Leverage Google Webmaster Tools to Track and Improve Your Mobile App Performance in SERP

Only having a mobile app for your business is not sufficient. Its awareness among the users is the second most important task to get worth of your mobile app. There are various ways and channels you can market and promote your mobile app through. The latest one is through search engines which you can include in your other marketing activities. Google has already started indexing Apps as like websites to display them in SERP results.

So it’s very important for a webmaster to know the status of your mobile app to rectify the existing issue and to build future strategy.

Webmaster Tools for Tracking APP Performance

Google is not providing only app indexing but also offers features in Google webmaster tools to track and monitor app performance. Following task can be done through webmaster tools:

#1.

Gives your app developer access to webmaster tools:

As a webmaster you can provide access of webmaster tools to your app developers so that they can access this tool directly to find key information to fix app-related issues. With the help of this tool developers can track the following things:

• Errors in indexed pages within apps.

• Weekly clicks and impressions from app deep link via Google search.

• States on your sitemap (if that’s how you app deep).

Any verified site owner can add a new user. Pick restricted or full permissions, depending on the level of access you’d like to give:

#2.

Track how your app is performing in search results:

The key performance indicator of any app is user engagement with it. Webmaster tools enables webmaster/developers to track performance for your app deep link:

• You can find clicks and impressions within the message centre in your webmaster tool.

• You can now track how much traffic app deep links drive to your app using referrer information.

#3.

Crawling Status of key app resources:

Through the Crawl Error report section within webmaster tool you can check the status of key app resources if they are getting properly crawled or not.

If crawler is unable to access any resources then it shows ‘mismatch’ error. For example, if any resources is blocked then crawler unable to render that resource and shows crowing error. Through this section you can track all issues related to crawling.

#4.

Tracking Android app error:

Despite ‘Content mismatch’ and ‘Intent URI not supported’ error alerts, there other three types of error that can be tracked through webmaster tools. These are:

• APK not found: When crawler is unable to find the package corresponding to the app.

• No first-click free: the link to your app does not lead directly to the content, but requires login to access.

• Back button violation: after following the link to your app, the back button did not return to search results.

We hope the above information is helpful to know about App indexing (Appiness) and implementation of webmaster tools to track and improve your mobile app performance in search engine results page.

(This post is brought to you by an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business)

Local Search & Mobile: Emerging Trends Small Business Should Know About

Local searches on mobile phone continue to grow day by day. People are using their smartphones to search local things and also look for services like doctors, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and much more. This article will let the small business owner know why their business should be locally optimized for mobile. This article includes the following:

• Search trends on internet
• Local search Trends
• Search trends on local mobile search

Internet Search Trends

• 74% of Internet users perform local searches.
• 66% of American's use online local search, like Google local search to locate local businesses.
• More than 100 million people a month use Google Maps from mobile phones to find business information.

Local Search Trends

• 61% of local searches result in purchases.
• 82% of local searches follow up offline via an in-store visit, phone call or purchase.
• As much as 43% of Google Search traffic has local content!
• Consumer said they would buy in store versus store when they are: close to store. (30%), could get the product quickly (35%), and saw better pricing (31%).

Local Search Trends on Mobile

• 54% of Americans have substituted the internet and local search for phone books.
• Microsoft has claimed that 53% of mobile searches on Bing are local in nature.
• Mobile local searches for local information are expected to grow from 27.8% in 2008 to 35.1% by 2013.
• Nearly one in two shoppers for local products and services are using their smartphones.
• Over 50% of local searches for businesses happen on mobile devices. With 79% of smartphones users and 81% of tablet users reporting that they use their device for local searches.
• 50% of consumers who visit a store within a day of their local search use their smartphone. 34% of consumers who visit a store within a day of their local search use their computer and tablet.
• Consumer behaviour before visiting store and while in store: 1 in 3 searches smartphone occur right before consumer visit a store. 15% of in store activities involve conducting smart phone searches about a product or for price comparison.
• 4 in 5 consumers conduct local searches on search engines. 88% users use their mobile device and 88% users use computer and tablet to perform this searches.
• Consumers use their smartphone for local search to find business information like business hours (54%), direction to local store (53), local store address (50%). Consumers use their computer/tablet to find information like availability of product at local store (45%), business hours (42%), local store address (38%).
• Over 60% of smartphone owner access local content via app.
• 60% mobile consumers expect business to be within distance.
• 1 out of 3 smartphone users search specifically for contact info like phone number and driving direction.
• 63% people who do local searches typically buy within 1 hour. 66% mobile searches conducted in a store are used to help making purchasing decision.

People have now become more tech savvy and prefer to use their smartphones to find and search various things on internet. Gone are those days when people used to visit their nearest local store to buy something. Time has taken a big leap forward. Now people use internet to compare price and read reviews on their smartphone, tablet, laptop and mobile before going to buy anything. The above data shows that local searches have now gone mobile and use of smartphone is continuously growing for local search as it helps users to make better decision in buying things online or from local store. Now it has become essential for small business owners to optimise their business locally for mobile competitive advantage.

