SEO tips for Chrome Web Store

Many years ago, when SEO still worked well, it was not difficult to let your website rank in Google. There was a good ratio between people with internet access and the number of websites. There were fewer websites then there are today so it was very easy to get many visitors. These days there are so many websites compared to the number of visitors that its hard to even get a few pageviews. So SEO for a regular website has become pretty hard due to competition. However SEO still works greatly in the Chrome Web Store.

You can compare the Chrome Web Store with Internet. On the Internet you have a website and in the Chrome Web Store you have an extension. The Chrome Web Store is like mini Internet on its own with many visitors and not (yet) that many extensions. The ratio between people on the Chrome Web Store and the number is extensions is (still) very good. And because it's Google, they probably uses a similar approach to rank extensions as they do with websites. This is why SEO for the Chrome Web Store works great. There are a few elements that you can use for Chrome Web Store SEO.

  • Title of the Extension (manifest)
  • Description of the extension (manifest)
  • Detailed description (developers dashboard)

Using the right keywords

In order to reach the targeted audience you need to 'speak their language'. You have to figure out what keywords or phrases they would use to find an extension like yours. A great tool to find keywords that people are actually searching for is the KeywordPlanner from Google AdWords. Next to suggestions they also show you the search volume for each keyword. Also take a look good look at the titles and descriptions of competing extensions. Take note of what keywords they are using and how many installation they have. Try to come up with one or two keywords that you really want to focus on.

Title and Description of the extension

Every Chrome extension has a JSON-formatted manifest file, called 'manifest.json'. This file contains information about the extension such as the name, version and permissions. The file also contains the title and description of the extension. Most people find extensions by using the search functionality in the Chrome Web Store. The title and description used in your extension will appear in the search results. The title has a huge impact on your ranking in the Chrome Web Store.

Make sure you have a short title, not longer then 36 characters, containing the keywords from the previous paragraph. Keeping the title that short ensures that it stays visible in the Chrome Web Store popup.

The description should be also be short, not longer then 85 characters. It should describe exactly what your extension does using the keywords that you also used in the title. The impact of the keywords in the description is less then the title but still important for ranking. Look at descriptions from competitors to get some inspiration.

Detailed description

The title and description from the extensions have the highest impact for rankings. The detailed description that you can submit on the developers dashboard of the Chrome Web Store for your extension has less impact. In contrast to the title and description the detailed description only appears in the popup of your extension in the Chrome Web Store.

The detailed description is a great place to explain in more details what your extension does using long-tail keywords. A long-tail keyword is a keyword phrase that contains two or three words to target niche audiences. Most people don't like to read so try to use bulletpoints and short paragrahs explaining you extenstion in a bit more details.

Good luck optimizing your extension and description and hopefully you reach your targeted audience.