Mobile SEO Archives - SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines

How to Setup Discovery Ads (And Create One, Too!)

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 09:03:00 +0000

If you’re a brand or business that has already improved your search and discovery but still looking to get a wider but better online audience reach and conversions, Google Discovery Ads got you covered.

Unlike Google Display Network, Discovery Ads targets high-intent audiences.

Because Discovery is AI-driven, this ad solves a problem or answers the user’s question automatically before it appears in the search bar, instead of depending on what the user searches for.

Before we dive into how you can set up Discovery Ads, let’s discuss briefly what it is and why you should use it.

What are Discovery Ads?

Discovery Ads are high-quality visual native ad format.

It aims to create a visual experience and generates demand at the same time.

These ads show to customers what they want before they even know it.

Google’s Discovery contains either a single high-quality image ad or carousel.

The carousel enables the user to interact by swiping through its multiple image ads.

While the Display Ads’ goal is to create awareness to customers, the goal of discovery is to drive customers’ interest and lead them to take action.

This makes the latter even more beneficial to e-commerce businesses because it generates higher engagement and conversion rates than Display ads.

Talk about cost-efficient and effective ad campaigns!

Where Can You Find Discovery Ads?

Discovery is in three major Google properties: YouTube’s mobile home feed, Google Discover feed, and Gmail’s Social and Promotions tab.

Photo grabbed from Google’s “Think With Google“

YouTube: You can find this ad in YouTube’s mobile home feed. With YouTube as the second largest search engine and its home feed as a highly visible location, it’s a great place to catch your potential customer’s interest.

Google Discover: The Discover feed keeps its users posted with news, topics, and events tailored to their interests. To date, it has 800 million monthly users which makes it an ideal place to make your brand known.

Gmail: You can find Discovery Ads in Gmail’s Social and Promotions tab. Currently, Gmail has 1.5 billion users worldwide, so you can make your brand visible without being intrusive to users’ inboxes.

Unlike Display Ads, Discovery Ads lets you reach up to 3 billion people across Google’s Discover, Youtube, and Gmail tabs.

As an advertiser or business owner, your goal is to get discovered.

Besides, your campaigns must help drive action from highly engaged audiences.

Thus, you must help users become familiar with and trust your brand.

Photo: Discover Ads in Youtube’s mobile home feed, Google Discover feed, and Gmail Promotion tab. From Google Support.

You can create Discover ads campaigns as single static image OR multiple-carousel images.

Businesses can make the most of carousel image ads because it has better engagement.

Carousel ads let you showcase your products or relevant content from your website.

Further Reading: Disapproved Google Ads: What to Do

Why Should You Use Google Discovery Ads

Discovery Ads eliminate a lot of estimation or rough calculations from paid advertising. Aside from that, there are other benefits to using discovery:

Its ads campaign reach is extensive

Now more than ever, its ads work to your advantage as a brand.

It can help you reach up to 3 billion mobile users across three Google placements.

In comparison with traditional display ads, these ads are eligible to appear in YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, as well as Gmail’s Social and Promotions tab.

It’s visually enticing

Instagram and Pinterest may have provided inspiration for Discovery.

Take a look at both of these social media channels and you will find a showcase of products using either a single high-quality image or a swipeable carousel of multiple images.

This immersive format allows brands to create and tell their stories.

E-commerce businesses can use this to engage and nurture their audience with their stories.

It’s more targeted and relevant

Discovery ads are AI-powered.

It means you don’t need extensive research about your audience. You can create content tailored to the needs of audiences interested in your product.

It’s automated

Every business owner knows the benefit full automation brings in advertising, and that’s what Google’s been doing over the years. Discovery Ads’ features are fully automated as well.

It’s less time-consuming to monitor campaigns because machine learning and AI optimizes Discovery Ads.

As for managing ad budget, Google takes this laborious task out with maximized conversion bidding and target CPA.

Things to Take Note of Before Discovery Ads Setup

Now we know what Discovery Ads are and their many benefits, here are some notes to take as you create your campaigns:

Discovery campaigns are high-visual engaging, so gather all the following creative assets including:

Your headlines and logos
High-quality, high-resolution images that create intrigue or interest with minimal texts. You may also include a brand or lifestyle theme to build brand trust.
Your description must have an effective copy for your audience to take action. In Discover ads, you are not allowed to add any CTA (call to action) elements except texts provided by Google.