(This post is brought to you by an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business)

Ref:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140403171335-26818297-local-internet-marketing-statistics
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2343577/Google-Local-Searches-Lead-50-of-Mobile-Users-to-Visit-Stores-Study
http://searchengineland.com/report-mobile-traffic-to-local-sites-growing-faster-than-total-internet-now-at-27-percent-158139
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2265547/46-of-Searchers-Now-Use-Mobile-Exclusively-to-Research-Study

Native or Cross Platform Mobile App: How to Decide Which One is Right for Your Business

If you are in a business and still not developed mobile application for your business then it is time to go for that. As mobile tech has changed the way of communication, consumers are shifting from desktop to mobile. Mobile internet users are continuously growing. A research shows that 91% of USA adult population owns a cell phone and 61% of them smartphone users. It has been predicted that by the end of this year 1 billion smartphones will be sold which is double than the PC estimated to sell.

The above data shows that mobile tech is emerging as a new platform to boost your business. May be now you have turned up your mind and agreed to build mobile application but not sure which type of mobile app will be right for your business as mobile market is flooded with varied platforms.

Let us discuss here which type of mobile app you should go for, native app or cross platform.

Native App

Native mobile app is developed to be used on a particular platform like iOS or Android. It can run on a single platform. The key benefits of native mobile app are better user experience and reliability. To decide if native mobile app will be right for you just check the traffic status of your website. If your mobile traffic is limited to a specific mobile platform then you need to develop native app specifically for that platform.

Cross platform mobile app

Cross platform is basically developed to be used on all major mobile platforms like iOS, Android, Blackberry etc. Cross platform offers many benefits like greater reach, uniform look and feel, low development cost, easy marketing and more.

To decide if you need to go for cross platform app or not check your audience demographic on mobile devices. If business audiences come through all major mobile platforms then you need to develop cross mobile app. This write-up is limited to how to decide what type of mobile app you should go for. This does not describe about mobile website. This is helpful for you in case you are going to build mobile app. But before going to build mobile app you should check if your business needs mobile app or mobile website.

7 Amazing New Features in iOS 8 You Need to Know

The release of Apple’s new operating system has unleashed a bevy of new features and updates in an ongoing effort to improving user experience. Subtle changes can have a major impact on functionality, and Apple’s improvements have aimed to do just that. Available as a free upgrade to iPhone’s 4s and newer, here’s some of what you can expect!

-Photos

Apple’s photos now have a comprehensive searching method that allows you to search by time, location, date or album. You can even use a smart search function by entering keywords that pertain to the photo you are looking for.

Advanced editing features allow greater photo manipulation, as you can choose to manually adjust settings like brightness or shadowing.

-Typing

It’s been long overdue really. iPhone has not messed with the functionality of its keyboard since pretty much its conception. They have finally stepped it up a notch with the introduction of typing predictions that are so advanced it can even differentiate between the contacts you are messaging and adjust its predictions accordingly.

-Messaging

Now, a simple swipe or tap to your phone can easily send image, audio and video files. It is also possible to mute and exit group conversations, as well as quickly send locator maps to an acquaintance you are meeting. No more dreaded repetition by having to reenter an address into a search engine!

-Health Application

One of the proud revelations at this year’s Apple reveal, Home Kit will be available on iPhone’s 5s or newer! Installed motion processors get to use the new Apple Health App, which logs physical activity.

-Apple Pay

Another innovative reveal this year was Apple’s mobile payment system, called Apple Pay. An upgrade to iOS 8 system means you can start using this convenient wireless payment method on the iPhone 6 or 6 plus.

-Sharing

In a generous move by Apple, the new Family Sharing Feature allows a user to share pretty much any of their iTunes purchases, like books or movies with users they have approved.

-iCloud Drive

Similar to Google Drive or Dropbox, the iCloud Drive allows you to browse, edit and share files across different Apple Devices. Mac users beware however! You’ll have to wait until the OS X Yosemite operating system update is released later this year.

With such a diverse range of upgrades it’s kind of hard to choose our favorite (Although a speedier typing experience thanks to predictions is a definite contender). What are you most looking forward to, and why?

This post originally appeared at  here

(Omnie Solutions is an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services for leading mobile platforms like iOS, Android, and Rim to global business. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn).

The Future of Mobile Application Development [Infographic]

Mobile apps are expected to grow exponentially in such areas as healthcare, mobile commerce, and object recognition, and with Gartner predicting a large-scale change in development practices, the need for a workforce of mobile application developers is here. The UAB Collat School of Business crafted a beautifully designed graphic outlining the impressive statistics surrounding the Future of Mobile Application Development.

University of Alabama at Birmingham Online