, even if no one ever reads it.
Even though indexing is pretty limited at this point, you can bet that full-app crawling is just around the corner. Effective text-based keywording is going to matter for mobile apps just like it does for websites. We're not suggesting you adding some text and putting information where both users and search engine bots can read it is probably about to become really important.
Prepare to Rethink Mobile Competition
This change is more definite, and looming far closer. With a new way to discover apps—a way that you can bet Google is going to prefer due to its organic way of sorting relevance and user approval—app competition will no longer be limited to the app stores. Every time a user conducts a search, first on their mobile devices and soon enough on the web, your app will have the ability to compete and capture attention.
It's an entirely new way for you to reach out to your users, and an entirely new way for your potential users to organically discover you.
And—you knew it was coming—this changing competitive landscape means analytics will become ever more important. Cross-platform, detail-oriented, real-time data is going to matter for mobile more than ever, and integrating your web and mobile data in a single, easy-to-use dashboard will be all but essential.
Good thing we came along...
