ASO: App Store Optimisation is becoming very crucial due to the increasing number of mobile apps daily. Can you imagine that there are around 4 million people mobile apps and if you are also planning to make yours available too in the lot then getting it discovered is the most significant task?

If you are thinking of publishing a new app and want it to rank well, then this post is for you.

First of all, let us understand what App Store Optimisation is?

Being a publisher, you want to get discovered in the top ranking in the App Search engine. The higher you rank, the higher will be the potential of the users downloading your App. Once your visibility increases, traffic will be diverted to your app page on the App Store.

The process of ASO requires an understanding of figuring out your potential customer base, including the keywords in your content so that your App is noticed faster.

Why is ASO important?

According to research done by Forrester around 63% of of the apps are discovered as a search result on the app stores. So if you are using ASO to increase your ranking, then you are a lost a very big opportunity to make your App easily discoverable.

ASO is a secret weapon in the hands of the publisher, but you have to be ready to invest in ASO. The marketing team need to spend sufficient time to increase its ASO. People to search on Google too, but the results on the App store is incomparable.

Here is a step wise guide to help you discern its benefits going through the main ASO factors:

• Title: The game changer for your App is the title of the App. The keyword in the title will be a substantial search engine factor. Research and spend time deciding upon the name of the App and changing the name too frequently will be detrimental. Once your App starts getting more traffic and an increasing number of downloads, the rest of the work will be done by mouth publicity, and you will not require to put many efforts for higher numbers. Changing the title will lose credit achieved.
• Keywords: Improving search engine requires the use of keywords which are mostly searched by the audience in the search engine. The title and the keywords are considered to be the most critical ASO factors which can be modified easily as per the need. Here you also essential to keep a watch on the competitors and especially on the similar apps which are having a higher ranking and download then yours. Modify your keywords and titles accordingly, and only if there is a need to do otherwise avoid doing the same.

Apart from these primary factors, there are some secondary factors too which are not in our control.

• Several downloads: The number of downloads is of significant importance for the success of your App, but it is not in our hand. You can only put in ways and means to increase your visibility on the app store but cannot persuade your audience to download the App.
• Reviews and Ratings: Ratings and reviews are one of the fundamental factors for the success of any app. Any new user will be going through the reviews and ratings other users have given to your App before he goes for a download. Being a publisher, you can try to incentivise the audience to rate your apps and provide their reviews. It will help you build the trust of a new audience and increase the popularity of your App.

The primary factors discussed above play a significant role to draw users to your App:

Title: Title is the first impression of your App, and it is the critical factor which draws the attention of the audience to your App. Optimising the title with the keyword increases the results to as good as by 10.3%. There are some limitations attached to the App stores, which are very regulated. A publisher is given only 30 characters to frame a title in IOS 11 version and stuffing more leads to getting the App banned on the AppStore. Hence be smart in your title formation. The icon of your App should be sleek and elegant, which portrays what your App about is.

Description: Here is where things get mistier. The App Store algorithm technically ignores the description part. Keep your focus on explaining the features and benefits you App offers rather than focusing only on SEO.  You may feel that there is lot of space to do this, but the fact is you don’t. Abbreviated snippets are shown on the app page, and only a few readers will ever click “more” to explore more about the App. All together you have only 252 characters to make a pitch to convince that you are worthy of a download. Several iterations need to be done to find out which works best.

Keyword Metadata: You get 100 characters to enter the keywords, including commas. Do not duplicate your efforts here and can choose the keywords already used in the title.

Subtitle: You have an option include the title limited to 30 characters that give you another chance to use more descriptive keywords. E.g. say you are promoting a game app and you mention the name is “Scrabble” as the title of the App and along with it the subtitle as ‘The vocabulary expert’.

Downloads: Ultimately, after making all the efforts what matters, in the end, is ‘Downloads’. Both the Google Playstore and IOS determine the ranking of your App based on several downloads and to be more precise on the current download rate. For example, it may happen that an app has crossed one million overall downloads, but a newer app can beat it by more number of downloads in the current month. The preview video and images play a significant role.

What can you do to increase this consistently? Work on improving your SEO. Apart from this is to work on marketing your brand and enhance the recognition, ratings/reviews, social media presence etc.

Conclusion: To reap the fruits of ASO, you need to devote the time, money and efforts. With this, there are full chances of getting consistent traffic to your App. Be consistent to give regular updates and keep updating the features of your apps too else soon a better version will be out, and you will be out of the list of rankings.