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Today’s two major app marketplaces are the Google Play store and Apple App Store. With more than 5.4 Million apps and new apps popping out daily, App Store Optimization Audit has become the only route to survival and success for app creators.
In this article, we’ll learn everything about the app stores and app store audit.
So, let’s get started.
App Store is nothing but an app that offers people a safe and trusted place to find software/apps with high security standards and privacy, and install them on their devices.
An app store consists of a comprehensive collection of free and commercial software, games and apps that people can use for various purposes. Users can enter the app store, browse for required apps, purchase or download for free, install and update.
Safety:
The first and foremost reason is that the software and apps available in the app store are officially approved by the store operator making them more safe & secure to download.
Apple inspects the code of the apps in the macOS and iOS App Store, and Google does it for the Play Store. They ensure the software doesn’t contain any malware or viruses that may harm the user’s device.
Convenience:
People can find all types of software, games & apps in one place which is easy to search and download.
Trust:
All approved software is digitally signed by the respective store operators making it trustworthy.
Easy to update:
When new updates are made available for the software installed, the users are notified by the store. This way, users needn’t manually check for updates, and when multiple updates are made available, all of them can be installed in one go.
Experience:
As all apps go through inspection before approval. The interface and user experience are ensured for consistency across apps.
What is App Store Optimization Audit?
The App Store Optimization (ASO) Audit is a process in which all factors that affect the positioning of your app on different app stores – iOS and Google – are analyzed and audited.
After the audit, specific strategies are drafted and implemented to improve the ASO factors, apps’ organic traffic and its performance on different platforms.
The list of typical ASO factors includes;
The two primary goals of ASO Audit are,
When is the right time to conduct an App Store Audit?
The ultimate goal of an app store audit is to thoroughly understand the app’s positioning and find new ways to improve its reach, visibility and organic downloads.
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The Apple App Store is the second-largest app store, with more than 2.2 million apps in it. In this intense battle among millions of apps, chances to position your app on top become impossible though your app may have the best features & benefits.
The success of your app doesn’t rely on how good it is but on how many people downloaded it.
This makes App Store Audit and Optimization the need of the hour.
Most users download the apps right on top after searching for them on the app store, making the top positions crucial. The higher an app ranks, better its download numbers.
Thus, by conducting an App Store Audit, you have a high chance of finding opportunities for your app and ensuring visibility. A robust App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy can bring significant organic traffic and downloads to your app.
Depending on the company’s, app creator’s or marketer’s priorities and goals, App Store Optimization Audit follows the following steps.
1. Executing research to understand the niche & audience.
2. Conducting a thorough competitor analysis.
3. Implementing keyword research to find the most used keywords.
4. Optimizing the metadata with keywords.
5. Implementing a review strategy
6. Increasing the app’s visibility through effective long descriptions:
7. Optimizing the creative assets – App Icon and Screenshots.
8. Monitoring, revising & re-optimizing the app store changes.
9. Localizing the app to adapt foreign languages worldwide.
1. Executing research to understand the niche & audience:
Without a proper understanding of your audience and how they search for your app, reaching them is impossible. So you need to figure out what keywords they use to explore and describe your app to include it in your data.
You can start by tracking the generic and specific keywords followed by understanding your niche and competitors.
Remember to target high search volume keywords and keep track of your chance scores for more organic reach.
2. Conducting a thorough competitor analysis
Find out in which position your competitors are ranking—research the keywords they are targeting and use them in your favor. You can also use these keywords to discover more competitors you are unaware of.
In this step of the audit, you analyze your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and positioning to develop better strategies to attain the top position.
Once you understand what keywords users are using to search and what keywords your competitors are ranking, App Store keyword optimization for your app is the next step.
From the exhaustive keyword pool collected, track more popular, less competitive, and keywords relevant to your app. Try,
More than generic keywords, you can go for long-tailed keywords as they have higher search volumes and numerous combinations. Also, use the keywords that bring your competitor organic downloads and redirect them to your app.
