6 iTunes App Store Secrets You Need To Know
iTunes App Store is hot. It is one of the most efficient distribution channels right now with about 100 million users in the United States and counting around the globe.
The number of apps has been growing rapidly, but there’s limited space for exposure. App Store Optimization (ASO) becomes an important skill for mobile marketers, just like SEO for all marketers to fight for the rankings and get more downloads.
Just like Google, iTunes App Store is a black-box within which no app developers know exactly what’s going to happen after making changes. After conducting some experiments with multiple apps, I have some significant but not-so-obvious findings of iTunes App Store, which could help you improve the effectiveness of ASO.
The experiments were based on filling in all 28 languages (including 4 English languages) to maximize the number of keywords. So the findings may not be applicable for those apps with only 1 English language.
1. Do Not Miss English (Australia) and Spanish (Spain)
There are 147 iTunes App Stores but only 28 languages available for the description and keywords. It means that some languages affect multiple regions, while some regions consider keywords in multiple languages.
You can put 100 characters in each of the languages, including commas. Technically there are 2,800 characters to describe your apps in 28 languages. It is important to optimize the performance within the constraint by knowing how it works.
There is a list of those languages in different regions in the iTunes Connect admin panel.
Here are a few highlights:
- English (U.S.) only affects the United States (App Store).
- English (Canada) only affects Canada. This is obvious.
- Besides Spain, Spanish (Spain) also affects the United States. Please be noted that Spanish (Mexico) does not affect the United States, though Mexico is closer to the U.S. geographically.
- English (U.K.) affects all 147 stores, except the United States and Canada. It takes effect on Australia as well (will explain later).
That means your app may rank in the search results for Spanish (Spain) keywords even in the US App Store. But it will not rank in the search results of those keywords that only appear in Spanish (Mexico).
English (Australia) is special. According to the official list, it ONLY affects the ranking of the Australian store. But our experiments showed that the keywords of English (Australia) affected the rankings in those regions where English (U.K.) took effect. At the same time, the keywords of English (U.K.) affected the rankings in Australia as well.
There are actually 200 characters to use combining both English (U.K.) and English (Australia). Those keywords will affect 145 regions, except the United States and Canada, which makes them the most effective languages that you should not miss. Don’t waste the character limits by putting the same keywords in 2 English languages.
The concept applies to English (U.S.) and Spanish (Spain) too, if you are targeting the US market. Don’t include the same keywords in 2 languages.
** I was reminded that the Japan App Store is using English (U.S.) and Japanese for descriptions. So should be the keywords. I will re-verify with further experiments and update the results here.
2. Keywords in Titles Are VERY Important
Everyone knows that. But it has become even more important since Nov 2015, as Apple has updated the search algorithm. Before that, there was no significant difference between keywords in the title and keywords in the keyword field.
After the change, the rankings of keywords in the title are significantly higher than the keywords in the keyword field.
Adding those highest-valued keywords in your app title improves your app store ranking a lot. Be careful that Apple may reject your app submission if you try to spam the keywords in the app title (e.g. adding irrelevant words like “Facebook” or “Instagram”). Make it natural and fluent.
3. You Do Not Need to Add All Competitors in Keywords
Adding competitors in keywords has been a useful technique to show your apps in front of the group who search for your competitors.
After the algorithm update in Nov 2015, Apple shows some similar apps in the search results regardless of the keywords.
Here is a report from MobileAction for Gmail Calendar:
It shows that all calendar apps appeared in the search results of “Gmail Calendar” since Nov 2015. I observed similar patterns in other apps as well.
That said, you can remove some competitors from the keywords field for other keywords, but they still rank in your competitor’s search results.
On the other side of the coin, Apple may not agree with you on who your competitors are. Everyone wants to compete with “Facebook” and “Instagram”. Make sure you track the ranking changes after removing those competitors from the keywords. If your app doesn’t rank in those removed keywords after applying the update, add them back in the next submission.
4. Descriptions Do Not Affect Rankings or Exposure
This is obvious, but many developers still forget it. iTunes App Store pays NO attention to the descriptions when considering the rankings. Do not spend too much time trying to spam keywords in the description. Make it readable for better conversion rate instead. You may see how short Pinterest’s description is.
You may argue that the description affects the ranking on Google search. I doubt how much traffic comes from Google to iTunes App Store except by searching for the app name. I don’t think it is worth crafting the description only for Google, which might not be the best version for converting app store visits into installs.
There are 2 more interesting findings that I don’t want to put publicly and notify Apple about. They may change the behaviors that could affect my clients’ app store rankings significantly. Contact me by email to kl@fireinbelly.com with your app store link. I am happy to share the findings with you if you are working on some interesting apps as well.
P.S. These findings might not be true forever. Apple can change the algorithm again (and again). They are still valid at the time of publishing this article in Feb 2016.
P.S.S. I am building an auto-curation Robot for the best articles on different topics. Here’s the one about App Marketing. Subscribe if you like this article.
