We’re always looking for valuable nuggets of information that can provide you with the ammunition needed to maximize your games’ potential. Phil Shpilberg from GameChangersSF is here to lend his expertise on how to increase your game’s discovery in the app stores.
IS APP STORE OPTIMIZATION EFFECTIVE?
Yes. Very. I’ll kick it off with an example of an indie developer who updated their app in the App Store using our ASO instructions. We optimized their game’s name and meta keywords and experimented with a few other tricks. After our changes were implemented, Searchman instantly showed an increase in app store visibility (more on Searchman later) and iTunes Connect data showed a doubling of organic daily downloads. We’ve seen this multiple times, though it’s not always this effective, this quickly.
Trust me, it works. Now let's see how you can get started.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES OPERATE
On the web, search engines go through a 3-step process
- Crawl Web Pages – find stuff on the web by looking at and following links, looking at sitemaps, etc.
- Index Content – categorize it by finding keywords and decide how to match it to searches.
- Rank Content – use an algorithm to decide which pages are more relevant for keyword searches.
App Store search engines work in a very similar way, except step 1 is much simpler. The web is an open system, while the app stores are closed and tightly controlled by the same company doing the crawling, indexing and ranking. Google and Apple host all the content on their own servers, so the content structure and metadata is completely controlled and homogenous across all apps. When a web page is updated, Google has to crawl the page and see if anything has changed. When an app is updated in Google Play, Googlebot finds it and instantly re-crawls and categorizes the content.
This means we can focus on steps 2 and 3, but for the sake of this post, we’ll focus on step 2.
KEYWORDS – HOW TO GET GOOGLE AND APPLE TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR APP
App Store Optimization starts with keywords. Consumers search the app stores using a couple of words, usually on their mobile devices. It might look like “candy crush” or “restaurants in san francisco” or “old shoes”
Before the app store algorithms start ranking anything, they make a list of apps that relate to the searched keywords. Before you do anything else, you need to find out how your target audience searches and finds apps in your category. If you want to rank high in the relevant searches, you need to have a solid number of downloads and good reviews (see what matters here.
But before becoming the prom queen, you need to get to the prom, right? Keywords will get you there because it doesn’t matter if Candy Crush Saga has 700 trillion downloads, if you’re searching for “old shoes,” Candy Crush isn’t going to be shown (I checked).
HOW TO FIND RELEVANT KEYWORDS
If you have an app or are about to publish one, you probably have a good idea of how your target market might search for it. Start by making a list of likely searches. Head over to Google AdWords Planner and click “get search volume by list of keywords.” While web search is different than app store search, human search behavior is going to be similar, and Google is the world’s largest repository of human search behavior.
Let’s say you’re making an app to help people find used cars and your primary market is the United States. Localization is a whole other topic because even UK vs. US vs. Australian English will require research on common search terms (apartment vs. flat, anyone?).
You’ll probably start with something like “used cars,” “used vehicles,” “pre-owned cars,” pre-owned vehicles.” You clearly see “used cars” is the most popular. This example wasn’t hard to predict, but there are a lot more subtle categories.
Next, head over to Straply, a great free tool for keyword volume and competitiveness estimates.
Here you can see some of the searches that are popular. I would note “used car parts,” “used car values,” “used car prices,” and “used car expert” as relevant in my category.
COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING
Now we have some idea of what our customers are looking for so it’s time to find out who ranks there and why. The simple way to do it is to search the App Stores:
ITUNES APP STORE
GOOGLE PLAY
Here you will see the top ranking apps. Look at their app titles, open their descriptions and note their keywords and how many times they appear. What are your competitors optimizing on (what do they believe is most relevant)? Take note and decide where you want to compete and where you don't. Make sure you only use keywords that describe your app.
For efficiency and a fee, you can automate some of this research with great tools like:
These will not only give you a quick overview of how you and your competitors are doing in the stores, but they will also suggest keyword and give you other neat tools to improve your ASO. Each has their own strengths and shortcomings–at GameChangerSF, we use a combination of these tools.
Make a list of keywords that look like they’re driving download volume for your competitors. You can get volume estimates right on each app page on Google Play. Apple doesn’t disclose downloads, but you can get an idea of how an app is doing vs. its competition by looking at charts history. For this, App Annie’s free service is great.
Now you should have a solid list of keywords that drives volume in your category so it’s time to implement what you learned to improve visibility.
USING KEYWORDS AND KEYWORD RICH COPY
App Name
Can you add extra keywords to your app name that will drive search ranking? You will often see developers do something like this. Certainly “Bingo Bash” would have been enough for any human to understand that they’re downloading a bingo game, but this app is called “Bingo Bash – Free Bingo Casino” because Bash Gaming knows their customers search things like “free bingo” and “bingo casino.”
Developer Name
If you haven’t published your app, are flexible on your company name and don’t mind having your name closely associated with your main keywords, put the keywords in your developer name. In the used cars example perhaps you should consider “Used Cars, Inc.” It can’t hurt when it comes to search.
Apple Meta Keywords
Here’s where things get fun. You have 100 keywords to tell Apple what your app is about. First, spaces count but you can do this “keyword1,keyword2,..” not “keyword1, keyword2, …” Every character counts, so use it wisely. Don’t bother with generic keywords like “free,game,facebook” unless they’re associated with other keywords like “free shooter game.”
Google App Copy
Google gives you 4000 characters to tell your story. You should use as much of it as you can. There is no advantage to shorter copy. Don’t go bonkers with your keywords. Saying “used cars” 300 times might make Google think you are keyword spamming, but you can repeat the keywords a healthy number of times. Make sure you strike a good balance between making your app copy legible for humans as well as easily indexable by Googlebot.
Track Track Track…Rinse, and Repeat
Great, you’ve followed the steps above and published your new and improved ASO friendly app. Are you done? You’re never done! ASO is an ongoing process that you’re going to work on all the time (or have somebody like us do it for you).
After you publish watch closely for changes in your app store visibility. Where did you gain rank? Where did you lose rank? You can search the app stores and make lists, or use the services above.
Did your organic downloads change? This part is important. We aren’t in this for vanity right? We are trying to drive downloads and (usually) profit. If ranking highly against a keyword isn’t getting you results, look for other keywords. Rinse and repeat. ASO is not a fluffy marketing exercise–live and optimize with data!
I hope this helps you get started on the road to ASO mastery. If it’s too time consuming and you would rather keep all your focus on making an awesome app, contact us at fly@gamechangersf.com and we’ll do a great job with your ASO. Please leave comments and ask us questions, we want this to be a conversation where we learn from each other. And, as always, please share the knowledge on the social interwebs. We love that. It helps our SEO (ASO’s older sibling).
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Phil Shpilberg is the president of mobile game marketing company GameChangerSF. He previously ran marketing for the social-mobile division of 2K Games. His work is the intersection of a lifelong love of gaming and his obsession with ROI and data-driven marketing. |
[Original Post published on gamechangersf.com]