The App Store and Google Play see roughly around 5000 new apps entering their platforms each day. Since it seems like the app market does not stop growing, how does one make sure his app stands out and ranks well in these platforms? In the crowded market that is the app market, the main challenge faced by app creators and businesses is being undiscovered and invisible to their target audience. Unfortunately, this reduces the app’s exposure as well as its rankings, giving bad returns to its owner. A way to turn this around is through ASO, a commonly ignored concept that changes the way people look at an app. An easy way to define is that it is like SEO, but for apps. It is the process of increasing an app’s visibility so that it is uncovered by many users on various app platforms to help better downloads and rankings. An app store optimization agency can help bring in organic downloads, target the right audience, increase an app’s visibility, and can bring in great profits that only keep growing.
Ever since apps came into existence on the very first smartphone, ASO has been highly relevant but completely ignored. Only in recent times, ASO agencies have been picked up by many app owners to help them with the task of bringing traffic to their apps by optimizing their apps. We see that those apps that invest in ASO get better rankings and increased downloads. This is the main goal of any app store optimization agency. Along with this, it aims to test and use keywords that can increase rankings and create engaging and attractive graphics to increase the chances of the app to get downloaded. Of the many strategies used by digital marketing and ASO companies, these are a few of them that are crucial to nail:
- Understanding the target audience: after creating an app, it is important to understand the people for who its made for. When we study the target audience, we must consider everything from their sex, race, and religion to personal interests, area of residence and education level. It is key to understand why a person would download a particular app and these reasons vary from one person to another. This strategy has no full stop to it as an app’s target audience changes constantly with time.
- Keyword optimization: this an important strategy of ASO that is crucial for apps to be discovered. This strategy has to be formulated in such a way that users are turned to your app on their very first search. It must also be able to increase conversion rates (CVR) since high conversion rates lead to high rankings. After identifying relevant keywords, it is important that they are placed in such a way that can make it more visible and discoverable. According to a study conducted by Tune, keywords used in the app name can lead to a 10.3% increase in its ranking. The subtitle or description are also other great fields to further explain the exact uses. Functions and purpose of the app to visitors.
- Transforming visitors to users: visuals play a mighty role in the conversion of app page visitors to actual users. Apps that have a good aesthetic and graphics are more likely to be clicked on and further downloaded. Colours, shapes and their uniformity are all factors to consider while developing the app’s UI, as they affect the likelihood of a person to download it.
- Analysis of data and statistics: after a series of testing and experimenting, it’s time to take all those numbers and statistics, make a comprehensive report and put it to good use and enhance your app. Reports can help you find the reasons why many people are downloading an app, what can be improved and even why some are uninstalling it. This can help improve the app by making necessary changes.
- Meaningful and brief messages: statistics say that visitors make their decision to download an app under 10 seconds, some way faster than others. With this in mind, one can conclude that the majority of the visitors will not go through the whole app description and see all the screenshots. Fitting long paragraphs and making the screen crowded with information tends to irritate the visitors and leads them to click off. ASO suggests that crisp and valid details should be mentioned that push visitors to click and download.
These strategies go hand in hand with the various factors and elements that ASO handles in order to obtain an optimized version of the app, compared to its previous self.
It is important to remember to be patient as some often say that ASO is not a “one-time effort”. It takes a lot of trial and error, experimentation, and testing to reach optimal solutions. In conclusion, app store optimization agencies are the way to go when it comes to boosting your app’s popularity in terms of rankings and getting more downloads. It is also the only way to obtain organic downloads and has quality users.