HOW TO SEO (OR ASO) YOUR APP TO ENSURE IT OUTPERFORMS YOUR COMPETITORS

Technology is advancing all the time. Every minute of every day, someone somewhere is working to improve an algorithm, enhance software, and create gadgets that are better and faster than the ones that came before it. With this rapidly advancing technology came the app. And under the reign of the mobile device, for some people apps have become a universal necessity...at least on some level. For almost any thought, there’s an app to match. People look to their apps for news, music, games, photo editing, and so much more. Some people hold the notion that apps will, in due time, replace websites altogether, although that is a notion I tend to disagree with. Nonetheless, as technology advances, marketers must adapt. The Google Play store reportedly had over 1.4 million apps as of February 2015. With so many apps out there, how can your app be discovered? And if app market share will continue to increase in the future, SEO is going to have a role in it. Though there is no way to see into the future just yet (no, there is not an app for that), digital marketers need to have an understanding of how to market apps.

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Understanding options available to promote your App
Similar to a website there are a wealth of ways to promote your app, and choosing just one is never a sound way to go. For the sake of this post we’ll explore some of many options in the order we feel will provide the fastest downloads, exposure, or ROI. It’s important to note, you should try many ways to promote your app but before you do, SET UP TRACKING AND ANALYTICS, to be sure you can easily identify what are the most effective ways to promote your app.
 
Listed below in most effective to least effective here are the best ways to promote your app;

• App Store Optimization (ASO), is a way of ensuring your app meets app store ranking criteria and rises to the top of a search results page.
• Firebase App Indexing
• Don’t Forget Web based SEO
• Update your App frequently
• Get Reviews and Ratings

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App Store Optimization
To help you boost your app marketing strategy (along with your app store ranking), below is a list of App Store Optimization (ASO) tips, many of which originate from well-known organic website SEO strategies marketers use.

• Understand your Competition
  • Do a keyword portfolio so you net only know the obvious keywords you want to rank for, but also the less obvious.
  • Run app store searches to isolate your best performing competitors
  • Start App store optimization for least competitive keywords first

 

• Carefully select your app name
  • Unless you have a very definitive plan and the budget to support it don’t name your app something obscure that doesn’t use relevant keywords within your title (the text heavily factors into app store search results). Titles in the App Store can be up to 255 characters, but are typically truncated after the 23rd character (including spaces) in the App Store and the 30th character in Google Play. App titles for installed apps in a device’s navigation menu or home screen are truncated after 11 and 14 characters, respectively
  • It’s also important to use only URL-friendly characters in your title, particularly in the App Store. Special characters or symbols will detract from your ASO strategy and cause iTunes to refer to your app’s numeric ID, rather than its name, to scan for relevant keywords.

 

• Maximize your keywords
  • The App Store and Google Play Store have two very different approaches when it comes to ASO keywords.
    • The App Store has a 100-character keyword field. It exclusively uses title and whatever keywords or keyword phrases you include in these 100 characters to determine which search strings your app will show up for. With this in mind, it’s important to use all of the allotted characters and carefully research your keywords to maximize your organic traffic.
    • The Google Play Store takes an approach more similar to modern SEO. Google does away with the specified tags and scans your app’s description to extract relevant keywords. In this scenario, you’re given 4,000 characters to describe it in natural, customer-facing language. Target close to 5 keywords and try to add relevant keywords where they logically make sense.
• Create a compelling description
  • Your description should be viewed as a call-to-action for potential customers. Describe what it does in simple and concise language, list the unique benefits it offers, and compel the reader to download it. Focus on the first three lines of your description to immediately grab your reader’s attention. When your app is updated your description should also be updated.

 

• Stand out with a unique icon
  • Your icon is the first impression and it should have an impact and be memorable.
    • It’s important to note that the App Store and Google Play vary in their approach to, and rendering of, app icons. Both stores have preset standards for the ideal size, geometry, and color scheme of app icons, designed to match the rest of the OS.
      • iOS icons should be sized to 1024×1024 pixels.  For additional sizes the Apple OS will resize your icon for any other applications, including app icons (180×180), navigation icons (66×66), and tab bar icons (75×75). Your 1024×1024 icon design should look detailed and  clean but still look good scaled down to the smallest size. Additional resources: iOS 9 Design Guidelines and iOS Icon Sizing Reference
        
      • Android icons should be sized to 512×512 icon. While not required, Google recommends designing app icons in accordance with its material design guidelines, which details everything from icon anatomy to lighting and shading. Additional resources: Android Material Design Guidelines and Android Icon Sizing Reference Chart
        
• Include screenshots and videos
  • Although screenshots in your description don’t currently have an effect on search rankings, they do drive downloads.
    • You can upload up to five screenshots for an iOS app and up to eight for an Android app, but only your first 2–3 screenshots will show in the gallery on page load.
      

