The SEO Move Most Ecommerce Stores Don't Realise They're Missing
If you're a Shopify or WooCommerce store owner, you've probably spent money on SEO. Backlinks from blogger outreach, guest posts, PR mentions, directory submissions. Most cost $100–500 each and come from domains with a fraction of the authority you actually want.
Meanwhile, there are two backlinks with the highest possible domain authority on the internet that you can earn by doing one thing: publishing a mobile app.
- Apple App Store (apps.apple.com) — Domain Rating ~96, Domain Authority 92+
- Google Play Store (play.google.com) — Domain Rating 100, Domain Authority 100
There are fewer than 200 websites on the entire internet that score this high. Wikipedia, NYTimes, Forbes, government domains — and these two app stores.
Why These Two Backlinks Are Different
Most SEO professionals will tell you the Apple App Store and Google Play Store links to your store are technically nofollow — which means they don't pass "link juice" in the classic PageRank sense. That's true. But it's also a misunderstanding of how modern SEO actually works.
In 2026, Google's ranking model weights:
- Brand entity signals — does your brand exist outside your own website?
- Trust signals — do major platforms link to you?
- Topical authority — does the surrounding context (app description, screenshots, category) reinforce your category?
- Traffic and engagement — do real users discover and click through?
- Click-through patterns — do users searching your brand also engage with these listings?
App Store and Play Store listings hit every one of these signals. The "nofollow" technicality misses the strategic reality: these listings make your brand a known entity in Google's knowledge graph.
The Trust Half — Often Bigger Than the SEO
Forget rankings for a moment. The bigger benefit is conversion lift on your existing traffic.
When a customer lands on your Shopify or WooCommerce store and sees:
- "Download our app on the App Store" with the official Apple badge
- "Get it on Google Play" with the official Google badge
- An app store rating (e.g. 4.7 stars from real reviews)
…their perception of your store changes instantly. You stop being "another Shopify store" and become a brand with an app. That subtle shift lifts conversion by 5–15% in our customer data — without any other change to the store.
Why it works:
- App store presence signals investment, longevity, and a real team
- Star ratings on Apple/Google are trusted by default — they can't be faked the way customer reviews on a store can
- Mobile users recognise the badges as trust marks even before clicking
- Press, PR, and influencers take stores with apps more seriously
What Each App Store Listing Actually Gives You
Beyond the backlink:
Apple App Store listing
- Title with your brand name (indexed by search)
- Subtitle (more brand-keyword real estate)
- Long-form app description (SEO content on a DR 96 domain)
- Up to 6 screenshots with on-image text (visible in App Store search)
- Promotional text that can be updated weekly
- App Preview video (autoplays in search results)
- Apple App Store search exposure for relevant keywords
- Featured placement possibilities (curated categories)
Google Play Store listing
- Title + short description + long description (full SEO content)
- Up to 8 screenshots with optional captions
- Feature graphic + promo video
- Category indexing (Shopping, Lifestyle, etc.)
- Play Store search exposure
- Editor's Choice and category featuring opportunities
Both listings get indexed by Google web search too — so a query like "[your brand] app" surfaces both as additional sitelinks alongside your own domain.
A Third Effect: App Store SEO (ASO)
App store listings have their own search ecosystem — App Store Optimization (ASO). When customers search "shoe store app" or "skincare shopping app" in their phone's app store, your app can rank for those queries.
- Apple App Store: ~1.7 billion devices searching monthly
- Google Play Store: ~3 billion devices searching monthly
If your listing is optimised (title, subtitle, keywords field, screenshots, ratings), you can pick up organic installs from category searches without paying a cent in ad spend. For a store doing $50k/month, even a few hundred organic installs translate to thousands in marginal revenue.
We covered detailed ASO tactics in Publish Ecommerce App to App Store & Google Play.
The Compounding Effect
Here's the chain that makes this so valuable:
- You publish a mobile app → instant DR 96 + DR 100 listings
- App store badges on your store → 5–15% conversion lift on existing traffic
- App store ASO → organic installs from category searches
- Installs → push notifications → 3–4x retention vs web-only customers
- More installs → higher ratings → more discoverability → more installs
- Brand entity strengthens → Google's knowledge graph recognises you → web SEO benefits
Each layer compounds the next. This is why every serious DTC brand — Allbirds, Glossier, Gymshark, Lenskart — publishes an app even though their web presence is strong.
What You Don't Get From PWAs
A common question: "Can I get the same benefit from a PWA?" No. Progressive Web Apps don't get listed on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. You get the web technology, but you miss:
- App Store + Play Store backlinks
- ASO traffic and organic installs
- Reliable push notifications on iOS
- The trust signal of "available on the App Store"
We compared the two in Native App vs PWA — Real Case Study Data.
How to Actually Get These Backlinks
The path from "Shopify/WooCommerce store" to "live on both app stores" used to require an iOS developer ($60–120/hr), an Android developer ($50–100/hr), 8–16 weeks of build time, and ongoing maintenance for OS updates. Total: $40k–150k.
Today, app builders like BrewmyApp handle the entire pipeline:
- Build a true React Native app from your Shopify/WooCommerce catalog
- Apple Developer Account + Google Play Console setup
- App Store listings written, optimised, and submitted
- App Store review process managed end-to-end
- Both stores live in 5–10 business days
- Unlimited push notifications, no per-transaction fees
For most Shopify/WooCommerce stores, this is the lowest-effort, highest-leverage move you can make in 2026: two of the most authoritative backlinks on the internet plus the entire mobile retention engine that comes with them.
Get your store on the App Store + Play Store free | See how to publish to both stores
The Conversion Math
For a hypothetical Shopify store doing $50k/month:
- Current conversion rate: 2.5%, AOV $50, 1,000 orders/month
- +10% conversion lift from trust badges and app-store presence: 1,100 orders/month
- Marginal revenue: +$5,000/month
- Plus: organic installs from ASO, push retention, repeat purchase rate climbing from 18% to 30%
For most stores, the return on building an app pays for itself within 30–60 days from the conversion lift alone — before counting any of the push, retention, or backlink benefits.
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