I’ve been away on a holiday and haven’t given my Android App Development Journey much thought or consideration as this was a trip home and I wanted to enjoy all of the great things Australia has to offer like the best coffee in the world and Kmart! (seriously, they’ve upped their game!)
I last left things with a website I had hastily setup using a free Bootstrap theme from Creative Tim. It’s very basic and showcases the core features of the app (without screenshots), though admittedly, the app is so small, there isn’t a lot to write about – for now. Of course being the SEO that I am, I ensured that the site was left alone completely optimised while I spend my time developing the app. My experience in SEO has taught me that it’s better to launch a basic online presence so you can play catch up until you’re ready. If you’re in a space where timing is critical then this approach ensures you hit the ground running and can build a comfortable lead over your competitors. You will need to make sure you have enough information and even if you have mockups or screenshots from a prototype, those will be good enough to give people a feel for what’s to come next.
In my case, the app isn’t entirely unique and search results are currently dominated with apps from Google Play and App Store. Of course this means I have to make sure I bring my search marketing A game to Google and the 2 major app marketplaces – no easy feat but not impossible either.
Since the #1 keyword I am targeting is simply “unit pricing app”, I decided to check my rankings across a few core markets, viz.
Australia: #20
New Zealand: #11
Google.com: #15
UAE: #12
UK: #12
South Africa: #13
Canada: #15
Hong Kong: #12
The key factors to ranking would include: EMD (exact match domain), keyword density and keyword usage in page title and H tags.
50% of traffic is organic at the moment whilst the rest is direct or from referrals (though this is mostly spam – the bane of our current Analytics existence!). It does remind me that I need to filter out internal traffic and also clean out the referral spam.
It also tells me that my rankings are great (considering the minimal effort) and my app can expect to be in demand. I simply need to get it to market and focus on app store optimisation since the top 5 results mostly include direct links to apps within app marketplaces.
There is scope to aim for different keywords, such as “price per piece” or “unit price comparison” which will help improve exposure for the app.
I do need to add a newsletter section to notify people of the launch of my app which should really be moved up in the schedule as there’s evidently demand for this sort of app. It would also give me a chance to reach out to get feedback once launched. I don’t think an app of this size and with this feature-set is worth a beta launch with beta testers.
As much as I’m optimistic, I’m also realistic about demand – and my goals right now are to get this app developed and launched with even more effort in promoting it. Since I don’t have plans to run ads within the app (for a cleaner experience), this is all about self fulfillment, not chasing dollars.
So far, as part of my early marketing review, I can see that things are progressing well. Now to build on this momentum and get closer to launch day!