 

• Localize and language target your app listing
  • Currently 31% of app revenue is generated by North American consumers. In an effort to reach the bigger market, if you app has application in other countries, it would be well spent time to convert your app to other languages. Translate your app’s title, keywords, description, and screenshots to the languages you wish to target. Both the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store allow you to localize your listing to cater to different languages.

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Firebase App Indexing

Currently, search engines have adapted to the app craze. App indexing gives apps a chance to appear in organic search engine results.  Firebase App Indexing, formerly Google App Indexing, gets your app into Google Search. If your app is already installed when users search for related content, they will launch your app directly from the search results. If users don’t have your app yet, an install card shows up in search results. Adding App Indexing promotes both types of app results within Google Search and also provides query auto completions.
 
The App indexing process is fairly straight forward:

• Support HTTP URLs in your app
  • Associate your app with your website by updating your app to parse and handle HTTP URLs that match links to your website.
• Add the App Indexing API for Android or SDK for Ios
  • On iOS 9 or higher, the App Indexing API turns on rich Search results by displaying your app's icon next to the content. On Android, the API lets your users see app pages they have visited as suggested results in the Google app.

• Test your implementation
  • Use a number of tools including the new Search Preview Tool to verify that your App Indexing implementation is operating as expected.
• Measure impact
  • Analyze the impact and quality of your content using Search Console, search referrals, and Firebase Analytics.
    

For additional Firebase App Indexing information.

Don’t forget Web based SEO
You spent all that time and money building an App. Hopefully you built a website to further promote it, if not, add that to your “to do list”. It is widely believed that both Google and Apple factor in your app’s total page visits and product page backlinks when determining your search and overall ranks. An effective way to improve both those factors is to have a website that expands on your App’s purpose and capabilities. The better optimized, more traffic you drive and backlinks you build to your App product page, the higher it should rank in search results.
 
At this point, as long as you are using the same URLs for your web content and your app content you can register your app with Google, associate it with your website and be good to go. Google should then automatically crawl, index, and attempt to rank your app content based on your website’s structure.
 
Note: Implementing App Indexing and mapping your web content to your app content using on-page markup will provide more control and additional benefits.

Update frequently
Not a search ranking factor, App updates are directly related to reviews and rankings which do play a role in search exposure for your App. Further, in a study by Aptentive they found that 60% of mobile customers get bored with an app after their first month of using it and promptly abandon it. If you want to hold users attention, it’s imperative that you offer them something new and original as often as possible.
 
The important thing to factor with updates is, you want to update enough to keep improving your app and app ratings, keeping in mind, that each time you update an iOS app, your ratings reset — and with that, your search rank temporarily drops. As a result, frequently updated iOS apps experience higher app store rank volatility, but frequently updated Android apps experience reduced volatility (that being said, where you get the most downloads for your app should factor slightly into how often you release updates). Generally speaking, popular apps are updated monthly “ish”.

Encourage ratings and feedback
A 2015 Consumer Survey by Aptentive on App Store Ratings, increasing your app’s average rating by just one star, from a 3.0 to a 4.0, can almost double your expected downloads!
A steady flow of incoming positive reviews serves as the highest possible validation of your app’s quality and is one of the main drivers concerning search rank. When determining search rank, the amount of reviews will be a bigger driver than the rating rank but be mindful of both.

Formalizing a “review/rank strategy is well worth the time spent and items that should be considered are;
•    Use an App Review Plugin's
o    There are a number of out of the box plugins available for iOS and Android that simplify the in app review request. Some of the best in app review plugins include
•    Provide excellent support for your app, and ask users to write reviews
•    Incentivize Users to Review Your App
o    Everyone loves “free stuff”, so consider adding in-game rewards or points programs. An easy and powerful incentive is to reward your users if they do choose to review your app.
•    Ask in release notes

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Wrapping it up
Although these 5 quick ASO/SEO tips are a quick win to get you started on App promotion there are many others that should be considered including affiliate marketing, paid advertising (ppc, pay per install, etc...), loyalty programs, push notifications, social media, forums, social bookmarking, PR, and the list goes on.
The real take-away is that, a good plan right now is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Because online promotion for Apps is a moving target, it is more important to start with the fundamentals of App promotion today and as they get traction you can plan on implementing new programs.

Remember, stick to the fundamentals of “strategize, implement and analyze” and you will find, your time being best spent on the areas that deliver the best results.

Have you had success promoting your App? Please feel free to comment below: