App Store Optimization

App Store Optimization, or ‘ASO’, has become a crucial piece of mobile App marketing and online marketing as a whole. In 2014 there were over 2 million mobile apps in the major app stores, which is why it is important to consider how it is going to be so critical in 2015. What will make consumers choose your app over another? This is one of the biggest challenges you face when creating an app, which is why ASO is so important.

What is ASO?

ASO is the process of optimizing mobile apps to rank higher in an app store’s search results (basically, the SEO of app stores). When your app ranks higher, you will have more downloads and more traffic to your mobile site. Mobile sites are becoming an important aspect of website building, as many people now primarily use their phones or tablets on a day-to-day (or more like, hour-to-hour) basis. The ultimate goal of ASO is making sure that your app ranks highly in the app store so that more people download your app.

To get started with ASO, it is very important that you have an understanding of your target audience. The first step is to identify some keywords that your potential customers are using to find similar apps. Similar to SEO strategy, once you learn more about which keywords your target audience is using, you can focus on your keyword choices. In other words, these keywords are what people search when looking for an app.

Why ASO Matters and the Benefits

As mentioned above, mobile sites and applications are becoming such a huge part of online marketing. Because of this, there are many applications that are competing to be “top” applications. However, many publishers are not investing the proper time and effort in app store optimization. What this means is that there are a lot of applications out there, but not a lot that are making the right efforts for ASO. If you put the time and energy into ASO, you could fairly easily become a top app in your field.

There are several factors that can affect your ASO:

  • Title.

The title is by far one of the most important aspects of ASO. The keyword embedded in your app will be the most searched word; therefore leading people to chose your application. If you are a business with a mobile site linked to an application, it obviously makes sense to choose your business name so that people can find you easily. However, if you are creating an app related your field, then choose a title that is clear so that people can understand easily what your app offers.

  • Keywords.

Just like SEO, you want to know what keywords to put in your description so that users can find your app when they are searching for related topics. Always track and monitor keywords relevant to your field. Like SEO, there are a lot of great tools and software to help you monitor keywords (Mobile Dev HQ is one of my favorites). As time passes, make necessary changes and improvements according to the data that you get.

Another aspect of both title and keywords being the most important component of ASO is the fact that they are both easy to monitor, change, and optimize when necessary. Other important aspects include:

  • Total # of Downloads.

While your number of downloads are extremely important to ASO, you don’t have complete control over them. People generally choose apps that have a lot of downloads, so work to make sure this number increases over time by optimizing and marketing your app through paid ads (discussed in the last section). When it comes to growth, and SEO Company can also help you focus on improving your app, which you can learn more about here.

  • Ratings and Reviews.

Keep an eye on your ratings and reviews. These are extremely important in the long-term because people generally choose apps that have good reviews. Keep in mind that apps with better ratings rank higher, so always make sure you’re responding to reviews and asking users to leave reviews whenever possible.

I talked with Jason Hawkins, Co-Founder of No Risk SEO, who explained that ratings and reviews are only going to grow in importance. He said, “ASO is moving in many of the same directions as your traditional SEO, which means that soon ratings and reviews may outweigh any keyword identifiers or optimization. Putting a focus on this now is crucial, and when it comes to apps specifically, thinking with this mentality is a good way to get ahead.”

ASO Takes Time

The two most important features of ASO are keyword and title optimization, as well as having a well-functioning app (these things combined will also lead to positive reviews and downloads). Unfortunately, these things do not happen overnight. ASO will take time and monitoring to see what you need to improve and change over time.

While there are a lot of apps on various stores available for download, very few are looking at the importance of the things we just discussed: title and keyword optimization, as well as monitoring downloads, ratings, and reviews to see where you need to improve. The fact people are not even looking into improvement in these areas give you an instant leg-up.

You app developers and marketing specialists need to consistently track your rankings and the rankings of your competitors over time. This will offer a lot of insightful information on how to improve. You can learn more about tracking metrics for an app here.

What It Means to You

It should be no surprise that in order to reap the rewards of ASO, you need to invest time and effort. Once you do this, you should have a consistent channel driving traffic to your app. Ultimately, the task of being found is one of the most difficult challenges for mobile apps, but it is a problem you can actively solve with the strategies listed above. Pay attention to what your audience wants—this can help shape your keyword and title selection, improve your reviews, and increase your number of times downloaded. Combined, these ASO efforts can eventually lead to your app being one of the top options in the app store.

Below are a few more resources you can use if you really want to understand ASO and how it can work for you:

App Store Optimization (ASO): Is It Really the New SEO?

Singular and Plural Keywords Put to the Test in the iOS App Store

App Store SEO: The Inbound Marketers Guide to Mobile

What is ASO, and Is It Taking Over SEO?

Do you have experience creating an app? Have you tried any of these techniques for ASO? We would love to hear your story in the comments section below.