What is App Store Optimization (ASO)?

As the mobile app industry grows exponentially, competition is increasing and the cost of getting new users is skyrocketing. App Store Optimization (ASO) is a process to give a maximum exposure in the app stores. We know the facts that there are hundreds of thousands of mobile apps are available for each category. In this competitive market, it is very hard to get the maximum visibility for an app in the app store. ASO is a process that can help an app to get easily discovered by the user within the app store.

Like website SEO, there are both “on page” (App Store listings) and “off page” techniques you can use to improve app store optimization and get your app ranking higher for high-intent queries. Apple — and most obviously, Google — know a thing or two about building search functionality, and their app search engines borrow many of the same ranking factors from traditional web search.

Advantages of ASO

Nowadays, ASO is one of the most crucial factors for any mobile app. Each app in the app store is a tough competitor for the another one. Researchers say that more than 63% of the people search their desired mobile apps on app stores. If any businesses are not doing ASO for their apps, they are missing huge amount of traffic and visibility.

Here is what you need to consider in your App Store Optimization (ASO) techniques when doing your next update in the app store:

Target Customers

A good ASO strategy understands the usage of apps by their customers along with the competition.

Keep the following questions in mind while developing your mobile apps

• Choose the preferred language for your target customers
• How should they describe your app
• Reason for using and downloading your app
• Keywords that you should target
• Keyword strength whether to focus high volume keywords or low volume keywords. (Do keyword research)

You must focus primarily on your competitor to focus the perfect keyword for your mobile app.

App Name

Your mobile app title can have 255 characters allowing targeted keywords, but don’t use this character length to stuff your keywords. Keep your app name in first followed by your focus keywords. Since you can use 255 characters but only 23 characters will be displayed in search results. Use user-friendly characters in the title. Avoid using special characters this leads to negative approach.

App Subtitle

App subtitle appears below the app’s name throughout the app store new. Those keywords which are you used in your app subtitle, that will be indexed by the new app store, so be sure to add a few of your best keywords to optimize your app at the new app store.

App Keywords

1. To select your 100 characters of keywords, start with brainstorming on the all the keywords associated with your app.
2. Limit and remove keywords that already appear in app title and your business name as they are also searchable. Instead, use it to include other important keywords.

Choosing the Right App Icon

Your app icon should be attention-grabbing, captivating users to either download the app or learn more via the description and screenshots. Successful apps focus on optimizing their icon even before launching to the app store. You can do this by testing out distinct designs on mobile advertising networks, like Admob, Google Adwords, and Facebook and measuring how potential app users react to different versions there.

Tips for designing your App icon:

• Avoid using words in your app icon – that’s what your app title and description are for.
• Ensure your icon’s design is consistent with the design of your app.
• Try adding borders to your icon so it looks great on all backgrounds.
• Stand out from the crowd – improve and innovate!