How does App Store Optimization work?

Let’s start by breaking down the various components that can affect your ASO:

Main Elements:

• Title – Forget the fancy names! Place a keyword in the title with the heaviest response for search traffic. Spend time researching the exact keyword because changing your title often to include different keywords can be detrimental. Put in the best one, no matter how ordinary it may sound, and hold on to it as long as possible. It may be simple, but it reflects the exact word everyone is searching for. As your app begins to rank higher and gain more reviews, news of your app will begin to spread by word of mouth. Changing the title can make it difficult for word to spread about your app. A dull title does not reflect the ability of your app.

• Keywords– To improve your search rankings, you need to know which keywords are relevant and used most often by your target audience. Monitor your competitors to see how you compare each week.

Now here is the next secret: Nothing is written in Stone.

In addition to being the most important factor for ASO, the fact that the title and keywords can be modified easily means that you can regularly optimize them.

Secondary Factors:

• Total # of Downloads – Your number of downloads are extremely important to ASO, but you don’t have complete control over them. Keep close track of them though, as they indicate trends you may need to pay attention to and change your approach to meeting the trends.

• Ratings and Reviews – Also important and difficult to control. However, there are ways to incentivize happy users to rate and review.

So, about that really dull name with the keywords that everyone is searching for:

Is it Worth It?

With a sampling of keywords, those clever people over at Forrester looked at the top 25 ranking positions and calculated what percentage of apps had the keyword in the title vs. those that did not. Guess what the total aggregate score happened to be?

Results: apps with keywords in the title ranked on average 10.3% higher than those without a keyword in the title.

So, is a keyword worth placing in your title?

Is 10% more business worth a dull name?

Do apps with higher ratings rank higher in search results?

Taking a random sampling of keywords and categorizing them by difficulty as related to result count, “easy” keywords resulted in fewer than 25 apps trying to rank for that keyword. “Medium” keywords were in 25-100 apps, and “competitive” keywords stood out in 100+ apps.

Based on this test, there is a clear trend showing that apps with higher ratings also rank higher for keyword difficulty.

Do apps with better ratings rank higher? Duh!

Since you do not know the number of downloads right off hand, take the ratings rank instead. Averaged out, the download-to-rating conversion rate is more or less similar across most apps. Therefore, it is fairly accurate to look at the rating number as indicator for the number of downloads. The trends show that apps with more downloads also rank higher.

Do apps with more downloads rank higher? Double Duh!

It is important to notice the difference between “competitive” keywords and the other difficulties. If your keyword falls into the “competitive” category, you need a significantly larger number of downloads to rank higher. There are always trade offs. You have to determine which tools work best for you and which ones can be manipulated to increase your standing.

Contact Blue Sand Group today for more information today!