After finalizing 10-20 keywords from the keyword pool, create your metadata. With
For Apple App Store, the title, keyword list, and subtitle will be indexed, while for Google Play Store, its title, description, and long description.
Based on character limitations, include your keywords in the spaces available.
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Positive reviews and ratings on your app are essential for the algorithm and to attract your users. The algorithm uses these ratings to improve the app’s ranking in the store.
Moreover, the reviews and ratings help you understand the user’s opinions about your app and improve it as per user expectations.
Most users check the reviews and ratings before downloading the app. This makes it essential to respond to reviews as it shows you listen to your customers and care about their feedback.
In short, better ratings can get you a positive impression among the users and the algorithm.
6. Increasing the app’s visibility through effective long descriptions.
Google Play Store provides space for short and long descriptions about the app. If skillfully handled, you can use this space to provide a compelling narrative of the app, its features, benefits and convince the users to download it.
Long descriptions are one of the critical factors that drive the conversion rate. Strategically including primary keywords in long descriptions helps in indexing the app in the Google Play Store.
The primary goals of having an optimized long description are,
1. To draw attention and convince the users to download the app.
2. Provide clear information about the app – Its USP, features, and benefits.
3.Include all necessary keywords for search and indexing
You can also format your description using pointers and bold titles, making it attractive and easy to read.
The app icon is the first thing every user sees when they search. Thus, your icon should be attractive enough to capture the scrolling users’ attention and intrigue them to explore your app.
To understand what designs and colors attract the users, you can do A/B testing on your icon.
Screenshots are another visual representation of how your app looks. All users want to know how the app would look on the inside, even before downloading it.
You can make a solid first impression on the user by displaying some eye-catching screenshots of your app pages. And by optimizing these creative assets, you can increase your app’s success.
Also, display horizontal or vertical screenshots based on how users use your app and ensure it conveys a compelling story to the users.
App store audit and optimization is not a one-time process. To keep up with the competition and ever-changing algorithms and trends, you must practice app store audit and optimization consistently.
You’ll also have to consider localization – adapting your app to different cultures, languages, geographical locations, and more – for better reach.
Though there are many steps in App store optimization, these nine are unavoidable when you start your audit journey.
User engagement, user retention, and downloads are the few standard metrics that app creators and marketers monitor to understand the status of their apps.
However, below are few other metrics you need to track to measure the success of your app in the app stores.
1. Discoverability in App Stores
2. Active users
3. Lifetime Value (LTV)
4. User acquisition cost
5. Conversion rate
App Store Optimization is unavoidable in every app creator’s and marketer’s marketing strategy.
With more than 65% of app downloads happening via app store searches, without ASO, you are losing on the most prominent app discovery channel available.
ASO gets your app better visibility and more significant insights. With all users visiting the app store to download some app or the other, ranking top on the searches increases the probability of your app downloading.
No matter from where the user lands on your app page – search ads, native ads, media ads, or social ads – ASO helps your app offer a consistent experience leading to higher conversions.
ASO helps with organic installs. This way, you enjoy lower acquisition and retention costs as organic installs have 25% higher retention than non-organic installs.
ASO Audit directs you to follow the store’s best practices, such as localized listing, strong content and creatives, positive reviews and videos, increasing your chances of getting featured on the store.
Besides these, an app store optimization audit makes tracking and reporting easier, increases the sense of ownership and implements faster corrective action if necessary.
In a nutshell, app store optimization is the path to growth of your app. Constant monitoring and testing will help you attain long-term success.
Some case studies tell the story of apps that grew their downloads by more than 300% with app store optimization.
When strategically analyzed and carefully executed, an app store optimization audit can get you exceptional results and open up new avenues of opportunity to market your app.
Keeping an eye on updates, competitor practices, and your position will help you achieve & retain the top position.
You can always contact us – the leading App Store Optimization Agency – if you’d like to grow your app 10X or learn more about app store optimization.
Click Here For A Free App Store Audit Report
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