The App Store and Play Market are powerful marketing channels for mobile products nowadays. If you are a mobile app developer, think about a well-planned strategy for promotion via this channel, then you will be able to avoid mistakes at the beginning of the climb.
Marketing activities in app stores are called ASO optimization. This field is not yet as developed as it's written about it, so now all mobile promotion specialists are testing different ASO algorithms and methods. So here we share the top mistakes that specialists make when optimizing app pages in the App Store and Play Market.
There is still an opinion that ASO is just SEO for mobile apps. When it comes to ASO, many experts only care about optimizing searches or keywords. And this is the biggest delusion because ASO is all about optimizing metadata, visuals, and contextual elements.
Besides keywords and a well-crafted description, some special headings and sections shape the positioning of the mobile app with users. For example, App of the Day, Editor's Choice, and Top Category. When the user uses your app, he leaves feedback and a rate, which forms the basis of your rating. This is what ASO optimization is all about.
To make an app or game popular, you must introduce as many users as possible to the development. Make the content on the app page attractive to users. The more users who install your app, the more ratings and reviews you'll get, the faster your rating will go up, and you might get noticed by the editors.
ASO experts are questioning when ASO should be launched and when strategies should continue to be optimized.
For example, you optimize keywords and have a list of the most relevant keywords. And then various questions occur: what about seasons, new keywords that suddenly become popular, or changes in the competitive environment, user behavior, and other market movements? That's why any high-frequency keyword can become a low-frequency keyword very quickly. You'll never know unless you keep abreast of these changes.
As mentioned before, ASO is not just about keywords. Other conversion drivers, such as app store screenshots, icons, reviews, and many others, also require optimization. All data needs to be optimized and updated regularly.
The App Store and Play Market are the two largest and most popular mobile marketplaces. On the surface, these markets are very similar, but their algorithms are different.
Play Market is a part of a huge corporation that develops search engines. That's why applications in the market are easily indexed by search queries and are easy enough to find by description. Apple Store does not have such search technologies, so the ranking of applications in the App Store is more influenced by user experience and scale.
ASO is a very lasting and strategically thoughtful process. You're constantly researching the topic, analyzing competitors, optimizing data, and tracking results. High levels of installs and conversions can last for several weeks, and you're back to optimizing again.
Don't expect too much from ASO! The main goal of ASO optimization is to form an attractive appearance of the app for users and internal elements for organic promotion by search engines.
Especially do not hope for results from ASO the day after adjusting. A week will be required for the actual data to be indexed by systems, and at least a month, if you upload a new product.
Do not lean only on ASO for promotion. Involve other channels as well, such as search advertising, social media targeting, and media. In 2022, the competition among mobile developers is so huge that you must find your potential audience on all platforms and use as many tools as possible.
ASO optimization is becoming increasingly complicated and long-lasting. It makes it very difficult for marketers to prioritize. So the main question for a specialist is: what should be done first?
Firstly, take care of the quality of your mobile development. Your product should be good enough, user-friendly, and relevant. Then start to explore your audience: conduct beta testing, launch pre-registration, and group and segment your users in detail as much as possible.
The next step is to create a comprehensive promotion strategy. At this stage, start developing a semantic core and, based on it, work out the metadata (application name, subtitle, short description, description, keyword field). Then prepare the visual elements, and after uploading - take care of the contextual elements (reviews, ratings, rating).
Good product + good conversion + poor visibility are acceptable and can be fixed.
But lousy product + bad conversion + excellent visibility are absolutely unacceptable.
A good-quality product leads to a lot of negative ratings. Poor positioning in the app store leads to a low CVR, click-through rate (CTR), number of installations, and installation rate. All of these metrics are ranking factors for services, so their poor performance affects your app's position in the store search.
Incorrect prioritization forces you to move in the wrong direction, which leads to negative results.
So, ASO is a set of actions that affects the organic promotion of your app or game in the App Store and Play Market. By underestimating the optimization of an app page, you deprive your product of a chance for successful promotion. Think through different strategies, analyze your competitors and your users, change your data, and test your innovations. Remember, even the highest conversion rate can change very quickly, and you again have to apply optimization tools to improve the position of your development in the market.
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