SEO Tips For Promoting Chrome Extensions

There are many SaaS companies that rely on extensions. For these types of companies, their product adoption rates are directly proportional to the number of downloads that their extensions receive in the chrome webstore.

Before an extension can be downloaded, it must first be found in a webstore that is vast and still expanding. As of December 2022,? there were approximately 123,000 extensions spread across just 11 categories. This means that the webstore competition is stiff and growing especially for competitive categories like productivity.

This means that SaaS marketers must know the unique ranking factors that are responsible for the visibility of one chrome extension over another?

How Extensions Are Discovered

There are three major ways by which extensions get discovered in the Chrome Web Store. These are via

(1) The Homepage and Listed Categories

(2) Webstore Searches

(3) Related Listings on Individual Extension Pages

Webstore Ranking Factors & How To Improve The Visibility Of Your Extension

The chrome webstore aggregates many quality signals into its ranking algorithm. The weighting ascribed to each signal is unclear but here are the signals & factors that affect the rankings.?

1) The Title And Description Of The Extension: The keywords present in the title of the extension are perhaps the strongest ranking & engagement factor. For example, if you are searching for a chrome extension for LinkedIn, which of these two should rank higher and generate more clicks per impression.

The presence of keywords in the descriptions are also important but do not weigh as heavily as the keywords in the extension’s? title.

For keywords in the descriptions to work well, they should be LSI’s (Latent semantic indexes), names of popular apps that are related to the product, long tails and any other phrase that is remotely related to the service offered through the extension.?

SEO Tip: Use Keywords + Superlatives in the title, use Keywords + Features + Benefits in the descriptions. In descriptions, you can? Increase the number of impressions using rich vocabulary to rank on the long tail variants of the main keyword.

2) The Number Of Chrome Users Who Have The Extension: Between the two extensions below, which should rank higher, receive more trust and get more installations per page view??

The answer is obvious and demonstrates the role of usage rates into the ranking of one extension over another in the same category

3) The Extension's Abuse Reports & The Download vs Uninstallation Frequency: This is a UX signal that Google uses to determine which set of extensions (within a category) best serve the users interests.?

When the uninstall rates are higher than the category average, the rankings will be negatively affected and vice versa. When there is a large number of abuse reports, the extension may be delisted entirely.

SEO Tip: Collect feedback when your extension is uninstalled so that the user experience issues can be identified and promptly resolved.

Increase the installation frequency by using visually salient logos and promotional images to improve the noticeability. This will enhance the CTR and subliminal messaging that users encounter when they see the extension.

3) The Ratings And Sentiments Expressed In Extension Reviews: This is similar to what's obtainable in the chrome webstore. Reviews and ratings are explicit feedback signals which help to rank extensions based on the user experience that's delivered to the end user. All things being equal, an extension with great reviews will be ranked higher than an extension with Good, Average or Poor reviews. Reviews and ratings also affect CTR and the installation probability,?

SEO Tip:? Try engaging with a reputable service provider for legit reviews. You can try Reviewhub.

4) The Language & Update History Of the Extension: Extensions? published in the searchers language will rank higher than those published in a different language. This is why the languages are listed in the “Additional information” section of the extensions page.

In a similar vein, extensions that are frequently updated will rank higher than extensions that have not been updated in years. In terms of user preferences, an extension without an update in 5 years will be deemed as risky? which will cause less installations per page view.

SEO Tip: Ensure that the language aligns with the attributes of the ideal customer. An interesting tip is to add every language available in the Chrome Web Store in your application package.

Also ensure that the extensions are updated in a timely manner.?

5) The Extension’s Category As Selected By the Publisher: This is an indirect ranking factor because it affects the relevance of the extension to the users that encounter it. This will in turn influence the installation rates as well as the overlap between user expectation vs user experience i.e. A mismatch between an extension and its category can affect its uninstall rates, number of abuse reports as well as the sentiments expressed in its reviews and ratings.

The extension category also affects the number and relevance of the impressions gotten from the “Related” section of the page

Conclusion

SEO for the chrome webstore is extremely important for a number of SaaS company’s. If yours is one of them, then you’ll need to follow the principles of the webstore as outlined in this article. Goodluck