You can repurpose your high-performing ads and images to save time and make the most of Google’s feeds.
Google’s Discovery campaigns are automated, which means you can’t control:

Manual bid strategies
Ad rotation
Delivery method
Frequency capping
Device targeting
Contextual targeting
Placement targeting

This campaign type has automated settings for targeting and bidding. With this in mind, you can focus on optimizing your campaigns’ performance instead.

Set your daily budget high enough to cover at least 10 times your target CPA bid.
In your Google Ad account, enable sitewide tagging and conversion tracking.
Discover Ads are mobile-optimized so make sure to use high-quality images and content.

Further Reading: 5 Tips on Optimizing Search Ads for Business

How to Setup Discovery Ads Campaign:

Step 1: Go to ads.google.com and sign in to your account.
Step 2: Click ‘Campaigns’ tab on the left of Google Ads’ menu.
Step 3: Click the ‘+’ button and select new campaign.
Step 4: Choose your marketing objective. Your options are “Sales”, “Leads”, “Web Traffic”, “Product or Brand Consideration”, or “Local Store Visits and Promotions”. You can also create your own campaign without guidance if you prefer.
Step 5: When you’re asked to select your campaign type, pick “Discovery”.
Step 6: Choose your geographic and language targeting for your campaign.
Step 7: Choose your targeting audiences with the following audience information: custom intent, your data, and in-marketing audiences.
Step 8: Set up your bidding strategy and your average daily budget. Google takes the heavy lifting out of running your campaigns with automated bidding. Automated Bidding takes the guesswork out of setting bids to meet your campaign goals.
Step 9: Save and continue.

Now that you’ve set up your Discover Ad campaign, you can create your ads next.

How to Create Discovery Campaigns:

This is where you put in all your creative assets in place. You can either set up a single image ad, or multiple carousel display ads.

If you want to make the most of your campaigns, you might want to run a test on both ad groups.

Photo: An example of a multiple image carousel Discovery ad in Google

Step 1: Log in to your Google Ads account and proceed with your Discovery campaign.
Step 2: On the left page menu, click on “Ads and Extension”.
Step 3: Click on the blue “+” icon then pick “Discovery ad” for your single-image ad, or “Discovery carousel ad” for your multiple-image ad.
Step 4: Make sure you populate every Google property and check ad preview before you click Save.

When you click “Ads and Extensions” from the left panel and enter all the variable information, keep the following in mind:

You must insert at least 5 headlines, 40 characters each
You can have at least 5 descriptions, 90 characters each
You can only place one of each Business Name, a CTA text, and final URL
You must have at least one square image, a square logo, and one landscape image with a maximum image size of 5MB.

To learn more about Discover ad asset specifications, visit Google Ads help.

The Most Crucial Step in Setting Up Discover Ads

Wait.

As soon as you have setup your discovery ads campaign and assets together, give it room for “Learning”.

If your campaign status shows “Learning”, avoid making any adjustments. Discovery campaigns perform better over time.

Just be sure that your campaign runs with enough budget for two weeks.

Google states it’s advisable to choose an average daily budget at least 10 times the value of your target CPA (cost per action) bid.

Wait at least 40 conversions before making any adjustments to your campaign.

Key Takeaway

Google continues to develop and improve to serve helpful, personalized content to its users, so it’s also important for brands to keep abreast of their marketing campaigns as well.

Google Discovery Ads changes the way we do traditional ads. AI makes it easy to determine which headlines, messaging, or images convert best.

Because it relies heavily on high-quality visuals, it easily delights one’s eyes and in turn creates a more compelling experience for the user to scroll through.

Essentially, Google Discovery takes the heavy lifting out of running and monitoring your campaigns.

Discovery Ads are a strong force to be reckoned with, so it’s best you take the opportunity to create better and effective search ads for your audience.

The post How to Setup Discovery Ads (And Create One, Too!) appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

The SEO Hacker Mobile Optimization Checklist

Thu, 03 May 2018 09:06:34 +0000

SEO in 2018 is another year where big changes are happening, as Google aims to roll out numerous updates that would aim to improve the user experience, especially for mobile websites. When it comes to the mobile experience, this has been seen by Google as the future platform in which search would thrive more.

This shift into a mobile-first approach is highly evident, as Google has rolled out updates like Google Speed to optimize mobile rankings, the increased focus on voice search and video content, and the integration of AMP in multiple websites. With these set of changes, it is best to ensure that your website is highly optimized for Mobile SEO. With these changes in mind, here is our mobile optimization checklist that would create a mobile-friendly website.

