When you notice that your app gave a jump due to ASO, it could be a keywords thing

The goal of any search optimization either in App Store or Google Market is pushing the app to the visibility level. It means that when your target audience is searching something, your app comes in the top search of the list. Because of that, your app is likely to be downloaded first.

The best visibility is gained by the first 4 positions, so if your app landed the fifth, it means that the visibility is very low. Every other position lower steals ca. 40-50% of hits. In other words, if some app is occupying the first place it means that it gets 100 hits, for example. The second place will be view only 50-60 times, the third – 25-30, the fourth 12-15 and the fifth doesn’t get almost anything. Of course, there are some topics believed to be highly motivational, like studying a foreign language. The hits for such lists of apps goes viewed through 10-15th positions because the users are very sensitive about the quality of the app and are eager to do more views.

How App Store Optimization works?

1. The amount of downloads in some particular country.

For example, if you are located in Germany and in your country one app (let’s call is Alpha) was downloaded 1,000 times and the other one (let it be Beta) 1,200, it means that the next time someone will be searching for similar app, the Beta one will be ranked higher than the Alpha. In the past, when App Store and Google Play originated this parameter was one of the most valued by a search engine, but now the game is changing.

2. The amount of downloads counted is linked to some specific keywords

This was a really cool thing to implement because now some start up natured apps could compete with the apps developed by world-known corporations. Here, the marketing is playing a key role, namely conversion rate. For example, if you have a nice screenshots attached and the conversion of view-download is higher than the one your rivals have, you’ll be moving up. When this kind of rate was introduced for the first time, there were many successful campaigns but now it’s not that easy. Plus, if your marketing background is not ideal (screenshots are of bad quality, not responsive design and so on) your campaign won’t give significant results. In a very short period of time the app will fall down again.

3. App rating

This parameter was introduced into life half a year ago and it’s gaining much weight, at least when we are talking about App Store Optimization. So, if you have less than 4 stars rating, your app will be losing its positions. At the same time if you promote your apps with the help of fraud ratings and reviews, you may get into big trouble and even receive a warning from Apple that they are thinking of closing your developer’s account. Probably, they are building up the black list of the users rating other apps frequently and leaving comments, so they don’t bother themselves twice before erasing anything that comes from such users. According to my observations,Google Play is more accurate and successive in ‘hunting’ such users, they simply delete everything coming from such accounts.

4. Retention

This parameter is not clear and settled up yet, at least for the developers’ side. They still don’t know how all that regulation works. But what is known for sure is that Google Play is already putting more weight to the apps that are actually installed to the users’ phones and their activity is tracked. App Store team is still making the first steps into that direction.

App names rules and how to use them

1. Make sure the keywords are given: 100 characters divided by comas, with no spaces.

2. The title of the app: 256 characters and the title is rated by ASO higher than keywords.

3. The developer’s name. The weight of this word combination is less than the keywords and frankly speaking doesn’t bring a big change to ASO work generally.

4. IAP title. These words are ca. 5 times lower ranked than the keywords, but putting some efforts into thinking through the right names for them is actually a good idea.