What is App Store Optimization (ASO)?

So, you are already familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and are ready to look for other areas to improve your company’s digital assets? There are numerous other areas that need similar levels of ongoing love- social media, content writing, etc- but perhaps those are already being managed. What else is there to look into? Does your company have an app? If so, there is optimization that can be done to help improve your rankings in the app store and drive more downloads.

Users finding a new app to use is not a complex science, most users just find things they want to download by browsing through the store.  How many times have you been looking at a new travel app or game and clicked through to similar categories or “other apps like this” areas? Well, you are not alone.  The graphic below highlights how people find the apps that they use and overall the differences between iOS and Android are relatively small.

If you already know the basics of SEO, the jump to App Store Optimization (ASO) is not that difficult.  The core of strong onpage SEO is found in the meta title, ASO is no different.  Using the appropriate keywords in the title of the app will increase your overall search rankings and in turn increase the number of downloads. Increased downloads leads into the second tenet of ASO, which is that app rankings are partly based on popularity of the product. If a product is downloaded more often, it is considered to be more popular than other items and thus should have more weight in the rankings. Playing into that same concept, reviews are the final factor that should be taken into account. Having a product that is well reviewed and reviewed often will help influence the rankings.  Encouraging users to (note: I say encouraging, not spamming them every time they log in to review your app) leave a review if they enjoyed your app goes a long way.

I have seen tons of “click here to review” type pop ups in apps and I’ve rarely ever followed through with it BUT have had one such plea that encouraged me to leave a review.  It was a simple page within the app that was about support and said something along the lines of “This is a free app, we made it as a passion project and continue to support it via apps- but it in no means makes a profit. If you liked us, please review our app as it goes a long way in getting the word out about us.”  The post was simple, honest and made the case of why I should do it- I’m not saying this works for all apps or that you should play on people’s sympathies, but it was definitely a nice approach.

Overall, ASO is a relatively straightforward process. Similar to the value that high quality content plays to SEO, a high quality app speaks for itself. Build an app that you would want to use and be proud to have your name on, optimize it appropriately, market it (if necessary) and enjoy your strong app store rankings.