You have an app that could be the next big thing in the App Store. The only problem? There are over 2 million apps that are currently circulating in the App Store, which means that the likelihood of your app actually getting discovered can be pretty slim.
Luckily, your app can be optimized in order to get better placement in user’s search results, meaning more views—and hopefully more downloads—for your app. To benefit from the effectiveness of App Store Optimization, start with these seven simple steps:
Know Your Audience
An important aspect of App Store Optimization is knowing who your audience is. Once you know the demographic of the users that you want to market your app towards, it will become easier to target the majority of your downloads. This ultimately comes down to you understanding who your app is intended for: Profession, Gender, Age Range, Language and other elements will all play a big part in how you market your app via the language of your app description and how you intend to attract your target audience with visual aids.
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Many platforms are available to make this entire process easier, such as SF based Gummicube which helps find the right audience for your app.
Explain Your App’s Features
What does your app do? How does it work? What can users do with the aid of your app? These are all questions that can easily be answered with a succinct and informative list that highlights the features of your product both clearly and creatively.
By knowing how your app functions, users will be more inclined to download with confidence.
Know Your Competition
Chances are if you have an app, there is going to be another app with similar features (maybe even a similar name) to try and knock you out of your place in rankings. One way you can prevent this from happening is by learning from your competitors: Look at how they promote their apps and see what they’re doing to get more downloads.
Perhaps it’s something as simple as updating the tone of your description or using a different color palette in your icon. In some cases, perhaps you might want to do the opposite of what your competitors are doing. Find ways to make your app rise above the competition by studying them closely.
Find Keywords to Get Your App Noticed
The most pertinent aspect of App Store Optimization is discovering sets of keywords that will help raise the likelihood of your app showing up as search result. By using popular keywords in your description and your app title, you will be able to make your app show up for a broader range of search queries.
However, some keywords are more successful when it comes to search volume, so try and find highly-searched keywords that will put your app in front of the highest number of relevant users possible. Today, you can even download free apps such as Keyword Tool App, to help you find the right words for your product.
Optimize Your App Title and Description
Once you’ve put together your list of features and discovered your keywords, you can start optimizing your app description and title with search terms.
You’ll want to make sure your keywords are relevant for the features that you list, so you’ll want to focus on creating context for the words you intend to target. Writing and persuasive skills might be helpful for optimizing your descriptions.
Optimize Your App Icon and Screenshots
Along with optimizing your app’s title, keywords and description for your target audience, you also need to consider the visual aspects of your app and how they might be optimized to better attract your demographic.
Attract the right audience for your app by incorporating icon and screenshots that mirror the app’s content in an attractive way. Focus testing is a great way to test multiple icons and screenshot sets against one another.
Listen to Your Audience
The best way to attract an audience is to listen to your community. This means taking customer reviews and responses into account when optimizing your app, because the feedback will be valuable for future optimizations. Again, this might involve opening up group surveys to get instant feedback on apps, prior to releasing the app in the marketplace.
It can also involve listening to your customers’ reviews and updating with desired features. Understanding how your app is positioned to your customers is the most efficient way of preparing your app for optimization. Sites like AppReviews work by aggregating customers’ reviews so that users can check out what other people say about a certain app.
Complete these steps, and you will have a head start in optimizing your app for a wider, more powerful audience.
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