With the adaption of mobile phones and emergence of app economy, every business is building mobile applications. Be it financial application like Bank of America, Paypal or educational applications like Khan Academy, every web application has a mobile app now. In fact lot of new businesses are taking mobile first approach, where they prefer to launch services on mobile platforms first. With such stiff competition, app stores are flooded with various applications. How do you reach to million of users in 2019? The quick answer is ASO that helps your application stand out from the others and get more exposure.
What is ASO?
ASO, short for App Store Optimisation, helps drive more traffic to a mobile application. It attracts visitors that search for relevant keywords and influence them to download the application. ASO requires proper keyword research that is relevant to application, competitor analysis and expected return on investment. It also requires better understanding of the potential customers in terms of their demographics and psychographics. Better the understanding, more effective will be the ASO. ASO has following key benefit.
- It’s still the most cost effective way to acquire users
- It helps in acquiring highly relevant users
- It helps in improving store conversion, which may be beneficial for paid digital marketing as well.
We know that ASO was the main technique to get downloads for apple and android stores. However it became less relevant in summers of 2015 for Apple and June 2018 for Google app store. Both stores re-adjusted their matrices and gave more weightage to matrices like long term retentions.
Is ASO still relevant?
I would state, it’s more important than it was before. More and more developers are interested in ranking higher on keywords than ranking higher on charts. Lot of companies are now using ASO and paid marketing in conjunction to achieve better results. As the market become more competitive, there is need for enhanced visibility for keywords through paid user acquisition.
Does ASO work for both iOS & Android?
Apple and Google App stores are leading app stores with roughly accounting for 28.7 billion downloads in Q1 2019. Both major app stores, provide opportunity for ASO, however techniques used are slightly different.
Who are ASO Experts?
ASO experts are the heroes of today’s digital app store marketing. They help us in marketing app and attract relevant users. They are usually part of larger mobile growth hacking team, and focus on placing application higher on keywords and listing in relevant applications. With the swell growing mobile app store markets, its’ recommended to hire a team for mobile marketing, who can help grow the application consumer base.
Ingredients of Effective ASO
Effective ingredients of App Store optimisation are listed below
Application name
Choose a name that aligns with the purpose and key features of your app. Make it short and relevant. Must research and pick name that contains relevant yet keywords that are high in demand and low in competition. Though Apple and Google doesn’t share the search queries publicly, however you can identify keywords by using tools like SensorTower & AppAnnie.
Description
Research your market and make a description that catches the attention of the algorithms and users. Keep it precise, relevant and ensure effective keyword density.
Icon
A catchy icon really helps in enhancing downloads for your application. Always run experiment and try few variations to figure out the one that works best. Google app store, allows you to run A/B tests for icons and we recommend that you should continue running experiments to find more effectiveness.
Video and promotional images
Invest time on making promotional video and graphics. Your promotional media should clearly indicate application features, and quality of your promotional media helps customers evaluate quality of your product. This has to be done very effectively.
Keywords
Keywords are the main ingredients for ASO. Apple provides ability to provide words upto 100 characters and google picks up keywords from description and comments. A proper keyword research is usually most important part of ASO.
Localization
ASO becomes complex when we implement locaization, i.e. changing language and promotional media for each language or marekt. Its highyl recommended to localize your application for target audience and perform ASO activities for each target market.
Keyword Research
Since keywords are most important ingredients of ASO, we must understand how to pick keywords and use them effectively. While app stores do not publish their search queries, there are various tools that help us with keyword analysis. You can use google keyword planner, App Annie, Search Man, Sensor tower, AppTweak, Mobile action and most importantly, you should keep an eye on the competitor’s app. Look up to their keywords and use them smartly to rank above. Customer reviews can also help with the research of keywords.
Conclusion
ASO is not going anywhere for the next few years. So, if you want to grab the attention of potential clients or want to market your brand, hire the in-house team of ASO experts. Remember, it demands, time and constant efforts. Do not think that one time of efforts of the week will be enough, daily analysis and weekly search of keywords and making constant changes in key elements of the app will keep you at the top of the app store.
