The goal of ASO is to get more views and downloads for your app by
improving keyword rankings and, in general, making the app’s description
and other aspects more appealing.
The Title: If the title of your app is engaging, you’ll see up to a 15%
increase in downloads just from this one important aspect.
The Visuals: Screenshots are also a huge part of getting the downloads
you want. If they show your app’s core features, you can see up to a 30%
increase in downloads.
The Video: As another visual aid, adding video to your app’s page can
lead to a 35% increase in downloads.In the United States, if you want to
get into one of the top 100 spots for all categories in the App Store,
you’d need 15,000 downloads every day. To get into the top 50, you’d
need almost 27,000 downloads per day. To reach the top ten, you’d need
to be getting more than 80,000 downloads every day.
Like SEO, optimizing your app will take time and on-going analysis and
adaption. Tracking is very important to know where you stand and whether
or not what you’re doing is working.
These tools allow you to not only track your own ranking but also the
rankings of your competitors so that you can get a better idea of what
they’re doing and how you can get their spot.
#2 Choose Your Keywords
Keyword research plays a big role in helping you decide what keywords to target.
When choosing your keywords, some general best practices align with those of SEO:
Choose relevant keywords
Don’t use plural phrases or words that you used in singular form
Don’t use the names of competitors
Don’t use keywords with the word “app” in them.
#3 Write Compelling Copy
In the iOS App Store, you actually have 100 characters to list the
specific keywords that you want to target. Make the most of that space.
The Google Play Store does not give you that field, but you should
incorporate your keywords in other ways.
In the title, for example, you should try to incorporate at least one
keyword that you found during your research. Make sure the title still
fits your brand name, but try to utilize at least one non-branded
keyword.
When it comes to the description, both stores give you 4,000 characters
to work with. Utilize the first 250 characters to incorporate as many
keywords as possible. That’s what people are going to see without
clicking “Read More” (users clicking that button is very uncommon on
iOS, in particular).
#4 Optimize for Everything
Some final things to help you get your app ranked range from the simple,
like not using URLs in your description, to the more obvious yet
underutilized. For instance, you should always use as many screenshots
as allowed in your listing.
