App Store Optimization (ASO)

With over 2.7 million mobile apps in the iOS App Store and 3.6 million in Google Play, getting your app discovered is of utmost importance.

One important way to ensure your app is in front of consumers is to leverage a marketing technique commonly referred to as App Store Optimization (or ASO for short).

App Store Optimization (ASO) is the process of optimizing a mobile app’s store page so that it ranks well for related keywords and converts page viewers into app users.

According to a recent analysis by AppRadar:

“A whopping 70% of mobile users utilize search to find new apps and 65% of all downloads occur directly after a search, making app store search the most popular way of finding new apps.”

If your app isn’t optimized for the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, then you are losing out on a lot of free organic downloads. These downloads happen even if you don’t spend money on ads, actively promote the app on social media or get PR.

And according to Ankin Jain, head of search and discovery for Google Play, roughly 50% of daily active users search for apps at least once a week, and over a course of a month, Google Play processes six million unique search phrases.

So what is ASO? Contrary to popular belief, ASO isn't only about picking the right keywords and categories for your app, while an important component, the App Store ranking algorithm is based on two primary factors

Text Relevance: Matches for your app’s title, keywords, and primary category

User Behavior: Downloads and the number and quality of ratings and reviews

This guide and the sections below will cover each of these important factors in depth to ensure your app is set up for success.

SEO vs. ASO

While SEO tactics are important for organic growth for a website, a mobile site should focus on ASO strategies to grow organically. There are definitive differences between each optimization strategy.

Differences in the Keyword Ranking Algorithm

While there are many similarities in how both Google and Apple process keywords for ranking purposes, there are a few key differences worthy of note.

As you can tell from the comparison matrix above, there are key differences and similarities in which app elements Google and Apple use for keyword relevance and discovery. Below we've outlined best practices for each app element as it pertains to individual app stores.

Choosing the Right Keywords

In addition to assessing the search volume on keywords, be sure to reference user reviews, competitors and other resources when considering keywords. Most importantly, choose keywords you can realistically compete on.

iOS Apple Store

• Do not repeat keywords across the title/keywords space, use misspellings, include the word “app” or use plural/singular versions of a word that you already have a singular/plural version of (i.e. do not use “recipe” if you already use the word “recipes”).

• For any keyword phrases that are important to your app, ensure that the relevant areas of your app listing include each individual word of those phrases (e.g. for “photo collage maker,” ensure that you use the words “photo,” “collage” and “maker”).

• Prioritize keywords based on search volume and the ability of your app to rank for those keywords by using an ASO tool like Mobile Action to determine keyword search volume and track keyword ranking; swap keywords that don’t work out with other keywords when submitting new builds.

• Use your keywords space as a playground to test out keywords you think are high value, and then move the words that your app gains the best rank for (target top 10, top 50 and top 100) into your app’s title.

Google Play Store

• Use HTML text formatting for sections and important words/phrases.

• Be careful about using keywords in your app’s title and short description; not only do you only have 30 and 80 characters respectively, but if you use keywords that are not highly relevant, it can backfire in rankings.

• Include both exact phrases (e.g. “anonymous messaging app”) of important keywords and the individual words that make up important phrases (e.g. “anonymous” and “messaging”) multiple times in your app listing.

• Tap into Google’s robust reporting and marketing infrastructure in a couple key ways:

• Get a breakdown of your app’s review health, including:

  • Review volume and star count over time – determine the impact of optimizing your review flow or launching an update.

  • The impact on your app’s rating of functionality (positive or negative with performance compared to your category peers) – zero in on the most crucial items to fix.

  • Words commonly used in reviews and the sentiment of those reviews (positive or negative) – determine keywords that people use to describe what they like or dislike about your app.

  • Most common keywords used in reviews – learn what “native” keywords people are using to describe your app.
  • Always have an experiment running. They are free, easy to set up and analyze, and can yield some great improvements in CVR.

Long tail keyword targeting is an important ASO strategy for either store. Using long-tail keywords is about getting the right views that are more likely to result in user downloads. Ultimately, your goal is to pick those terms where you have a realistic chance of ranking in the top results. There are good opportunities in long-tail keywords as they represent a significant number of searches – up to 80%. Since they are less competitive than most common keywords, they can allow you to edge out other apps.

Long tail keyword strategies work best when you tap into the user intent. What terms are your users most likely to search? What are they looking for? You need to understand your audiences well and the category you are competing for installs in. More specific and relevant search terms translate into higher likelihood of download since they represent a much better match to what a person was really searching for.

