Have you launched your app in the marketplace?
Kudos!!
Are you sure that you have developed an awesome app which is bound to be a superstar amongst the targeted user community?
Wait to think again, building an outstanding app alone is not enough. Much more work is still to be done to make your app discoverable and generate revenues in the major app stores.
With an increasingly saturating app industry, users are flooded with a large number of apps. Both app creation and purchasing are rapidly growing, making it essential to stand out and make your app discoverable in an ocean of apps.
In this exponentially rising app market, being noticed is the challenge and ASO is the solution.
What is ASO?
ASO (App Store Optimization) is the process of increasing the visibility and conversion rates of a mobile app in an app store. It includes placing your app at a higher rank in an app store’s search results and top charts rankings.
ASO is to the mobile apps what SEO is to websites, thus it is sometimes referred to as mobile app SEO or mobile SEO.
ASO plays a crucial role in making your app a great success. It helps in an easy discovery, more downloads, and increased usage frequency.
As per an Apple’s study, 65% app downloads directly come from a search on the App Store. Whether you are a tech giant or an emerging startup, your app marketing strategy needs to be centered on ASO.
Simply said, ASO is crucial for an app’s success.
ASO mainly facilitates the following aspects:
- Increased visibility in search rankings
- Increased visibility in top charts rankings
- Increased organic downloads
- Enhanced revenue
- More app traffic
- Lead the competitors
Few tips are to be kept in mind before starting the app store optimization.
Let’s start.
1. Research about your users and competition
Users are the ones to download your app, serving them what they want and keeping them happy is the key to a higher ranking app. Think yourself as a customer and discover what questions they might ask. What features they would like, ease of use, a flow of information, incentives, and other user requirements. Understanding your customers gives you a clear picture of what they demand.
At the same time, it is equally important to be aware of your competition. It is the most effective marketing strategy. You must learn from the leaders. Search what strategy are they following, what keywords are used by them to attract traffic, what right things are they doing.
Your marketing strategy should take this understanding into consideration to deliver an awesome and outstanding app.
2. Choose appropriate app name/title
For your users to remember you, your app name should be simple, relevant and unique at the same time. Avoid using generic terms or a name similar to an already existing app. The character length is limited, so it is essential to wisely use the characters. An attractive title leads to more page views and downloads.
3. Maximize the use of right keywords
Never neglect keywords. Use keyword research tools to find out keywords. Think of what your audience would type to search an app like yours.
Always use highly popular, reasonable, and relevant keyword. Carefully chosen keywords make your app easily visible in the app stores and highly impact your app’s ranking.
Keeping the app store’s set limit, carefully choose keywords, avoiding duplicate and plural words. Also, don’t use word ‘app’ or name of categories. Stay away from irrelevant, objectionable and unauthorized words at all cost. These are the major reasons for app store rejections.
While keywords are highly recommended to provide strength to your app, don’t stuff them unnecessarily.
4. Design a catchy icon
Show off a memorable and relevant icon. It is the first thing which visually interacts with your users and should be designed thoughtfully. Icon of your app encourages visitors to download your app, so it should effortlessly reveal the purpose of your app.
Design a good-looking and polished icon, avoiding text, ambiguity, or dull colors to increase conversion and engagement.
5. Leverage screenshot and video
Convey the feel of your app’s user-experience effectively. Highlight your app’s high points using screenshots and video.
Focus on various features in every single screenshot. The number of screenshots is limited, so use them in the best possible way to provide value to your app. The video should be short, informative and fun to watch.
6. Searchable description
Write a keyword-rich and appealing description to increase traffic and downloads of your app. Your description should be sensible, informative, and engaging mentioning all the functionalities of your app. Use only necessary keywords so as to attract potential customers. Over usage of keywords in the description also leads to a fall in rankings.
The first sentence of your app’s description carries more weight than the rest of it as it can be read by the users without clicking on ‘read more’. Thus, it should be inviting and impressive. Mention if you have any other app, press coverage, blogs or other social proofs. This will increase trust and reliability.
7. Boost downloads
Downloads are extremely important for a rise in app ranking. Irrespective of your niche, there are numerous apps and huge competition. Just adding unique app features and smart keywords are not enough, you must get downloads to attract traffic.
You can utilize social networks, emails, and content marketing to boost organic downloads. Increased downloads improve ranking, which further attracts more downloads, and this cycle goes on.
8. Follow Reviews and rating
It is human nature to be convinced by reviews and feedbacks. More positive reviews of your app influence more users to download your app. This, in turn, increases your app’s downloads. You should keep your users happy and focus on fresh reviews. Current reviews assist in 6.9 times more downloads than all-time reviews (Insipia).
A summary rating in your app signifies your liking amongst the customers. Try to maintain high rating by providing excellent services to your users. Always follow up with your customers, provide them timely response and solutions. You have a chance to improve your rating with every new update. This can be done by addressing all the issues or concerns in your previous app version.
9. Select the right category
Choosing the right category is important to lay your app in the right place. Choose the relevant category that best describes your app’s features and functionalities. Always focus on the primary features over secondary features while choosing a category.
An app in a wrong category can prove to be a great loss as users will never be able to discover you while browsing by category or setting search filters.
10. Localize your app
Don’t limit your app’s success by neglecting other potential customers (say, non-English speakers). Increase your reach and widen your app market by translating your app into various other languages. Reach global audience by providing them the content in their spoken languages.
You can use low-cost translation and localization services. While translating, keep in mind to translate every mentioned text (in title, description, audio, and video). This results in a high ranking of your app in localized areas as well.
11. Update your app regularly
Make sure to update your apps frequently. As per a study, a direct correlation is observed between high updating frequency and higher rankings.
Your apps should be updated in compliance with the respective app store policies. Update your apps to improve user-experience and remove any glitches. Keep your users well-informed about the updated or new features.
Encourage them to share reviews and provide feedback.
Stick to these rules to achieve heights in your app business.
Simply said, App store optimization is an ongoing process that needs to be regularly optimized, monitored, and tracked. ASO demands time, effort, and dedicated resources over a period of time. This will highly increase organic downloads and impact your app’s overall success.
App store optimization plays a key role in making the most out of your app. If you are not using ASO, you are missing a potential marketing strategy to be discovered.