This Is An Apps’ World. Or Is It?

With over 1.43 million apps available in Google Play, 1.21 million in App Store and 293k in Amazon (according to appfigures report), we are only one tap away from a smooth mobile browsing and interaction experience. With the three app stores growing by over 50% in 2014, Google announcement of penalising mobile-friendly sites that push app installs might come as a shock to many. Not all app installs are equal though. Read on to learn what you need to know about Google’s new rules.

Why Oh Why?!

In line with its philosophy where ‘great isn’t good enough’, Google engineers work hard day in day out to make sure that we have smooth fast uninterrupted search experience that will help us instantly get the information we are looking for. No matter whether we search on a desktop computer, tablet, mobile or a wearable device. With more Google searches taking place on mobile rather than desktop, it’s only natural that Google started penalising websites that are not mobile-friendly. Penalising forced app installs is the next steps which means that after 1 November websites using “interstitials” will no longer be considered mobile-friendly.

So What Exactly Are You Penalised For?

Your website is in trouble if you are using “interstitials”, or ads that interrupt user mobile search experience by blocking most of the content and getting one to download the site’s app instead. Sites that use mobile-friendly ways to promote app downloads are safe (phew!).

See an example of how not to push your app download (two pictures on the left) vs what the right way to promote your app is (two pictures on the right) below:

What Should You Do To Make Google hAPPy?

If you want to keep promoting your app in mobile search results, make sure you comply with Google requirements.

• Check this guidance on how Google helps users find your app in Google search results;
• Run Google mobile-friendly test that will analyze a URL and tell you if the page has a mobile-friendly design or not and guide you through the items that need fixing: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/;
• Check your Mobile Usability report in Search Console to see the number of pages across your site that have interstitials issue;
• Use mobile-friendly app download ways supported by browsers (such as Safari’s Smart Banners and Chrome’s Native App Install Banners).

Liked this article? See what I have to say on the topic of active happy life in my Start Up Your Happiness blog (you can download my app here).

The article first appeared on Medium: https://medium.com/@innavation/this-is-an-apps-world-or-is-it-aac14ffa629f 

Image source: Google