While user intent and relevance are the key criteria to consider when choosing long-tail keywords, you also have to consider keyword ranking difficulty and traffic volume. You’ll notice that less specific keywords tend to be more difficult to rank for, as competition is much higher for these “head” terms.

Create a Compelling Title

Creating a compelling title is particularly true for apps that haven’t built a strong brand to lean on yet — tell what the app does right away. For example, Snapchat conveys “snapping” photos and using them to “chat” with other people. Lyft and Waze give English-speaking users an idea of each app’s function — getting a lift in a car and finding the best way around traffic, respectively.

The main lesson? Be clever, but also — and maybe more importantly — be clear. When users have a sense of what your app does, you have a better chance of converting their impressions into installs.

Your heaviest traffic term should be placed in your title. Spend time researching which keyword that is, because changing your title often to include different keywords can be detrimental. As your app begins to rank higher and gain more reviews, news of your app will begin to spread by word of mouth. Changing the title can make it difficult for word to spread about your app.

Based on a test by MobileDevHQ, apps with keywords in the title ranked on average 10.3% higher than those without a keyword in the title. So, is a keyword worth placing in your title? Yes.

Create a Compelling Description

Despite the fact that there are differences in how much value Google and Apple place on app descriptions for ranking purposes, a well written and thoughtful description can lead to better conversions and app installs. You should make every effort to avoid generic descriptions and to instead highlight your app's unique value proposition. Understand your audience — this is where keyword research becomes important — and create a description that not only resonates with them but also incites them to install your app.

Google, unlike Apple, uses your app description for ranking purposes, so it's extremely important to include your target keywords in the description. Google Play allows up to 4,000 characters in the app description, so you have plenty of room to incorporate both your head terms and your long-tail keywords, but be careful not to over-optimize by "keyword stuffing" your app description, this is against Google Policy Guidelines.

The Google Play description below does a good job in hitting all of the important points mentioned above.

Notice how Box leverages "social-poof" from the very start which also incorporates an important keyword "file-syncing storage services".

The description does a good job at listing all of the important user-facing features and highlighting the app's unique value proposition.

Choose the Right Category

Categories are extremely important when it comes to your app's discoverability in the app store. When choosing a category it's important to consider relevance, or where your app naturally fits, keywords, or how users search for apps similar to yours, and competition, or how competitive a given category is.

For example, Twitter recategorized their app from "Social" to "News" because it was easier for them to compete in the less-cluttered News category and move back onto a top-ranked position.

An important difference to consider is that Apple allows you to select up to two categories per app, while Google only allows one single category to be selected.

For example IGN's app is currently listed under Entertainment in the iOS store, but it might be beneficial to add a secondary category for News.

Encourage Positive Reviews and Ratings

The number and the quality of ratings and reviews plays a very important role in App Store Optimization. Ratings and reviews influence how your app ranks in both Google Play and App Store search. There are two general approaches to encouraging positive ratings and review, 1) Proactive and 2) Reactive. We'll cover both in the sections below.

Proactive

You can solicit direct feedback from your app users by asking them to rate your app on the App Store, but don’t ask for a rating too soon — give them time until they have enjoyed a few sessions. Choose an appropriate moment in the session to ask for a rating. Look for moments when users are most likely to feel satisfaction with your app, such as when they’ve completed an action, level, or task. Similar to asking users to provide a rating after great moments in the app, you can also ask if they are enjoying the app experience. Your next prompt should reflect their answer: If a user currently likes the app, ask them to submit a review; if they’re unhappy, direct them to give feedback on ways to improve.

Reactive

One way to improve your app's rating is by directly responding to user feedback. When you respond, the reviewer is usually notified and has the option to update their review regardless of when it was written. Make sure to be concise in your response and clearly address the user's concerns. If possible, personalize the response rather than using generic or boilerplate language. If you can’t respond to every review, consider prioritizing reviews with the lowest star ratings or those mentioning technical issues with the current version of your app.

Remember that when it comes to the iOS App Store, your app's ratings and reviews will reset with every new update, but that might change in the near term if Apple decides to give developers the option to keep or wipe old ratings and reviews with each release. Regardless, when you release an update that fixes issues mentioned in older reviews, include this information in your release notes and consider replying to relevant reviews to tell these users about the fix. This can be an effective method for re-engaging previously dissatisfied users.

Graphics and Image Assets

App Icons

The very first "visual" interaction that users have with your app is your app icon. An important element from both a branding and a conversion perspective, your app icon needs to convey your app's unique value proposition and stand out at the same time.

