Law firm mobile apps help law firms move up in the search rankings in two different ways. Both ways are critical for making it to the top of Google and other search engines.
First, if someone conducts a search that brings up lots of mobile app listings, Google could display your app with other related apps at the top of the search results.
Android devices display “app packs” for related searches right under the PPC ads. Users can scroll through the apps and find one to download. If they click on one, they’ll be redirected to Google Play.
iOS devices go about this a bit differently, but you can still rank with your app. When users conduct a search that’s correlated to applications, iOS devices display a drop-down menu with app recommendations. Some speculate that eventually iOS devices will follow the lead of Android devices and display app packs as well.
Your app can make it into these listings as long as you create keyword-optimized titles and gather lots of high-quality reviews. The keywords will trigger the app to show up in the search results, and the reviews will show Google that your app is worthy of being included.
That’s just the first way law firm mobile apps improve search rankings. The second way is possibly even more important. Google now considers high-quality apps as a positive ranking factor regarding mobile search. Google hasn’t provided much insight into what this means, but marketers believe it means that links between the website and the application will improve the site’s rankings when people conduct mobile searches. The key is to use deep links to specific screens inside the app. You need to associate pages on your website to the screens on the app.
These links look like any other link on the web, but when people click on them, they get to choose between opening a web page or opening the app.
You’ve likely come across deep links countless times when conducting online searches. The New York Times provides a perfect example of this. It publishes deep links on a daily basis. If you click on one of the links, you get the option of opening it in a web page or with an application.