App Store Optimization
Discover the best resources on ASO and
increase your organic app downloads (and the paid ones).
Why ASO matters?
App discovery is challenging, and it’s important to leverage the fact that search is the most common way apps are discovered. So how can you get your app discovered ? Then downloaded? Meet App Store Optimization.
There are some actions that you can take so potential users can find your app easily and actually download it. ASO has indeed two goals:
– Giving your app as much visibility as possible in the app stores – – Convincing people that your app is worth downloading –
You can achieve this by optimizing your app store pages through the name of your app, its metadata or the screenshots you use. ASO also goes beyond that though, and is about making sure you have a great app and doing everything you can to help your users (and get the ratings you deserve).
APP STORE OPTIMIZATION is a process. It’s not a magic recipe. It has a lot to do with market research and what your competitors do (you’ll often want to be found for the same keywords!).
This therefore means that ASO is not something you can do once and be done with. You wish. No, App Store Optimization is something that needs to be done on an ongoing basis.
Our best ASO resources
The Essential App Store Resources List – Apple App Store and Google Play Store
A lot has been written about App Store Optimization, but not all the content on the topic is good. Plus, algorithm changes and store changes (hello iOS 11) can make it a hassle to find relevant and up-to-date articles.
So together with Incipia we decided to put together The Essential ASO Resources List, a handy tool with the best App Store Optimization content we know. And that we’ll keep updating.
This is a must-have/bookmark for anyone working on ASO. Seriously.
Apple App Store ASO
- App Name and Keywords – An up-to-date post with tips on how to best define your app name and keywords on the iTunes App Store. Don’t choose those lightly, and make sure you make the right choices (+ learn and adapt).
- App Icon Design – Your app icon, along with your screenshot, is a critical design asset and one of the first things App Store users judge your app on. Template and inspiration links included.
- App Screenshots That Sell – Because they appear directly in the search results and on your app page, your app screenshots play a huge role in your app being downloaded or not. They allow you to communicate visually your app’s main benefits. So find out how to get them right!
- How to Improve your App Description – Not everyone is going to (fully) read your app description. But think about those who do (and especially the first lines). You want to convince them, right? Here’s how to do it.
- How to Improve your App Ratings – On the App Store, within the app, on the web…Make it easy for users to reach you. Listen to feedback, and consider using a SDK to facilitate interactions with your users.
- iOS 11 App Previews – Video lets you communicate clearly and quickly what your app is all about and what is magic about it. And with iOS 11, video has a much more important role. In this post we share all our insights and best practices so you can leverage video on the app stores to get more downloads.
- How to increase conversion by getting your app store videos right – Make the right choices for your App Preview and Play Store videos, so you can leverage them for increased app store conversion and higher LTV.
- A step-by-step guide to pre-post analysis for App Store Optimization with iTunes Connect App Analytics – Learn how to do a pre-post analysis the right way so you can assess the impact of any App Store Optimization change on your listing. We also include a handy Google Sheet that you can re-use to save time when calculating click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates (CVR). Since there is no A/B testing tool in iTunes Connect, this is the best way to measure your ASO efforts.
Google Play Store ASO
- How to Optimize Your Google Play Store App Details Page – Search is even more important on the Play Store than on the App Store: 80% of high quality organic downloads! Find out more about Google’s algorithm and how to optimize your Play Store app details page so your app can be found.
- How to measure the impact of your ASO efforts with Play Store listing experiments – This is a step-by-step guide that detail the best practices when doing a Google Play Store listing experiment. With listing experiments you can A/B test any change of your app listing (icon, video, screenshots, etc.) to see if it helps increase your app’s conversion rate. Running these experiments is a must for anyone with an app, and there are a lot of misconceptions. Do it right with this guide!
With the resources above you are well equipped to start doing App Store Optimization right. Now you can start optimizing your app store details page to both be discovered on the mobile app stores and increase conversion once potential users find your app.
Keep in mind the differences between the App Store and the Play Store, always test your assumptions, experiment and keep what’s working. ASO is not something you do once: it’s a process.
Bookmark this page: it contains links to our best ASO resources, and we keep adding new ones. If there’s one insight or interesting tip that you got from this content, please share the love!
Regardless of your budget, our project managers put great care into elaborating a proposal and a script that make sense for your objectives with the video.
“We saw a 15% boost in Google Play store conversions after implementing the animation video you guys made for us in the Google Play store.”
– Brant Cebulla, Marketing Manager @Vivino
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