Integrate AMP

One of the first major steps that you must take in order to create a mobile-friendly website is to integrate AMP. The Accelerated Mobile Pages project has been launched by Google a few years ago and is one of the most important elements that must be integrated into your website. Google has been gently integrating AMP into their services, such as emails and advertisements, featured snippets, and much more.

Applying AMP on your website may seem like a complicated process for some. Thankfully, plugins like the one available on WordPress help make the process much smoother and helps you create a website that is mobile-friendly and responsive. With AMP becoming an integral element in all websites in the future, it is better to come prepared.

Simplify Navigation

One of the most important elements of good web design is having well-designed navigation menus and buttons. One of the main reasons why users leave websites and refuse to go to other is because they have problems navigating and exploring the website. This can mean poorly designed menus, confusing layouts, and incorrect links that direct users to different pages.

When it comes to designing the website’s navigation, simplicity is the key, as you would only need to make sure that you would be able to help your users look for the pages they want to access within your website. The best thing that you can do is to make sure that the navigation menu for the desktop and mobile version of your website similar, as this would make navigation more hassle-free and easier for your users.

You can also make use of drop-down menus for mobile, as this helps in making touch navigation much easier, as using certain desktop formats can make it more difficult.

Responsive Design

Along with AMP integration, Responsive Design is another important element that must be integrated into your website, as it helps it adjust its size depending on the screen that it will be viewed on. This has been proven effective when it comes to making mobile viewing much more convenient for the user.

One of the best ways to test if you’re website has applied responsive design, you can use Google Lighthouse and Woorank, which analyses your website’s mobile-friendliness, which includes AMP and Responsive Design. Using Responsive Design also helps eliminate pinch-zooming, which is a common feature on websites that can make navigation much more challenging. This is one of the best ways to improve the user experience, which in turn helps bring in more mobile traffic that increases your rankings.

Fast Loading Speed

Page loading speed is one of the most important ranking factors in SEO, as it can be the difference between a user staying or leaving your website. For the best results, the optimal loading speed of a website is around 3-5 seconds, which is already zippy for most users. There are various tools and plugins that help improve and assess your website loading speed. These tools include Google’s Test My Site, which is a simple tool that gives you quick data on how fast your website loads.

You can also use Google Lighthouse to asses mobile loading speed, and plugins like W3 Cache help make loading your page much faster through cached data.

Do not restrict content

One of the biggest mistakes that some websites do when it comes to viewing content on mobile browsers is that they will restrict users into viewing content such as blogs and request them to access the full version on desktop. This is a restrictive practice that will only bring about negative reception and dissatisfied users. While similar practices such as adding paywalls are somewhat similar, that is an acceptable practice, as it is a sales generating model.

Restrictive mobile content should be something that should be left in the past and has no place in today’s internet. Make sure all of your content is accessible by everyone with no exceptions.

Key Takeaway

Going mobile-first is an agenda by Google that is crucial for their vision of how search and internet navigation will be done in the future. This makes mobile optimization a way to future-proof your website and would bode well for SEO as well. With this checklist, you are ensured that you have a website prepared for the future.

The post The SEO Hacker Mobile Optimization Checklist appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

6 Effective Mobile SEO Apps for Android

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 08:56:45 +0000

Mobile usage has been on an upward trend for the past few years, with increasingly powerful devices and faster internet being huge factors. This prompted Google to establish a mobile-first agenda that enhances the user experience for people accessing webpages through mobile. This new approach has helped promote the optimization of mobile websites.

With the prominence of mobile webpages, SEO has gone mobile as well, with mobile SERPs and traffic becoming even bigger ranking factors. With the Google Speed update coming up, mobile optimization is going to be even bigger this 2018. Being on mobile, it is important to monitor your website’s performance through the use of applications that you can find in the Google Play Store. These apps offer some of the functionality of your SEO toolbox at the palm of your hand. Without further ado, here are 6 SEO apps for Android that you should have on your devices.

SE Ranking PRO

You can now maximize SE Ranking on your mobile with its newly launched app for Android. With this, you now have access to your current rankings, ranking history, as well as on-site audit reports.

This is just a preview of the app and I can say that it is perfect for those who are always on the move but want to be updated by their SEO performance. SE Ranking is the legit ranking tool and now that you can install this on your Android phone, you also have an improved level of convenience courtesy of their team.

The mobile app made it easier and more efficient to check the data that we need to evaluate for SEO. Everything we needed to see was one click away without the overwhelming buttons and data that is not really essential to reports. It also helps you see some on-site issues that you need to fix. For example:

SEO Backlinks

Checking your links is a regular SEO task that ensures that your website has the right amount of links that work and bring in traffic. With that in mind, it is best to have an app that allows you to monitor your links on the go.

