The Basics Of App Store Optimisation (ASO) On The Google Play Store
Most people are quite familiar with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but less so with App Store Optimisation. The purpose of ASO is to increase the ranking, conversion and discoverability of apps in their respective app stores.
- Optimising for search
Improving how your app ranks against certain keywords - Optimising for conversion
Improving how many users who visit your app page actually download/install the application - Optimising for discoverability
Improving how your app ranks on the Play Store category listings
There are 2 classes of metadata that factor into these optimisation aspects
- On-Metadata
These are metadata that you have direct explicit control over in the Play Store. They have impact on search and conversion. Namely: App Title, Short Description, Long Description, Developer Name, Package ID, App Icon, Featured Image/Video, Screenshots. - Off-Metadata
These are metadata that you only have no direct control over in the Play Store. They have more impact on conversion and discoverability. Namely: Reviews, Ratings, Installs, Crash Rates.
(Keep in mind that ASO strategies for Google Play and the Apple Appstore are very different. In this post — we’re focusing specifically on the Google Play Store.)
On-Metadata
App Title
Your strongest keyword is (usually) your brand. Start with that, then follow it up with 2 to 3 of your the most relevant keywords that describe your application. Here are a couple good examples.
“Wish — The secret to affordable shopping”
- “Hulu: Stream TV, Movies & more”
- “Bitmoji — Your Personal Emoji”
If your brand name is unknown — start with the keywords instead. Though you should only really ever do this for utility type apps where the branding is not important.
- “Vacation Countdown App”
- “Currency Converter Plus Free with AccuRate”
- “World weather forecast & local weather”
Short Description
The short description should be a one sentence simple, clear and plain description of what exactly your app does. Include a few keywords, but don’t go overboard. You only have 80 characters to use here, so keep it to the point.
- “Step outside and catch Pokemon in the real world! Collect & battle with others”
- “Ride with Uber for fast, reliable rides that are affordable and available 24/7”
Long Description
The long description is where you want to tell users what your app is about, who its meant for, what features it has — and why someone should download it. You get 4000 characters, and you should use as many of them as possible to communicate what your app is about. Google’s algorithms are smart enough to know (and penalise) if you are keyword stuffing — so don’t get repetitive. Use as many long tail keywords as possible, instead of overusing the same popular keywords.
- Mention your awards, if any
- Describe your app, what it does, who its meant for
- Bullet point your key features, especially unique ones
- Provide links to your social media pages
- Include a call to action
Pay particular attention to using keywords in the first 5 and last 5 lines of description. Users who skim the descriptions read will focus on those.
Developer Name
Most brands won’t experiment with putting keywords into their developer name, (and we certainly would not recommend this universally). If you have the flexibility or luxury to do so though… the developer name is a searchable factor on the Google Play store! It’s also displayed prominently on the limited screen real estate of the app detail page.
Package ID
This might come as a surprise to some, but the package ID used for the application is also a searchable factor. It is worth noting that once a package ID is set and the app is published — it can’t be changed. The package name shows up in the Google search URL of your Play Store webpage as well, so keep it readable!
App Icon
Your app icon contributes nothing towards optimising the search-ability of your application, but it is the first thing that users will use to identify your application. Well designed app icons can contribute to higher conversions.
Featured Image/Video & Screenshots
The featured image or video and the screenshots play a very critical role in increasing your download conversions. Here are a few pointers
- Make sure they are visually appealing, unique and eye-catching
- Avoid unnecessary copy, focus on showing off features of your app
- [For videos] Keep them under 15 seconds, don’t bore the user
Off-Metadata
Reviews & Rating
Your app reviews play a huge role in determining how highly Google’s algorithm will rank your application — but even more so, it is one of the key factors determining your app’s install conversion rate. Marketers should respond to app reviews and try to turn negative reviews into positive ones.
Don’t forget to identify key user journeys in your app where you can prompt users to rate and review your application too.
Installs/Downloads
Google Play’s algorithms favour apps that are experiencing current (or recent) surges in popularity. Lots of downloads leads to higher rankings, leads to more downloads ;). Outside of ASO, your strategy to boost your app install rate is to have solid word-of-mouth, online and offline marketing campaigns.
Crash Rate
Applications with high crash rates are penalised by the ranking algorithm. Compound that with a guarantee of more negative reviews and you have a sure-fire way to tank your ranking. For reference, anything more than 1% of active sessions is an extraordinarily high crash rate.
App size
We are well aware that the number of SDKs, libraries and high resolution assets that need to be included in modern mobile applications keeps on growing. Nonetheless, the size of your application is a key conversion factor. Globally, the larger your application size the lower your conversion rate. This is especially pronounced in emerging markets.
ASO Strategies
With the above on-metadata and off-metadata in mind, let’s look briefly at the various strategies to optimise your app listing
Extensive Keyword Research
Come up with 30 to 50 keywords or phrases that are relevant to your application. These are keywords that you expect users to search for when looking to download an app like yours.
Common keywords that are relevant are fine — but avoid generic keywords and more importantly include a healthy set of long-tail keywords.
If you have trouble coming up with keywords, take a look at your competition and see what keywords they have honed in on. Take a look in particular at their user reviews to see what keywords users are using to describe those applications. App Annie is a great free tool to explore keywords. (If you can afford it, paid tools like Mobile Action and Sensor Tower can actually tell you what keywords any app ranks highly for — but their data is reportedly quite US-market-centric.)
Once you have got your list of keywords, include as many of them as possible throughout your app copy, then it’s time to start A/B testing.
A/B Testing
The algorithms that power the rankings on any of the app stores are well guarded secrets. This ensures that they cant be easily abused. What we do know about the algorithm are the variables that we can tweak, and thats where the process of experimenting with these variables via A/B testing comes in.
Google Play provides great tools for A/B testing almost every aspect of your app listing. With each test you can introduce 2 variants on top of your current published metadata. You can control what percentage of users will see the original copy vs the variant copies. Run a test for 5–7 days with consistent traffic — then replace the copy with the variant that showed the best results. Be sure to run tests on only one type of metadata at a time!
Localise
Localise as much of your app copy as possible. If you want your app to perform in regional markets, translate all your metadata. Importantly, treat each market’s metadata as though it were a standalone application. Create independent Keyword lists and run independent A/B tests for your localised copy.
Update Regularly
Last but not least! Keep your app updated regularly — but not too regularly. It has been suggested that the app stores take between 4 to 6 weeks to index the keywords. Updating your app more frequently than this can be detrimental to the keywords that your application ranks for. Updating every 2 months or so however will indicate to both users and the store ranking algorithms that your application is fresh.
That about sums up the basics of ASO on the Google Play Store. If you’re interested with chatting more with us on ASO strategies and best practices — drop me a line at benjamin.tan@2359media.com!
