It’s no secret that mobile optimization is becoming incredibly important for companies looking to expand their reach, but what many companies are beginning to realize is that it’s not out of the question to create an app. Although apps were once seen as a way to play games or check emails, there now seems to be an app for everything (and every business). So, is ASO (App Store Optimization) the new SEO!

Why App Optimization Matters and How to Get Started

There are several different benefits that come from creating an app for your company—the biggest reason being the use of mobile phones and apps is only increasing. In fact, there have been well over 25 billion apps downloaded since the creation of the Apple App Store. Apps are easy to create, are completely customizable, and not to mention a great way to stay in line with your competition.

Unfortunately, creating a great app doesn’t mean much if people can’t find it. App store optimization is essentially just SEO for the mobile space. It’s all about figuring out two things:

  1. How to get your mobile app to the top of an app store search page
  2. Figuring out how to manage, follow, and react to different updates in the app store search algorithms (sound familiar?).

Once you have created your app, which you can learn more about here, the optimization starts. To throw another statistic at you, there are currently over 600,000 applications for iPhone and 450,000 for Android, so you can’t assume that your app will succeed without some optimization.

Tools and Tips to Help You Optimize Your App

Actually optimizing your app works very similarly to optimizing a website for search engines—you still have to worry about metadata, keywords, head titles, description, and even geography. Below expands on these points and then describes a few different tools you may want to use to help your efforts:

On your own:

  • Audience. You want to always make sure that you are tracking your desktop visitors and your mobile visitors separately. This can be done through Google Analytics by simply going to your visitors tab and selecting “mobile.”
  • Keywords. It’s best to use one of the tools discussed below to determine which keywords will be the most successful for your app. Consider what users may type into the app store search when looking for your app, and then use the different tools to measure competition and search volume of those terms.
  • Marketing is more of a branch off of optimization, but it’s important nonetheless. Companies need to help give their app the best chance of success by advertising this on the website and including a button on the website where users can find or purchase it. Sharing your new app on social media platforms won’t hurt either.

Tools to help:

  • App Store Optimization Keyword Volume Estimator. This tool lets your developers know how often a specific term or phrase is being searched for in the app store as well as your current ranking. By filling in your app’s URL, the tool will give you recommendations regarding the best keywords to use.
  • es. This tool will help you determine the keywords that your competitors apps are using as well as help you find the best keywords for your own app.
  • Flurry. This is a very popular mobile analytics tool that helps developers track usage patterns of those that have downloaded the app. This is a great way to analyze your audience and change your strategies based on the results you find.

So Is ASO really the new SEO? Truthfully, it does seem as though this is going to be the new SEO. Now optimizing webpages for Google and other search engines isn’t going anywhere anytime soon (if ever). It’s still incredibly important to invest in your SEO efforts and continue to research and work toward a successful ranking on a SERP, and in fact this new idea of ASO should not affect your current, traditional SEO efforts. Long story short: It might be the new hot-topic in SEO and the discussion might soon take precedence over traditional webpage SEO strategies; thus making it as much the “new” SEO as possible.

Are you a company that has created an app in the past? Were you successful? Do you think that ASO is becoming the new SEO? Let us know your story and your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo Credit: emergingtech.tbr.edu