In 2014, mobile stopped being the ‘future’ marketing strategy and became an integral part of any current strategy and this is somewhat down to the popularity of mobile applications.
This was a year when consumers started to successfully download apps not just for fun and games, but for eCommerce, healthcare and utility and actually use them! Apple’s App Store billing outgrew Hollywood Box Office in the US and Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19bn. Companies have added apps to their portfolio to increase brand loyalty, improve customer service, and increase revenue and many new companies have been created especially for this emerging market.
So what has this meant in the app market?
At the end on 2014, there were over 1.5 million apps available to consumers across all devices.Even when you separate this number into different genres and geological markets, the numbers are still staggering. However, the marketing channels within the app stores haven’t changed in the last 6 years since their inception, using ranked lists to promote popular or new applications on the market.
There are around 40,000 of these lists on the app store and it is considered that if you do not rank on any of these then your app will never be found organically. Currently 83% of apps are not ranked in any of these lists and these apps are called zombie apps. They sit within the app store with no way to find them except for specific search terms, usually the name of the app.
So how do you create an app which will live?
This isn’t the first time that volume of results has inhibited brands from being visible in organic search results. SEO, or search engine optimisation, is one of the key online marketing strategies used by companies online to be found by people looking for their products or services, and best practice has been refined over the years to give websites a competitive advantage and to keep up with Google algorithm changes.
Traditional marketing is vitally important when looking at your strategy as your app is just the same as any other product or service that is of value to consumers. However, ASO, or App Store Optimisation is an increasingly overlooked opportunity when trying to create traction and growth in the app market.
Here are the key factors you should consider from an ASO perspective:
App Title – Keywords in the title
Adding target keywords to the name of the app is not immediately obvious. Very rarely do companies name themselves after their product or service, however according to MobileDevHQ apps with keywords in their title rank 10% higher. SimilarWeb reports that the renaming of the ‘Amazon’ app to ‘Amazon Shopping’ saw a jump from #14 to #3 for the shopping search term andtook 10% market share for this term, up from 2.18%. Other apps have followed suit including Gmail – email from Google and Spotify Music.
This is more obvious: add more keywords and be found for more search terms. Google Play has a description field with a 4,000 character limit, whereas Apple has a keyword field with a 100 character limit on iTunes Connect, therefore you will need to optimise differently for both versions.
For Apple, it is best to separate your keywords by commas but do not use spaces: “keyword1,keyword2″ will be just as effective as “keyword1, keyword2″ but will save space.
Apple’s search algorithm can combine keywords, so use single words with commas even if it is a phrase. The description field content does not count into keywords so remember here it is just about convincing the reader rather than loading it with keywords.
For Google, keywords should appear 5 times to be optimal in the description. As you might expect from Google, this is more akin to more traditional SEO and therefore it is up to you to find the best balance of keywords and useful information for the reader.
Ratings and Reviews
Ratings mean rankings. And not just any ratings, an app requires positive ratings to be considered a popular app and make its way onto the ranked lists. This usually starts with the people you know.
Even if you’re aiming for world domination, you need to start somewhere and getting 10 honest positive ratings from friends and family can give users the motivation to download and use your app.
Once you start getting downloads there are techniques you can use to get further good ratings and reviews. A “share the love” button can be a better call to action than ‘leave a review’. If you are using notifications, make sure these are at the right times and to the right people, ignoring these factors could lead to negative reviews and worse rankings.
There are however people that are going to have bad experiences. The ideal scenario in these cases is that they contact you and not leave a bad review. If you include a form of contact in your app description like email address, a Twitter or Facebook account, this can become a source for feedback which won’t affect your rankings.
What else can you do?
Other important factors when creating your product are your logo, the app screen shots, and App Updates.
Your logo should be simple. Avoid using words in the icon, the design is going to be quite small so it is best to be consistent with the app but also stick out from the crowd. You should consider using a border so it works on a variety of backgrounds as the image should be visually impressive when it is on the phone as well as when it is in the app store.
Screen shots in the app store are the clearest visual indication of what experience the user will have before downloading the app. Google and Apple give 8 and 5 respectively so use them to full effect.
The best screenshot is one that reflects what is so great about you app; it sometimes appears in the search results so take that into consideration too.
App updates occur semi-regularly and can be an annoyance to users. Inform the user thoroughly by filling in the ‘what’s new’ field with all the relevant details, and add a call to action to encourage users to download.
Number of downloads is one of the biggest factors when ranking. This is why traditional marketing approaches are important to the success of the app. Looking at all of your marketing channels and your audience will give your app the best possible chance for success.
Now you have your action plan how to optimise your app, what is your next step? What app would you create for your business?
By James Stacey, Fast Web Media.
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