A BrightEdger

M Posted 10 years 10 months ago

t 9 min read

2015 is off to a tremendous start with massive innovations delivered to our 1,200+ customers around the globe. As we continue to ship new technology at breakneck pace, I thought that it would be useful to explain how we select what we build. Oftentimes technology companies build and leave people without the context of what they are trying to do and why it matters to customers and the market as a whole.

At BrightEdge we are passionate about using our technology and innovations to empower our community and elevate their impact. This driving passion led us to develop some of our most innovative capabilities this year, including Story Builder, Anomaly Detection, Landing Page Optimizer, Content Optimizer and more. All of this technology is designed for one single reason – to help elevate our customers’ business impact and to elevate their position within their organization.

We know that our business is only as successful as we make our customers, so all of this technology is designed to do just that. Let me explain the goal behind each of the capabilities that we’ve delivered this year:

Story Builder–just like it says, this innovation is designed to help our customers tell their story and demonstrate their business impact across their organization. It’s so much more than dashboards and charts, it’s about measuring and proving the results that you deliver every day. And because Story Builder is uniquely able to show actual business metrics like revenue, conversions and traffic via Page Reporting, you won’t be sharing guestimates and bad data. Our goal is that every one of our 20,000+ users take advantage of Story Builder to tell their story and elevate their position in their organization.

Anomaly Detection–this breakthrough capability is designed to save you time and do the work for you. At BrightEdge, we think there are too many marketing technology companies creating too many screens that merely automate processes by forcing marketers to click through wizards all day long. Given that we have actual business metrics via Page Reporting and best in class data we realized that we had a unique opportunity to empower marketers and save them time by having our technology do the work for you.

Content Optimizer–Two years ago we delivered content optimizer because we and our partner Adobe saw a huge gap–most content that brands were creating wasn’t generating any business impact. We delivered Content Optimizer with Adobe to bridge the gap between the content authoring teams and the optimization teams to generate more performance from content. Today we have over 50 household-name companies that are elevating their impact by using this innovative technology. So that’s why we built it all, now let’s take a look as our CEO, Jim Yu, explains the game-changing technology BrightEdge has delivered so far this year.

In our mission to elevate our community, we recently added several new capabilities that will help to make marketers’ business impact better understood and appreciated.

We have built on our groundbreaking StoryBuilder technology that allows you to share your search and content story and elevate your profile in the business. Increased flexibility means customized graphing, year-over-year comparison and even more metrics, including Share of Voice and Weighted Rank. StoryBuilder is now easier to use and more powerful with new templates, filtering capabilities and seasonality comparisons. View Video

Real-time custom notifications allow you to celebrate success and detect anomalies to elevate your profile as you deliver business results. With Anomaly Detection, you can now be notified of relative competitive performance with Share of Voice rules that will trigger notifications when there is a significant shift relative to the competition. Monitoring your performance just got easier with the ability to be notified when there is a significant shift in business performance, so you can respond promptly. View Video

With Data Cube, understanding the impact of your mobile results is easier than ever. Elevate your organization’s understanding of mobile performance with full support for Google US Smartphone, including mobile Data Cube Score and Mobile-Friendly metrics. Tracking your progress before and after the April 21 mobile algorithm update is now at your fingertips along with summary metrics, rankings and other key insights. View Video

At BrightEdge, our most important value is customer success. This year has been all about elevating our customers’ success for both the business and themselves. We have accelerated the pace of our technology innovations, and we are just getting started. Stay tuned for more! And one more thing… join the BrightEdge community at Share15, the industry-leading event by digital marketers for digital marketers. Find out more about becoming involved in the BrightEdge community and share peer-to-peer insights with many of the world’s leading brands.

ssharma@brightedge.com

M Posted 10 years 10 months ago

t 9 min read

SEO is constantly evolving, and most recently, Google has shifted their algorithm to have a heavier focus on mobile-friendliness. One of the new elements that is part of this shift is mobile app indexing. Let’s take a closer look at what mobile app indexing is, what it means for SEO and how to index a mobile application.

What Is Mobile App Indexing?

Mobile App Indexing is an SEO tool which allows businesses to index their app content, so that it can be found when people place search engine queries on Google from mobile devices. The tool was created by Google and is meant to reward businesses that index their apps with higher search ranking results. This is part of the shift to accommodate the now 60% of U.S. web users and growing amount of users around the world who access the web through mobile devices instead of PCs.

If a user with your app installed searches for a relevant query using their phone, Google can show a link directly to the content within your app. If the user doesn’t yet have your Android app installed, Google can show an install button for it.