SEO Backlinks is a handy and reliable tool that allows you to monitor your backlinks by simply typing in the URL of your website.

Upon typing in the URL, the app will quickly be able to track and list down the number of backlinks available in the website. You can also view the full list of links by tapping the “Continue” button.

One of the best features of this app is the ability to quickly download a report that you can send in to your teammates or clients. This comes in handy during those times that you need to do reports or checks on the go.

Trello

Productivity apps and tools allow you to organize and schedule your daily tasks accordingly, allowing you work more efficiently. Trello is one productivity app that allows you to organize your tasks in a very clean and quick fashion.

Trello is a productivity app that allows you to list down and categorize your tasks in the form of cards. Each card has a number of options that allow you to put into extra details, such as deadlines, side notes, tags, and even comments.

The amount of customization and options that you are allowed to put into your tasks allow you to create more detailed lists of what you will be doing during the day. The best part about this app is that you will be able to share your tasks with your colleagues, which means that they can add in more details and give their insights.

A great productivity app is one that has a user-friendly interface, and allows you to focus on your tasks. Trello is a quality app that should be in your devices, as it will keep you on tabs with all of your daily tasks.

Sinium SEO

If you want an SEO app that allows you to access various tools and functions on the go, there are few apps that can match what Sinium SEO can do.

All in all, there are 53 different tools within the app, that can allow you to perform functions such as malware checking, evaluation of page authority, grammar checking, link analysis, and much more. The tools work quickly and efficiently as well, with quick loading speeds and instant results.

For the SEO professional on the go, this is an app that is a must-have. With this amount of tools at your disposal, your device can now become a portable SEO toolbox that delivers on many different aspects.

SERP Mojo

A keyword rank monitoring app, SERP Mojo allows you to monitor your website’s keywords in real time, providing you with Google, Bing, and Yahoo search rankings. All you have to do is to enter the URL, along with the keywords that you want to take a look at.

The results take only a few moments to load, and you have the option to enter more keywords, or refresh to get the new rankings.

Upon viewing the results, you can view ranking charts to track down the rankings during different periods in time. While it may be simple in design, SERP Mojo is a well-made rank monitoring app that helps keep you up to date, even when away from work.

WebRank SEO Live

Another real-time tracking app, WebRank SEO Live provides you with a quick overview on a website of your choice just by simply entering the URL.

The app tracks rankings and metrics such as Pagerank and Alexa Rankings, number of indexed pages and backlinks, and even social media interactions. Perhaps being the simplest app on this list, WebRank SEO Live nonetheless performs well to give you important metrics to your device.

Key Takeaway

While there is a wide selection of Android SEO apps available on the Google Play Store, these apps can be considered to be some of the best at what they do. Having these apps turns your mobile device into a portable SEO hub that helps you accomplish more tasks on the go.

If you have any questions about mobile SEO, or SEO in general, leave a comment below and let’s talk.

The post 6 Effective Mobile SEO Apps for Android appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Keep the Pace: Preparing for the Google Speed Update

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 09:14:03 +0000

Loading speed has become an integral part of SEO, being a factor in the overall user experience. It has been proven numerous times that fast loading speeds help users stay longer in a website, ensuring that you have steady traffic and a lower bounce rate. There are a variety of ways to lower loading times, which include using WordPress tools, along with some effective site optimization techniques that keep things fast and smooth.

Having a fast loading website helps improve your search rankings in Google, as they take in page speed as one key element. Mobile usage has also been on a steady upward trend, and emphasis on mobile-first usage is key to gaining more traffic. With that in mind, one of the major upcoming updates arriving this year is the Google Speed Update. Slated to be released in July 2018, here’s what you need to know about the update, and how to keep your website prepared for it.

What is the Google Speed Update?

As announced by Google themselves, the Google Speed Update aims to improve page loading speeds, and use it as another ranking factor in mobile searches. Page loading speed has been a desktop ranking factor since 2010, and it is about time that it has been implemented on mobile search results.

Once a niche option that is available on mobile devices, mobile websites and search results now occupy a high amount of traffic on the internet, with today’s devices becoming more sophisticated and capable of performing the same amount of functions as a personal computer. This, along with the improving internet connectivity across the world, make mobile devices the most convenient platform to access the internet.

With Google seeing the increased mobile usage in the past few years, they want to ensure that users would be able to have a good experience accessing mobile website. This led to the Speed Update, with the intent of improving mobile page loading speeds on some of the slower loading pages. While it has become highly accessible, some mobile websites still have performance issues which cause speed and usability issues.

