The 7 Secrets of App Store Optimization (ASO)
More than 2,500 new apps are released every single day, adding to the total availability of 6.5 million apps across the top 5 App Stores. This phenomenal growth has made app discovery a very difficult task. That is where ASO (App Store Optimization) comes and it plays a very important role in the success of each and every app.
What is ASO?
App Store Optimization (ASO) is an ongoing process where the visibility of an app is enhanced and improved, to increase its discoverability and ranking. The final goal of ASO is to drive more downloads. The higher the app rank in the App Store, the greater are its chance of being found and downloaded.
For many years SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been used for optimizing websites for improving the websites search engine rankings. However, as we are fast moving towards a more mobile world, ASO has become equally important. A symbiotic relationship between ASO and SEO is becoming more important by the day.
The top 7 secrets for attaining the best ASO for your app are:
Title:
This is the name of the app which will appear in all the app stores. Try keeping it as simple as possible. It’s better to use your brand name as the App title, if you are a well-known brand and have visibility in the market. Ideally the length of the name should not exceed 23 characters. Google play allows the title to be up to 30 characters.
Description:
The app description needs to be simple and clear, it must prove why someone should download your app in conjunction with its functionality. Only 2 to 5 % of the users actually expand the description and read. Hence the first line of description is most important, and it will determine whether a user downloads the app or not. It is also important that the description is kept up to date, adding the new features to the description whenever required.
Category:
Choosing the category means under which head the users will search for an app. The App should be found under a head where you believe it fits naturally.
The App Store offer a primary and secondary category. Google Play has only one category choice having 33 categories available under it.
Icons:
The app icon appears next to the app title in the App Store. The icon is supposed to be very small, hence it is important to keep it simple, scalable, recognizable and easy to recall.
Localization and Keywords:
Localizing an app can help you gain a lot. By adding a native language version to your app, it will see a huge surge in the download volume. Along with the language, Keywords also play an extremely important role in the App Store search system. The keyword section is limited to 100 characters, making it extremely critical to use those characters wisely. For example don’t use spaces and commas.
Research your keywords well as the keyword strategy for mobile can be different from the web. You may require to initiate a separate keyword strategy especifically for mobile
Screenshots:
Screenshots are very important, along with the app ratings it is one of the first things a user will study. Screenshot provide the opportunity to tell users why they should download your app. One of the best ways to use screenshots strategically is to create an infographic.
Video:
The App Store and Google Play have different set of rules of engagement when it comes to using video. The App Store allows a 30 second video which is known as an App Preview. This video cannot be an advertisement and should exhibit the value your app will offer to the user. To increase the number of clicks to your video, it would be a great idea to include descriptive text, as most users do not watch videos with sound.
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