What is ASO?

App Store Optimisation is a process to maximise the discoverability and downloads of your mobile app.

Why is ASO important to your media business? 

ASO addresses one of the main challenges that you face with your app: discoverability. There are more than 8m mobile apps in the world, according to data.ai. How do you stand out and attract new users?

A good ASO strategy is important because:

• It helps improve your search ranking in app stores: Some 70% of mobile users find apps via search and 65% of downloads happen after a search.
• It ensures that you are using the keywords most related, and unique, to your app. ASO is in many ways similar to SEO as search is important to discovery, especially in the Google Play store, which uses more of your listing to determine its search results.
• It works to improve the quantity and quality of your ratings and rankings. One of the signals that app stores use in increasing the visibility of your app is your ratings and rankings. By increasing user feedback of your app, you can move up the app store listings and send a strong signal to users that your app is worth downloading.
• It informs a marketing strategy to increase awareness of your app. By building a profile of your target users, you can determine how best to reach them.
• It uses data to improve conversion rates. A strong ASO strategy provides you with the data to understand how the assets in your store listing are helping increase conversion and what elements you can improve to increase downloads.

Identify keywords and integrate into your text assets:

• There are several services such as data.ai and AppTweak that will allow you to see the keywords that people are using to find your app and what your search ranking is relative to other apps for that keyword. 
• You can also review the keywords that are commonly used to find your content on web. It's a good idea to focus on your mobile site because that will most closely correlate with your app users. 
• Once you've identified your keywords, you'll need to ensure that you use them throughout your app store listing. For Apple, you should make use of the subtitle and insert your keywords into the keywords field in App Store Connect.
• The app store description is also important. Whilst it isn't ranked by Apple it is for Google so you should include your keywords throughout your description. Moreover, you should write a description that highlights the key features of the app. Often the best descriptions use bullet points or lists to be easier to read.
• A typical app store description is around 3,000 to 4,000 characters but the most important of those are the first 255 for Apple and the first 80 for Google. These are what the user will see before making a decision on whether they want to read more.

Ensure that the imagery is highlighting the best features of your app:

• Avoid images that are simply a screenshot of your app. The best performing app store listings place a screenshot in a larger image, each of which highlights a clear feature of benefit.
• This should align with the app store description, so that they compliment each other.
• Prioritise each image, putting the more important ones earlier in the series.
• Google allows for up to 8 images whilst Apple allows for as many as 10. It is good practice to get as close to these numbers as possible.
• Ensure that your images are relevant to each of the stores, don't use iOS devices in the Google Play Store or vice versa!

Develop a plan for marketing and ongoing optimisation:

• Define your target audience. There are many channels you can use to market your app including social media or search ads. By having a clear profile of your target audience, you can decide which paid channels are most important for your app marketing efforts and the best ways to target the audience you want to reach.
• Select your channel mix for paid campaigns. Just as with SEO or social campaigns, there are organic and paid elements to an ASO strategy. You can buy in-app-store advertising or run pay-per-install campaigns on social or search. The audience you want to reach will help determine which channels to use. 
• Improve your ratings and reviews. Both the Google Play and Apple App Store take ratings and rankings into account for search visibility. Increasing engagement with your app can drive ratings and, to a lesser extent, reviews. It’s also important to remember that users can change their reviews so it is important to have a review management process in which you monitor and reply to them. By taking a proactive approach to reviews, you can iterate your app and also encourage reviewers to view your app more positively through good customer service.

What Pugpig Consulting Services can do to help you with ASO

With our in-depth experience supporting hundreds of apps for our customers, we can help you from the start of your ASO journey by helping improve discoverability with a keyword analysis and then throughout the rest of the process with advice on your app store listing, options to improve ratings and rankings and how to make your listings work as hard as possible for you to increase downloads of your app.

Pugpig can also help you with:

• Keyword monitoring and optimisation.
• A/B testing of creative elements on your app store listing.
• Monitoring the success of your engagement efforts including push notifications. 
• Developing and optimising your app marketing campaigns.
• Developing dashboards to make it easy for you to monitor KPIs.

If you’d like help with your ASO efforts, get in touch at info@pugpig.com.