With the Google Speed update, users would expect better performing pages, and for more SEO companies to focus on their mobile optimization efforts more keenly.

Preparing for Google Speed

With the update coming in July, there are 4 months left until it arrives. This gives you a good amount of time to be able to optimize your mobile webpages, and make sure that it performs well enough by the time loading speed becomes a ranking factor. Here are some of the most effective methods to help you optimize your mobile site for the upcoming update.

Apply AMP

Websites that use AMP have been increasing in number, largely due to the fact that it improves overall page performance, while making it more accessible to mobile users. While it might sound like a complicated process to implement it on your website, it is actually quick and simple when using the right tools.

If you are using WordPress, you can download the AMP plugin, which helps you quickly integrate it within your webpages. After doing so, you can access the website on both desktop and mobile to see the changes in viewability and loading speed. The use of AMP has been highly encouraged by everyone in the SEO industry, including our team here at SEO Hacker. If you want an effective way to optimize your site for mobile, this is the best start.

Content Accessibility Optimization

When users access your mobile website, they will expect that they would be able to access all of the content that would be present in the desktop version. There are many websites that prevent or hinder users from seeing more content on mobile, and this negatively affects their brand image. For our website, we make sure that our users would be able to access the same amount of content on both the desktop and mobile versions.

Having the same amount of content on both desktop and mobile would ensure that your users would be able to have a better experience. For our site, we made sure that our users access the same content for both versions. Restricting content on mobile puts a dent on the user experience, and optimizing your content accessibility would make the experience a good one for people who view your webpages.

Test your loading speed

There are many tools available that would be able to track your page loading speed, especially on mobile. The simplest way to do it is by using the Test My Site feature on Think with Google. All you have to do is enter your website’s URL, and wait for around a minute to see the results. The website offers a free assessment of your site, which helps you analyse what you can do to improve your site performance.

Key Takeaway

With Google taking a mobile-first approach, the Google Speed update is meant to enforce that approach. Adding another ranking factor changes things up for mobile SEO, while optimizing the user experience. With these preparation tips, you are guaranteed that you would be able to ready your website for July’s update.

If you have any questions about SEO or mobile optimization, leave a comment below and let’s talk.

The post Keep the Pace: Preparing for the Google Speed Update appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

How to Embed Forms in AMP pages and Why it’s Important

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 09:17:48 +0000

The official AMP Project page announced earlier this month that it successfully launched support for forms created in the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) HTML. The forms that you can create vary between interactive polls, e-mail caps (capture) form to even the more intricate forms like selecting colours on an online marketing product webpage.

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Page is a joint venture between Google and Twitter that aims to create fast and responsive mobile pages. What it is is essentially a stripped down HTML. It’s designed to load super fast so naturally it’s lightweight and is made by design to do so with accuracy while using the least resources (see “Bandwidth) possible. The best part about AMP, however, is that it’s open source so internet bigwigs such as Apple and Facebook are working on integrating AMP with their in-house applications.

The most convenient example for this is Facebook’s Instant Article. When people browse through their Facebook accounts using their mobile devices, you might find articles with a special lightning shaped icon that looks like this:

(amphtml.com)

Posts like that were created with Facebook’s Instant Article Resource and they are optimized to run on mobile devices. Yup, that’s what AMP basically is. It creates a “light” version of a page which allows the content to load faster while using the least amount of resources possible. AMP is already freely available to everyone and chances are, you’ve seen one or two AMP-enabled content today. Is AMP seriously that widespread now? Well, while writing this article, I came upon one of Facebook’s instant articles.

Moving forward, AMP now comes with forms and that’s a really good thing for development in mobile browsing. The AMP form extension tool is a much needed improvement because it supports both XHR form submissions as well as regular navigation. This means that the overall user-experience of filling up forms is vastly improved.

Let’s talk about some of the benefits in more detail, namely:

Having the ability to change the page when the form is “submitted” using the “on” feature. Another nifty thing about the “on” feature is that it can be utilized to modify or change the page based on whether the form was submitted and filled up successfully or with errors.
Using text that can be modified with templated response rendering, fields can now be annotated upon the submission of the form. This feature can be used to give live, contextual feedback on what field the user made an error on and how they can fix that.
Another great feature is having the ability to create and style fields created upon validation by relying on CSS pseudo-classes which is another way of providing contextual feedback in real time based on the validity of the user’s input.

