You’ve just a got a kickass app (psst..refer here if you want one) that can make you millions of dollars with, but for “some” reason, people just don’t seem to be downloading it or hell, even aware of it. Fear not! Here are easy tips for performing SEO for your apps so that you can go back to being a successful entrepreneur.
1) SEO vs ASO
“SEO for apps” would most likely be one of the search queries you would enter, before launching your first mobile app. Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the process of ensuring your domain(or app) gains the most visibility on a search portal like Google or Bing. SEO is now a cannot-do-without process of establishing you or your brand virtually.
What is ASO?
App Store Optimization or ASO, is the process of improving the visibility of a mobile application and conversion rate to install in the app stores.Instead of considering ASO as a one-time thing, consider it as an essential, ongoing part of your app marketing. You need to make a continued effort to maintain the ranking of your app, even if it means updating the graphical elements like icons and screenshots according to seasonal and holiday themes.
The Mix
It isn’t enough to just rank high in app stores using ASO, a recent study showed that 27% of users find mobile applications using a mobile web search. So unless you want to limit potential users from discovering and downloading your app, you need to ensure your app appears in the SERP(Search Engine Result Page) through effective use of SEO and ASO optimizations.
2) SEO + ASO = App Packs
Ever noticed when you enter a mobile web search query, sometimes you are shown a list of apps along with other results?
An App Pack is a group of apps that appear on the top of the mobile search result page for your app. They can also appear in the middle or end of the page depending on the search query.
App packs are OS specific, device specific and they link directly to the listing in the Apple AppStore or the Google Playstore. Each app in the App Pack features a snippet containing an overview, an icon, ratings, and pricings.
If you want to have your app listed on the app pack for a targetted keyword, you need to ensure that your app is ranking well on the SERP as well as immediately visible on the AppStore/Playstore results page for that term.
3) Keyword Optimization Tips
Doing an extensive keyword research for your mobile app and adding the filtered keywords in the appropriate locations is the only way to get good organic visibility for your app.
Here are few keyword selection & placement tips to remember –
- Select the keywords that have high estimated traffic and relatively low competition, they are easier to rank for and would help you get visibility a lot faster.
- Add descriptive keywords in the title of your app, it helps your app rank higher as it is placed in the app’s title also the target audience will immediately get an understanding of what the app is about.
3. Playstore character limit: 50 characters title limit with an additional description field of 4000 characters.
AppStore character limit: 30 characters title limit, but there is an additional field ‘Subtitle’ with 30 characters and a keyword field of 100 characters.
Try creating a balance between your keyword difficulty and its traffic
4. Make it a point never to never keyword stuff your app title and description because a vague app name is not going to earn any visitor’s attraction and it would make your app rank badly also.Including a keyword too many times may actually be seen as keyword spamming at some point, so don’t go over 5 mentions, if possible
Instead, focus on a natural incorporation of keywords and associated keywords in the title and description data.
5. Avoid changing your app title often. Don’t just follow the white rabbit when it comes to keywords. Constantly changing your app title just to incorporate a new high volume keywords, can affect your brand image and your overall rankings as well.
4) App Localization
According to GSMA intelligence, there are currently 4.8 billion unique mobile users worldwide. Over half of those users are located in Asia & Pacific region and only 15% of users on a global level speak English as their primary or secondary language.
Without proper localization strategies, your mobile app will struggle with cultural barriers and would lose out on achieving a wider reach with potential new customers.
You need to ensure that your UI can support foreign characters, vertical scripts or RTL languages if needed. Make sure your app supports user-generated text in any languages, independently from the user interface.
Also, do ASO for your target stores and find out the best keywords locally used to describe your app.
Important! Avoid Relying on Automatic Translation
Always use native speakers for the translation and proofreading of the target language used. Your localized app should feel as if it was developed in the user’s native language further improving customer experience. Plus, you do not want to get a bad review from a user, just because the auto-translator made a grammatical error which lead to a completely different word meaning to the user.
5) ASO Tools To Use
APPKEYWORDS.IO
Free of cost website that provides a simple interface for finding keywords to use for SEO & ASO for your app
You need only enter the targeted keyword, platform, and country. The website will provide you a list of keywords that you can use
TheTool
If you look for a proper software solution of tracking your app’s growth. You can use TheTool.
It provides everything related to ASO: organic & non-organic installs, keyword ranking and intelligence, top chart rankings, user ratings, revenue, and conversion rate competitor analysis and much more.
You can opt for a 14-day trial post which there a premium and customizable premium packages available.
Remember optimising your app for search would be useless if your app is not robust, not scalable and crashes.
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