Learn how to use ASO to improve your app’s visibility

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a set of techniques to achieve better positions and more visibility in mobile app stores such as Google Play (Android) and the App Store (iOS). The goal is to place an app at the top of store search results, so that it has more chances of being installed by users. In fact, the concept is similar to SEO, which works for search engines like Google.

The strategy is an SEO trend that is growing and becoming more and more important, as the number of cellphone usage is currently high and the expectation is that it will grow even more. With ASO, you can have positive results with little work. The Google Play and App Store algorithm is still basic, so with easy optimizations it is already possible to achieve good results.

Companies that invest in ASO save money by not having to spend on ads to attract customers. Furthermore, users who are won this way tend to be of better quality because they are acquired naturally, downloading the app because they need to and not because they were convinced by an ad.

My experience with ASO

I started working on ASO when I was at RecargaPay, which is the largest digital wallet in Brazil. In 2018 it reached 10 million downloads in the Android app store and currently has over 17 million. Here on the site, I have an article in English talking more about experiences I had with the RecargaPay application, when I was working there. In addition, I worked on this strategy in other companies, such as Mercado Livre.

From my experience, I’ve learned that it takes a lot of work to make the strategy work. I would say that the key to success is having a good interaction between the marketing, technology and SEO teams. Also, have a well-designed flow of experiments.

Within the Google Play platform, they already give you the ability to experiment very easily. What’s different about the App Store is that to make changes within the store, you need to make app updates.

Google Play is much easier in this regard, to tinker with tools and experiment. In addition, here in Latin America, it is the most used, most people use Android phones, while a smaller portion uses iOS and a small percentage, other systems. iOS users, despite being few, compared to Android have their importance and should be taken into account, because they spend a lot on in-app purchases.

What is needed to make the ASO?

Before starting the optimization, it is essential to carry out a research, to find out who are the app users and what are the relevant keywords in your segment. It is also important to keep in mind that ASO results are not immediate, they only come with time. First, the searches must start to take effect and from there the ranking will improve.

It is necessary to invest and take care of each part of the process:

Title

Choosing an easy, objective title that is related to the app’s features is critical. That way, it will be found more quickly.

Description and appearance

Having a good description and quality images is important for users to choose to download your app.

Category and Keywords

Putting the app in the right category is ideal so that users can easily find it. Keyword usage in the title is also a good strategy, as ranking generally improves with keyword usage in the title.

Assessments

People often consider an app’s rating before deciding if it’s worth downloading. Investing in quality content so you don’t disappoint users and encourage them to rate your app is what you must do to succeed in ranking.

ASO Monitoring

This is one of the most important steps of the ASO, because it is useless to apply the techniques without measuring the results. Marketers need to know if they are making progress with their strategies. However, measuring for organic projects is not always an easy task.

One of the worst mistakes within the ASO is prioritizing data with low relevance. Some reports, for example, focus only on keyword performance. But not always, keywords that reach high-level positions result in increased installations. Therefore, this metric may not be that important.

Other reports focus on ranking users, this doesn’t always work either. Of course, having a good rating is important for your app, but if that doesn’t generate more installs, it’s no use. In other words, what is really relevant is the number of installations.

Facility-related data should be a priority in the analysis of results because it is a direct consequence of the ASO and the most obvious indicator of strategy performance. Especially those that include installation growth over time, number of installations, growth rate, and traffic CVRs. The focus should be on the result of installations, although other metrics are also important.

To monitor the results of the ASO, companies can rely on some tools, the three that I will indicate below, are the ones I have already used in my work:

App Tweak: Useful tool for searching keywords;

Apps Flyer: Good tool for user acquisition;

App Annie: Tool about the intelligence of other apps.

Here are some tips and tools to start optimizing your app. But be patient, because the results come with time and technique improvement.

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