SEO for Apps: The Web Side of Being Found

SEO means being found on Google and Bing, not inside the App Store

SEO, short for search engine optimization, is the work of helping search engines such as Google and Bing find your pages, understand them and show them to people who search. For an app maker it is the web side of being found. Its sibling is ASO, App Store optimization, which covers App Store search and your product page. Our ASO guide handles that half; this one is about everything outside the store.

Google describes Search in three stages. Crawlers download pages they find on the web, the index stores what those pages say, and results are served from that index when someone searches. Two facts from Google’s own documentation matter most to a small app:

• Pages are found through links. Google says it finds most new pages by following a link from a page it already knows, and also from sitemaps you submit. A site nobody links to is hard to find.
• There is no paid shortcut. Google says it does not accept payment to crawl a site more often or to rank it higher.

AI assistants read the web through crawlers and search indexes; our GEO guide covers each one.

Most top-ranked apps name a website on their store page

Every App Store listing can link to the maker’s website. App Store Connect asks for two web addresses: a support URL, which Apple marks as required, and a marketing URL, which Apple describes as the website where people get more information about the app.

We checked how often the App Store listings behind ranked AppTierList list entries name a website. We used the developer website Apple’s catalog returns, or the seller URL from Apple’s lookup when that is empty, and counted an app once for each list it ranks in.

• S tier: 90.4% name a website.
• A tier: 86.1%.
• B tier: 85.5%.
• C tier: 81.6%.
• D tier: 72.3%.
• F tier: 66.6%.

The quality of the address differs too. Among S-tier entries, 88.1% point to a domain of their own. Among F-tier entries, only 58.8% do; the others have no website at all, or they link a social profile, a free hosted page (a Google Site, a GitHub Pages or Firebase address, a Blogspot blog) or the App Store itself.

Read this as a pattern, not a cause. Teams that keep a proper website also tend to keep their apps updated and their listings complete, and the tier comes from a score that rests mostly on public App Store data: ratings, search rank and the age of the current version among them. How we rank lists every part. Some of the biggest apps link only a support page and still sit at the top. What the numbers do say is that a missing or makeshift website is far more common near the bottom of a list than near the top.

Your website is the second thing AI and search engines weigh

In what we see, three places decide whether a search engine or an AI assistant can describe your app well, in this order of importance:

1. The App Store page. It exists for every app and is widely linked, so it matters most. Fix its opening lines before anything else.
2. Your own website. It confirms what the store page says and answers what it cannot: who builds the app, what sets it apart from its rivals, what each use looks like.
3. Links to your website from sites such as AppTierList, so that your site stands out instead of sitting unread.

A small site can do its part well. Google’s starter guide gives the basics, and they fit an app site neatly:

• One page per app, with a title that is unique to the page, clear and accurate. Use the same app name as in the store.
• A short meta description for each page that sums up its main points.
• Plain words for what the app does, written for a person, not stuffed with keywords. Google says it does not use the keywords meta tag, and that length alone does not matter for ranking.
• A crawlable App Store link, a normal HTML link, so crawlers can connect your site to your listing.
• Search Console. Google’s tool shows which queries bring impressions and clicks, and how your pages are crawled and indexed. Submit a sitemap there too.

Then go back to App Store Connect and set the marketing URL to that app page, so the store and the site point at each other.

Links from category lists help a small site get found

Google says it uses links both to find new pages to crawl and as a signal of how relevant a page is. It also says other sites linking to you is something that happens naturally over time. For a solo maker, the question is where honest links come from.

The best ones come from pages that rank the apps of one job side by side, with yours among its rivals. Such a page shows search engines and assistants the job your app does and the company it keeps, and it hands crawlers a route to a small domain they would otherwise seldom reach. Our directories guide explains why category context beats a bare listing, and our guide to promoting your app covers press, communities and the rest.

Two rules keep this clean:

• Do not buy links. Google’s spam policies count buying or selling links for ranking, trading a product for a link, excessive link swaps and low-quality directory links as link spam.
• Know the link types. Google asks sites to mark paid links with rel=sponsored, user content such as comments with rel=ugc, and rel=nofollow when neither fits. A regular link that the site wants Google to follow needs no rel attribute at all.

AppTierList is one of those category sites. Its order is computed, never sold, and adding an app is free. Being listed places your app in the comparison, beside the apps people weigh it against.

Claim your page, then connect it to your site

Three steps make your AppTierList page and your website work together:

1. Claim the page by tapping Claim on your app, or submit it by email. It is free.
2. Fill in your website address and your own words, a summary that matches your store page. Both go public with the Verified mark.
3. Share the page: link it from your website’s press or about section, your newsletter and your social posts.

After that, check Search Console once a month. Note which queries start to show your site, and give the most promising ones a page of their own.