Below we've listed a few helpful tips for designing the optimal app icon.

• Simple is best: complex icons can be very hard to read especially on smaller devices.

• Make sure it scales: one of the other benefits of keeping your icon simple is scalability. Because your app icon will show up in several places it's important it maintains its legibility and uniqueness.

• First impressions matter: because you only have 1,024-pixel canvas to work with, first impressions matter. Line up several variations of your design in a grid and glance over them.

• Check on your competitors: make sure to differentiate your app icon from your competitors, having an icon too similar to another app can cost you valuable brand awareness.

• Test: A/B testing your app icon design is the quickest way to find which design will perform best

Screenshots

While your app icon might be enough to peak user’s interest, screenshots give you the opportunity to convince the user to install the app. Screenshots give you an opportunity to show off important and cool features and give users a sense for what they can expect. Below are a few helpful specs and guidelines to consider.

• Google Play Store allows up to 8 screenshots per device type

• The iOS App Store allows up to five screenshots

• The screenshots must be JPEG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha)

• Minimum dimension: 320px

• Maximum dimension: 3840px

The screenshots don’t have to be actual screen grabs from your app, instead you can decide to be creative and tell a visual story by creating a sequence of rich images to describe the best features of your app. Check out the example below of how SoundCloud decided to utilize their screenshots.

Below are a couple of helpful tips and suggestions as they relate to screenshots.

• The first screenshot should highlight you’re apps best or most valued feature

• Provide supplemental “explainer” text below each screenshot

• Show off limited offers or any other benefits users might be interested in

• A/B test your screenshots to see which ones convert better

• Localize screenshots when appropriate

Video

Both Google Play and iOS App Store permit the use of a short video to highlight the key features of an app. This is your chance to give users a sneak peek into the in-app experience. Videos are no small investment, so make sure you take a few tips into consideration before committing to video.

Tips for Google…

• Keep your videos short (30 seconds to 2 minutes) and focus on the most compelling features first.

• If you have a device running Android 4.4 Kitkat or above, use the ABD shell command screenrecord to capture video directly from your device

You can add a promotional YouTube video to your store listing by entering a URL in the "Promo video" field. While a promo video is not required, it's highly recommended as a fun, engaging way to show your potential users the features of your app.

• Make sure to use an individual video's YouTube URL, not a YouTube playlist or channel URL.

• Don't use an age-restricted video as your app's promo video.

• Use the full YouTube video link instead of a shortened link.

• Use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

• Don't use: https://youtu.be/yourvideoid

• Some sections of the Play Store show groups of recommended games using videos. For your game to be eligible, your video trailer should be in landscape orientation.

The promo video appears in the first position of your graphic assets on the Google Play web store (play.google.com). If you're using the Play Store app, a Play button overlays the feature graphic at the top of a store listing.

Tips for iOS Apple Store…

Beginning with iOS 8, Apple allows a 30-second video to be displayed alongside an app’s screenshots in the App Store. But it’s not as simple as creating any clip you like and uploading it.

First things first: the App Store has published guidelines that you must follow in order to get your preview video published along with your app. It’s a good idea to bookmark that page as a reference, but here are a few must-meet requirements for your Apple App Store preview video:

• Video must be 15 to 30 seconds in length

• Only include on-screen capture within your app itself – you can’t use over-the-shoulder angles or fingers tapping the screen

• Don’t violate copyrights, plagiarize, or show any material you do not have the legal right to display, including music, film, or other intellectual property assets unless you have appropriate licensing rights

• Correct resolutions for your video on different devices, including specs for both portrait and landscape, can be found here

• Only one localization is accepted, so be sure your video makes sense in languages other than English if your app is available for those audiences

• You must disclose if you show features only available through in-app purchases

• Your preview video is not an ad and should not show pricing or timelines

Even more specs, like max frame rate, target bit rate, and so on, can be found in the iTunes Connect Developer Guide here.

Video Pacing and Structure

According to app agency Apptamin, who is well-known for creating compelling app videos and trailers, Pacing and Structure is very important.

• The first five seconds are critical. You want to compel the viewer to watch the next few seconds, then the next few, and so on.

• In a similar vein, be mindful of length. Currently 00:15–00:25 is the industry standard. Use those seconds wisely.

• Keep the pace brisk, but not too fast. Just enough speed to keep the viewer interested without losing them.

• Focus on the best features first. And be selective, since it may not be feasible to mention all core features in your video.