Why Mobile App Indexing Is Needed

App indexing is being implemented to create a more integrated mobile experience online. For businesses, it allows for more sales and opportunities because it will direct customers into their apps and can send them directly to purchase pages. It helps mobile web browsers to access content specifically designed for mobile, which is seamless to navigate on their smartphone or tablet.

Take for example a person who searches for a dinner recipe on their phone. They may have forgotten they downloaded an app months ago for healthy recipes. Google can now provide a recipe which is within the app they already have in their results or may prompt the searcher to install a new app to access a recipe.

Meet Mobile Demands

As alluded to mobile app indexing will make web browsing more convenient for users and more profitable for businesses who design applications accordingly. Mobile users will benefit from the results that include a whole new segment of information from applications, which are made specifically for mobile.

Stay Competitive in Search Rankings

Having applications which link to your website can have a seriously positive impact on your search rankings. Google considers mobile app indexing a positive sign of engaging customers. The content provided is considered unique from the website and of incremental value. As a result both the website and app are seen as more valuable.

More and more businesses will start to put their focus on application development simply to stay relevant in the search ranking results and to ensure that they stay ahead of the competition.

Chances that your competition is already using applications to get their mobile ranking up is quite high, so it is advised to stay on top of this trend in order to be a valid competitor.

Drive More Engagement

Many businesses have struggled to get users deep into their applications. They may get a download or a user, but many features and pages go unseen. Now, valuable content can be indexed and crawled by search engines, which will then direct users to relevant information throughout the app. This is called deep linking, and will increase the level of engagement users have within applications.

Additionally, just by having apps coming up in search results, they will receive more interactions organically.

Seamless User Experience

User experience is also increased for mobile users, since they will not see any annoying splash screens, advertisements, prompts or login screens. Users now get immediate access to the content they are after, which is made for mobile.

How to Do Mobile App Indexing?

In order to ensure that your application is properly indexed, you need to:

1. Enable app indexing in your mobile application
2. Add deep links on your website
3. Next step is to connect your app to your website
4. Then verify and make sure the app is set up to work with Google Play services

It is essential to prepare website content and verify your setup to ensure that everything is in working order. Here is an example of the Movoto app indexed.

Enable App Indexing in Your Mobile App

To set up your Android app indexing, you need to add intent filters to the application manifest. You will also have to restrict access to certain content you do not want to include in your index. Your Android developers are the best resources to get this step done.

Add Deep Link Support in Your Website

Entering deep links is quite easy. To do so, you can use the “<link>” element in the head section of a page. Another way to enter deep links is using the <xhtml:link> element on the sitemap or use the schema.org for ViewAction.

I personally find adding <link> element inside <head> section to be an easier option for our site Movoto.com. Here’s an example code for one of our detailed property pages:

<link rel="alternate" href=" android-app://com.movoto.movoto/http/www.movoto.com/app/opendpp/sacramento-ca/8105-aztec-way-sacramento-ca-95843-100_81467116/" />

Add the App Indexing API

Before the app indexing can commence, you will also have to add the app indexing API. To do so, update your project by ensuring that the project includes Google Play Services. Once this is done, you will have to update the project configuration as well.

Verify Your Apps Official Website

Next, you will need to verify your website before the application indexing can be executed correctly. To verify your website, please do the following:

1. Sign in on your Google Play Developer Console
2. Click on all applications
3. Select your application
4. Click on services & APIs
5. Click on Verify website and enter the website address
6. Return to Google Webmaster Tools
7. Click on all messages
8. Click on approve
9. Review all the information before approving

Testing Mobile App Indexing

Google provides a cool deep link testing tool which lets you add deep link URIs in a "test box" to generate a QR code that you scan using an Android barcode scanner app. This should open a browser page with a link. When you click on the link on your phone, it should open the deep link you have entered in the text box.

Check for Errors in Webmaster Tools (now called Search Console)

Checking for errors in the Webmaster Tools/Search Console is also a necessity, since any mistake in the setup can have direct consequences for your search ranking. Be sure to always double-check the Search Console before taking advantage of mobile app indexing.

Mobile app indexing is quite useful for many businesses, having the potential to seriously boost sales. When it comes to Google algorithms and the direction they are heading, it is all about providing meaningful content that truly helps customers. Mobile applications are another way to provide information people want in an easily accessible way. By taking advantage of the opportunity to index your mobile app, you are widening your audience and exposure, while potentially providing mobile customers with your information that they are looking for. This can help improve traffic, increase sales and deepen customer engagement.