Google says live testing of Instant Apps has started, promising to increase search conversion with a richer user experience
“Software companies are the medium through which investors give money to PR and advertising companies,” said Marv Goldschmidt, vice president of marketing at Lotus Development, a long time ago.
His advice holds true today. The biggest problem mobile software developers have is getting their apps found, downloaded and installed. It isn’t creating great apps.
Marketing campaigns boosting new-user download of an app are very expensive—so expensive that the leadership team at bookmarking app maker Pocket spent a week sequestered with designer impresario Jake Knapp focusing on the user experience to decrease early uninstalls, thus retaining more users per install without increasing marketing spend.
Developers adapting their apps to meet the Instant App specification could benefit with two bites at the SEO apple. Knowing how Instant Apps work will help explain the SEO angle.
Companies choose to build mobile apps instead of less costly mobile website because the user experience is better. They trade off the mobile websites search advantages for better user experience. App content can be made searchable, but this is still new and whether this will produce the same search ranking as a mobile website is still an open question because Instant Apps are new.
How Android Instant Apps work
Instant Apps are Android apps that run virtually in Google’s data centers. Developers have to redesign their apps to run virtually. The two biggest changes are breaking the app into 4MB modules and changing the way the app navigates between modules to use app links. Instant Apps work only with Android 6.0 and above, but that is a small issue because Google Search can identify devices running earlier versions and not include Instant Apps in the search results.
Instant Apps can run on users’ phones without installing the app, a big cost savings because each download costs between $2 and $7 in marketing spend. This leverages the company’s existing SEO activities, skills and budgets. And because the Instant App has a superior user experience compared to the mobile web, the conversion rate should be greater.
For example, a user searching for something—perhaps a flight—will see a link in the search results from a travel company’s Instant App. When the link is selected, he or she engages in an app user experience without having the app installed on the phone. If the user is authenticated with the travel company’s website or mobile website, they can be authenticated into the Instant App and complete the transaction.
The app developer has two bites at the SEO apple. Marketing spend drives app downloads and engagement as usual. And search intent exposes Instant Apps in search results, leveraging the SEO web marketing campaign. There could even be a third bite because the Instant App dialog can ask the user to download the app from Google Play.
Instant Apps, announced last May at Google I/O, has reached early first release with a handful of companies, including BuzzFeed, Periscope, Viki and Wish, according to the Verge. Presumably, the live testing is limited so that Google’s Android engineers can work closely with a few companies’ development teams and use cases to test the Instant App features against customer requirements and iterate with improvements and fixes prior to general release later this year.
