App store ranking is something that is crucial for driving more download rates. A clear understanding of app store ranking algorithms, continuous follow up of analytics, and implementation of proper ASO strategies will help your app to hit the app store top charts easily.
Here are five great app store optimization tips that will hold your app on top amidst the competitors’ ones.
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1. Get to know those around you: Having a good understanding of your customers and your market saturation is one of the first steps towards ASO success. It is imperative that you know what attracts your customers, what can keep them addicted, and what will make them ignore you. Apart from that, you should devise strategies that would be effective in your targeted market. Given below are some questions for which you should have wise answers, if you want to formulate great strategies.
- Do you speak your customers’ language?
- Why should someone download and use your app?
- How saturated is the market you are targeting?
- What competitive advantage are you having?
- How unique are you?
- Which keywords can be best used to target your customer base?
- Does your competitor focus on the same set of keywords as yours? If so, how can you deliver
- your offers in a better way than them?
- Out of the highly trafficked keywords and the less obvious ones, which ones should you choose for achieving top results?
- Did you think from your customers shoes?
2. To stand unique with your brand name: To name an app is certainly the easiest, yet the hardest part of the game. It’s easy to choose a name. But it’s difficult to find one that’s catchy. You need your app name to give the best chances for your app to be ranked high. Hence, including keywords in app titles is a popular strategy adopted by iOS app development companies. Studies reveal that apps that follow this strategy, leads from those that does not by several times in the app store search results.
But this does not mean that you should stuff your title with multiple keywords and make it look odd. This will do more harm than good. Focus on one or two keywords that are close to your business and that could describe you effectively. Include them in an attractive way inside the title text and ensure that it is set inside the character limit (total of 255 characters) , so that it shows on the search results(shows between 11 to 30 characters depending on the place of display).
3. Different app stores, different approaches: It is crucial that you know what practice your app stores have, with respect to taking the keywords that you use.
Apple’s App Store gives prime importance to the keywords that it finds in the keyword field, which can contain up to 100 characters. Based on those keywords in the title, your app appears in the search results. So, when you target the Apple market, do not forget to give the keyword field its due importance.
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On the other hand, Google Play Sore totally avoids the above keyword tags and scans relevant keywords from the description. You can have a more relaxed approach towards utilizing the total allotted characters, since you can enter up to 4000 characters in the app description field. This is a very friendly approach for an iOS app development company, as they are at the freedom to expose their app on the market in a means that is aligned with the product’s core value, by making it more natural and customer targeted.
Apps in the Google market should use five keywords ideally, scattered all over the description as the best step to promote ranking. Keywords should naturally fuse into the whole content and should be logically placed, so that it is customer-focused.
4. A compelling app icon: An app’s icon is the first thing that catches your customer’s eyes and so should stand unique. That is why most iOS app development companies invest a handsome amount in designing the app’s icon. On an SEO viewpoint, the icon should be more than something that hints about the purpose of the app.
Both App Store and Google Play have its own set of standards for designing great icons based on a number of different factors like the dimension, pixel density, geometry, color choices etc. For example, App Store prioritize icon resolution 1024×1024 as the standard size, so that they can be scaled down easily to be used as navigation or tab bar icons. On the other hand, Google’s primary choice goes with 512×512 icons. It is imperative that you go through the design guidelines and references before jumping into designing, so that you may create icons that are simple and at the same time delighting customers.
Similar to icons, screenshots and videos also occupy an important position when it comes to contributing to your app’s total download volumes. This is because, customers are always interested in getting a peep into the features, benefits, disposition of components, and specialities of your app before finalizing to download them.
5. Ratings, Feedback, and Updating: Your customers would always like to be heard. That is why you would have to be serious about showing interest in knowing the user’s concerns. Infact, positive reviews will serve as a testimony of your app’s quality and it will help you to be ranked high. Encouraging customer feedback will not only help you to know about your app’s performance in real environments, but also will leave a good impression in the user’s mind.
You should also show that you value customer satisfaction with frequent updates that rectify common flaws apprised in the review sections. This will develop trust and helps you to improve your brand recognition. However, for iOS apps, it is not advisable to practice continuous updates, as an update triggers rating resets after which, you have to bring back your rating volume for the updated version.
