Narender Yadav / July 30, 2015
There is no argument that App’s are really big (big) business. With over 1.6 million Apps on Google Play and 1.5 million apps on Apple App Store, as of July 2015, getting your app discovered is one of the most challenging issue app publishers’ faces today. This is where App Store Optimization (ASO) comes into the rescue. With the ASO techniques implemented one can increase the chance of his/her App being discovered by searchers.
Simply put ASO is the process of optimizing mobile apps so that they can rank higher in search results of an app store. The higher your app ranks in an app store’s search results, the more visible it is to potential downloaders. That increased visibility is then directly related to more number of downloads as well as more traffic to your app’s page in any app store.
App optimization starts with the submission of an app in any of the store. Here we have compiled a list of the best practices to get your app to achieve top app store rankings with App Store Optimization (ASO).
1 – App Name / App Title & Bundle Display Name – Keep it short, but it should still describe what your App does and if possible include a term or phrase related to the keyword. The Accident Diagram app is a perfect example.
2 – Description – The App description should not be less than 700 characters, though there is the limit of up to 4000 characters. Create the description as wisely as possible so that it can engage the reader and provide the necessary information at the same time have an acceptable presence of your targeted keywords. Keep in mind description is the only way to ‘market’ your app to searchers.
3 – Keywords – This is the important part of ASO as well as App submission specifically for Apple app store. To improve your app store rankings include most relevant phrases should be included in this field. But do evaluate your keyword for popularity and competition before selecting.
4 – App Category – Choose the most relevant category, even if your App is technically relevant to more than one category, choose the one which has the higher relevancy share.
5 – App Logo/Icon – Keep your focus on creating a logo that can represent your brand with simplicity, professionally and uncluttered. Overall make it memorable and identifiable.
6 – App Screenshots – Create quality screenshot, providing useful information on how the app works or what are the most highlighted features. A minimum of 1 screenshot is needed for submission. These screenshots will serve as 1st impressions of an App when downloaded. So grab all the opportunity of motivating the visitor to downloader through the screenshots.
7 – App Video – Create an interactive video about the App including all the features that you want to tell/inform the users and submit it on all the major video channels to spread a word about your app.
8 – App Reviews & Downloads – Apps with higher ratings has the higher probability of download. So try to get as many reviews as possible through bloggers, young students on social networks, the relevant crowd over forums and app review websites.
9 – App Website – Get a basic website developed and optimize it to rank higher in search engines for relevant keywords. For optimization, you can take help from available SEO audit tools to identify areas of focus. On the website don’t forget to place a link to the app store URL of your app for download.
To receive the benefits of ASO, one has to invest the substantial amount of time and efforts continuously. And if you provide this, you’ll have a consistent source for pulling traffic to your app and increase downloads. Being discovered among millions of App’s is one of the most difficult challenges for mobile apps publishers but with ASO you can effectively resolve this.