The AMP Project has stated that these features, as they are initially available, can and will be expanded upon in terms of functionality and these changes will be based on user and creator feedback. The AMP Project is also seeking more ways to support validation and conditional behavior support.

What’s surprising is that The AMP Project was started barely a year ago. They have continued to make breakthroughs and changes based on user-experience which is great. Initially restricted to publishers, AMP is now a viable solution for all sorts of website owners.

So how can we start creating our own AMP pages? It’s simply, really.

Write or save this markup as an HTML(.html) file:

[bq2]

[bqc]

AMP HTML must consist of the following:

declaration defines this document to be HTML5
element is the root element of an HTML page
element contains meta information about the document
tag as the first child of their tag.
tag as the second child of their tag (this includes and loads the AMP JS library).
tag inside their tag that points to the regular HTML version of the AMP HTML document or to itself.
tag inside their tag. It’s also recommended to include initial-scale=1.
inline stylesheet (note: every AMP page can only have a single embedded stylesheet(amp.css), and there are certain selectors you’re not allowed to use.)

How to include images on your AMP HTML:

Instead of the usual tag replace it with . Example, .

How to Preview and Validate your AMP Page:

You can preview your AMP page just like how you view any other static HTML site.

The next step is to validate the AMP.

Open your favorite internet browser.
Add “#development=1” to the URL, for example,
http://localhost:8000/index.html#development=1
Open Chrome DevTools console and check for validation errors.

How to let Google know that there is an AMP page available:

Place this tag to the non-AMP page tag below the .
And place this tag to the AMP page

Note: If you only have an AMP Page, you must still add a canonical link to itself. Example, .

It’s that easy!

Unsurprisingly, AMP capable pages are now being indexed in Google Search results. What this means is that AMP capable pages are now accessible to everyone now more than ever which means that website owners can now have more exposure for their AMP content which is great for rankings and of course, user experience.

AMP is still a fairly young endeavor and I look forward to watching it grow especially now that it has moved one step forward to the future. What are your thoughts on AMP? Has it made your user-experience even better? Is it easier on you as a website owner? Let’s discuss your thoughts in the comments below.

The post How to Embed Forms in AMP pages and Why it’s Important appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

How to Optimize Your Mobile App for App Stores

Thu, 27 Aug 2015 04:55:12 +0000

I was trying to download a photo editing app when I saw how many applications were available out there. And then it made me wonder.

How do we know which one to choose?

With over 2 million mobile apps in app stores, being seen and downloaded are the real challenges that app developers are facing right now.

Yes, the competition is really high, that’s why app developers should look for ways to be on top of the list. And that’s what App Store Optimization is for.

What is App Store Optimization?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is the process of optimizing mobile applications with the aim to rank high in app store’s search results for a better chance of getting downloaded. Just like the goal of both SEO and CRO.

What’s fun with ASO, and I think more challenging, is the fact that the goal is not just to get traffic but to get actual and good number of installations.

How to Optimize Your Mobile App for App Stores?

So, to help you with optimizing your mobile applications, here are some aspects that you need to consider reviewing.

1. Keywords

Whether you’re just starting to build an app or it’s already available in app stores, having a list of target keywords is very important.

But try not to guess which keywords to target.

To improve your rankings, it’s helpful to know the actual keywords that users are searching for.

A tool like Straply can definitely guide you with that. Although still in beta, this can help you gauge keyword competition and search volume both for iOS and Google.

You may also use keyword tools like Google Adwords Keyword Planner, and Keyword Tool, which are usually used for SEO, for the reason that majority of users are still using search engines like Google and Bing to search for applications.

Note: Keyword research is important for coming up with a great title and description, but avoid keyword stuffing.

2. Title or App Name

The best bit about app publishing is that you can always change your title and keywords, meaning you can optimize it from time to time. However, it can also be a bad thing, and will only complicate things when abused.

As your app begins to be discovered, and more people start recognizing and sharing your app, changing your title may give them a hard time finding you.

The best thing to do is to get serious with your keyword research, and spend time understanding what your app is all about.

Don’t be afraid to test a few titles, and keywords, but once you see significant increase in traffic and downloads, then stick to that title.

3. Description

Description is another part that you can optimize and where you can put the best keywords which are relevant to your app’s purpose. But always remember that users are human, and the main reason why they’re checking your description is because they want to make sure that you’re exactly what they’re looking for.

The point? Do not stuff it with keywords.

4. Icon

While title and description are both very important parts of ASO, icons are without a doubt the first thing that users see, and one of the main reasons for clicking on your app.

