Mobile marketing Tips: Can Backlinks help with App store optimization?

A simple answer is No.

Yellowheadinc tested the backlinking strategy in greater detail on their blog and I too tested it on my apps but we both did not see any significant change. Let’s first discuss the backlinking strategy of Yellowheadinc.



The company tested five different apps some with low quality thousands of backlinks, some with high-quality paid backlinks, some with natural backlinks and some with no backlinks at all and here were the results.

Note: The company tested the apps for two weeks. The apps were on same niche so it was easy to analyze them. Below is a case study by that company.

App with thousands of low quality backlinks:

The company bought these low quality back links from GSA search engine ranker software. All the links were of low quality and there wasn't any significant increase in app installs of downloads. 

As you can see, a simple optimization of the app with proper keywords could have done the same.

Thousands of Low Quality Backlinks through Fiverr

Okay there was a little change in the app rankings. The app did get on 60-80 rank of the app store for that keyword through fiverr low quality backlinks. But, these were also possible for an app that has stayed at least three months on an app store. I can say this with surety because I have tested my apps on Google Play.

Expensive links from Black hat World for App Marketing

This they used high quality backlinks from Black hat world. Of course there is a huge spike in the start so it looks like that the app did get affected by the backlink strategy but in the next two months it didn't improved in rankings. What this means is that app rankings didn't have any significant improvement by backlinks. 

Natural Backlinks for App Marketing

Next they tested natural backlinks for mobile app marketing. As you can see the results weren't that different.

The apps didn't rank with the help of backlinks so it is safe to say that the strategy doesn't work.

Therefore it is safe to assume that backlinks DO NOT have any affect on app rankings on Google play store or Apple app store.

However,
Backlinks do affect App Installs

A natural back link lets other people know that an app is credible and provides some kind of value to the user. This can let the other user try that mobile app as well. This increases the app installs organically.

So what does it mean?

It means app store marketing techniques still revolve around app store optimization through proper keywords, app reviews and ratings, app installs, app bounce rate (how many people uninstalled the app after installing it) and app engagement.