• Tell viewers what to do next. Whenever possible include a direct call to action.

Tips on Production…

• If you’re going the in-house route, keep your video simple. As tempting as it may be to use lots of effects and transitions, they may look cheap.

• The audio experience is important, but keep in mind that many viewers will have your phone on silent. Make sure that the preview video makes sense even without sound.

• Music is an important element in setting the tone. Find something that evokes the right emotion; avoid overused music.

• Since some users are watching with the sound off, use text and motion graphics to explain key points that may be covered by audio.

Fine Print…

• It should go without saying, but be sure not to violate copyrights with your images, music or words.

• Follow all app store guidelines for app preview videos.

Testing Your Creative Assets

When thinking about creative assets in the context of App Store Optimization it's important to keep in mind that you can A/B test your assets in order to improve install rates. Below we include a few tips and best practices as they related to A/B testing creative assets.

Two Types of Users

Before you start thinking about testing your creative assets you must first consider how different users interact with your app store listing. Generally users can be segmented into two distinct groups.

Decisive Users

These are "first-impression" users. They will generally decide to download an app based on the most visible elements. According to StoreMaven, 60% of users won't swipe past your first two images.

Explorers

These users will generally interact with your app store content before deciding to download your app. If you have a video, they will most likely watch it, scroll through your screenshot gallery, and interact with reviews and descriptions.

Different Views for Different Stores

When deciding on creative assets you must also consider that Google Play and Apple App Store provide completely different first-view experiences for your respective app users. For this reason, creative assets that perform well on Google may not perform as well in the App Store, or vice versa.

Google Play Store provides a much richer first-view experience. According to StoreMaven, Google Play users are 40% more likely to be of the "decisive" category.

Tips For Creative Testing Based on App Store

Google Play

• Featured graphic: This will typically be the very first image that users see. If you have a video it will sit under the 'play' button. This image should highlight the best feature of your app. Testing this image can lead to improved conversion rates.

• Video: Roughly 10% of users will drop off after every five seconds of watching a video, so keep your videos short and to the point. Testing your video creative can lead to improved conversion rates.

• Icon: Don't disregard the design of your icon when it comes to conversion optimization. Testing icons can increase app installs by 15%.

• Short Description: All users will see you're short description while only about 5% will expand and read the full description. So your short description, which consists of only 80 characters can impact your conversion rates by as much as 16%

iOS App Store

• First two screenshots: on average, only about 9% of users scroll through your full gallery, so the first two screenshots have a lot of sway when it comes to conversion rate, and by some estimates can improve your CVR by 35%

• Video: videos, when added to the app store listing, replace the first image and fundamentally change the way users typically engage with the page. You must also keep in mind that the image beneath the video must be a frame from your video, commonly referred to as the poster frame. While only 7% of users will actually watch your video, almost everyone will see the poster frame.

• Icon: by some estimates, an icon can improve conversion rates by as much as 17%, so make sure to test and optimize.

• Short description: short descriptions matter because most people will see them while only 2% will expand to read more. So make these descriptions count. By some estimates they can improve conversions by as much as 17%

Market Expansion

What is market expansion? It's a process in which you "localize" your app experience, content, creative assets, and marketing tactics in order to expand into a new market or location. You must not only consider language differences but also varying cultural norms and traditions. So what are the processes and steps involved in successfully localizing your app and expanding into a new market? Below we outline a few guiding principles.

Translation

Localization starts with translating important marketing copy and text into a local dialect. The iOS App Store provides support for multiple languages depending on the country, so double check the list of indexed languages in the App Store. For example, Japan's iOS Store indexes for both English and Japanese

Tip: If you use multiple languages to localize your app, you can add 100 characters of keywords for each language. This gives you an opportunity to vary the keywords you target, don't just simply repeat the same ones in different languages.

Translate key text to improve discoverability

So which text should you actually spend time translating? Start by translating the title, description, and keywords so users can more easily discover your app. Next you can translate text within your app and any marketing assets you may have.

Localize Assets - app icons, screenshots, video

Another important area to pay attention to when it comes to localization are all non-text elements. Think about ways you can customize your screenshots, videos and icons in order to appeal to cultural norms. You can even go as far as localizing your creative by utilizing local imagery and scenery in order to appeal to specific regions.

Research Keywords in Local Markets

But before you can begin to localize your app experience you must start by doing keyword research for your target market. Make sure to understand the competitive landscape and which categories are more or less touch to compete in. Research keywords and categories your competitors are using in local markets.