Here are best practices when creating app icon:

Keep it simple. Don’t put too much elements with your icon. You can choose the main character (if it’s a game) or your logo (if it’s services or utility apps) for your main element.
Don’t include words. An icon is supposed to be an identifier, you shouldn’t need dry words. Always remember that an icon is a graphical representation of a word, idea, concept or operation.
Use soft color for your background, because your main element should be the highlight.

5. Screenshots

One thing that I always notice with apps’ screenshots is the usage of logo, or simple in-app shots. That’s boring!

Screenshots are meant to show what your app is all about – the actual experience.

The actual story.

If it’s a utility app, you may showcase its tools, or the key features. For example, if it’s a photo editing app, it will be great to include the exact filter, and how it looks like. If it’s a workout tool, you may show exactly how it works.

If it’s a game app, pick the most epic scenes, or the most exciting part of the game. By doing that you’re giving your potential users a sneak peek, which will help them better understand what your game is all about.

6. Competitor analysis

Competitor analysis, just like with SEO, can definitely help you get a better understanding of your competition. Analyze your competitors’ titles, descriptions, keywords, icons and screenshots.

Then ask yourself, “what’s making them rank?”

You don’t have to copy their style, you just need to know what’s keeping them from the top, so that you may apply the same strategies. You also need to get a gist of their weaknesses, so you can avoid them.

7. Category

You can choose many categories, or sub-categories, but the truth is it’s never a wise thing to do.

Choosing the most appropriate category for your app is the best way to reach your target market, and to help users to have a better sense of what your app is for. Also, choosing the right category will give you a better chance of being in the related or relevant app section for that category.

8. Reviews

While reviews are something that you can’t control, the best thing that you can do is to read users comments or experiences very carefully. Learn from these feedbacks, and improve your app.

Take time as well to reply to all the reviews, especially those with negative feedbacks.

9. Support through website or social media

As a user, I want to make sure that if I have a problem with the app I downloaded, especially if it’s a paid app, there’s a customer support that can assist me. That’s why before I download anything, I always check if there’s a website, email address or links to social accounts included.

While it doesn’t entirely affect ASO, it’s human nature to look for support page if things go wrong. Besides, having website and social media accounts can also help you not just with customer support, but a way to promote your app, and to share recent developments.

Conclusion

We’re living in a time when people are very dependent with applications, tools and softwares. But with tons of apps and tools available for us to download, the competition is getting steeper. And it’s not enough that you have a great invention – it has to be discovered!

While ASO is very new, and still being studied and tested, doing it now will surely help you in the long run.

Have you tried ASO for your mobile applications? Share us your experience by commenting below!

The post How to Optimize Your Mobile App for App Stores appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Why you Need a Mobile Site for Mobile Search

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:22:42 +0000

So I’ve been lingering around with mobile search optimization lately and found out a couple of resources stating that Google will rank websites with mobile versions higher – in mobile search. If this is the case, then we should all be grabbing mobile versions of our sites. You won’t want your competitor to outrank you just because he has a mobile website and you don’t, don’t you?

Let’s go Over the Stats, shall we?

Mobile Web is growing 8x faster than pc based web
70% of the world’s population now has a mobile phone
In 2010, mobile subscribers surpassed 5 billion
85% of children own a phone while only 73% own books at home
Since 2008 mobile data traffic is up 3000% and is expected to increase 40 fold over the next 5 years
January to march 2010, 314.7 million phones were activated
Android is growing at a rate of 886% – 160,000 android phones are being activated everyday
There are Twice as many web-enabled mobile devices today as there are internet connected PCs
Mobile Internet is growing faster than desktop internet ever did.
1,000,000 smart phones are activated every week
Google reports that mobile search volume is up 130% year-over-year
65% online search market share is eclipsed in mobile…where Google owns 95% of search.
A whopping 53% of Bing mobile queries are targeted on local. Meaning searchers in mobile devices are searching for local stuff like restaurants, tourist spots, the best bars, etc…
Ad CTRs on mobile devices were 37% more than desktop
Consumers are 51% more likely to purchase from retailers that have mobile-specific websites.
By 2014, it’s predicted that mobile Internet usage will overtake desktop Internet usage.
One half of all local searches are performed on mobile devices
Reports have shown an increase of 29% of all mobile searches from the first quarter of 2011. The same rise was measured in mobile retail search traffic that saw a whopping increase of 181%; compared to last year’s figures.

So how do you Optimize for Mobile Search?

Knowing these stats, we can conclude that mobile is going to be the next big thing. It’s not a matter of ‘IF’ anymore but a matter of ‘WHEN’. And if you’re ahead of the game, you’re almost always going to get a bigger piece of the pie. The question now is, how are you going to be able to optimize for mobile search?

There are some suggestions that Google came up with. And being the one who owns 95% of the entire mobile search market (they own android and Apple doesn’t have a search engine), they declare the factors. And this is what matters most to them:

Keep the layout simple
Design for thumbs, not mice
Prioritize content – this is always going to be the case for Google
Use uniquely mobile features
Make it easy to convert
Make sure your mobile site doesn’t limit access to just mobile devices (because search bots are not mobile devices)
Create and submit a mobile sitemap
Be sure to optimize your site’s performance to render fast results for users and search engines. Slower load speed can result to a higher bounce rate
Make sure your mobile URLs are viewable on a mobile device (Google will not deliver them in results unless they are compatible with published mobile markup standards such as XHTML Basic 1.1, XHTML MP 1.2 and WML 1.3)
Register your mobile site on Google Places, which recently unveiled a location-based recommendation engine called Hotpot

Mobile sites are treated in a different category by search engines – they fall under a ‘mobile’ category. Google has a separate index for mobile content – which is much smaller than the normal Google index. And because this mobile index is smaller, it makes it much easier to get a higher ranking in mobile. The mobile web is new and it is different – and you have to enter new grounds to capture your desired rankings in mobile search.

Mobile Site Ranking Factor

I ran an experiment recently and changed my site name to ‘Simple SEO’. If you don’t remember, it used to be ‘SEO in Simple Terms’. I did this because I was already ranking top on the keyphrase ‘SEO in Simple Terms’ while I was nowhere to be found with the keywords ‘Simple SEO’.

Me and my team built a mobile website just this December for SEO Hacker. We designed it for mobile, and optimized it too. A few weeks after, I was ranking 15th place for ‘Simple SEO’ in the regular Google search.

But what’s even cooler is that when I checked my rankings in Google mobile (which, again, owns around 95% of the entire mobile search market), I was ranking 14th. I used Opera Mobile Emulator to take the screenshot by the way (In case you were wondering).

It’s not really a big, difference (just one rank higher – LOL). But at least we can see the effects of this ‘early’ project that Google has promised. Mobile sites WILL rank higher in mobile search – it’s just a matter of WHEN.

What’s the difference between a Mobile and Regular Site?

Some smart phones and tablets do well to capture your website even without a mobile version – but many of them do so quite poorly. Regular websites are made and optimized for computer monitors which averages 1000 pixels in width. Mobile devices, however, average only around 300 pixels. You can just imagine the discrepancy in viewing a regular website from a mobile device with its limitations. You have to scroll quite a lot and zoom in and out to go through the content. If your readers don’t have much patience to endure through your regular website from their mobile phones, they will bounce – and you will lose them.

You can check out how your website would look on a mobile smart phone so that you would know how easy or frustrating it is for your mobile visitors to go and linger in your website.

Tips for Keeps: If you don’t have a Mobile Website, get one NOW!

Outright Disclaimer: SEO Hacker provides Mobile-Search-Optimized, Mobile Website for as Low as $600 – design, links, logo, Mobile SEO, integration with your regular site, and content easily included. You can contact us if you are interested.

The post Why you Need a Mobile Site for Mobile Search appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Mobile SEO Archives - SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines

How to Setup Discovery Ads (And Create One, Too!)

What are Discovery Ads?

Where Can You Find Discovery Ads?

Why Should You Use Google Discovery Ads

Its ads campaign reach is extensive

It’s visually enticing

It’s more targeted and relevant

It’s automated

Things to Take Note of Before Discovery Ads Setup

How to Setup Discovery Ads Campaign:

How to Create Discovery Campaigns:

The Most Crucial Step in Setting Up Discover Ads

Key Takeaway

The SEO Hacker Mobile Optimization Checklist

6 Effective Mobile SEO Apps for Android

SE Ranking PRO

SEO Backlinks

Trello

Sinium SEO

SERP Mojo

WebRank SEO Live

Key Takeaway

Keep the Pace: Preparing for the Google Speed Update

What is the Google Speed Update?

Preparing for Google Speed

Apply AMP

How to Embed Forms in AMP pages and Why it’s Important

Welcome to the mobile web

How to Optimize Your Mobile App for App Stores

What is App Store Optimization?

How to Optimize Your Mobile App for App Stores?

Why you Need a Mobile Site for Mobile Search