The previous piece in this Orange brick series was the ultimate path to success with conversion rate optimization, looking into app creative assets and understanding what actions you can take to get your app or game front and center to have the biggest impact on CVR.
This time, we’ll curate the many articles, webinars, and podcast episodes we created on the second facet of App Store Optimization: Discoverability which is divided into two main methodologies – App Store Visibility and App Keyword Optimization. We’ll tackle measurement, crucial to a good ASO strategy, another time.
First things first – context.
With more than 2.8M apps on Google Play and around 2M apps on the App Store, you can understand how extremely hard yet valuable it is to get people to discover your app.
The practice of app discoverability optimization has several factors which account for all the ways of increasing organic impressions for your app store page, namely, search impressions and browse impressions. On average, of all users who install apps, 65-70% are coming through app store search and 15-20% are coming through browsing the app store. Together, they make up the vast majority of installs in the stores so the practice of increasing your search and browse impressions is a crucial part of your growth.
Another pointer: When talking about improving the two search and browse funnels, we’re listing keyword optimization and search ads in the search funnel column, and category and top charts ranking along with featuring, in the browse one.
Orange brick #1: The Complete Guide for Conversion Rate Optimization
In our previous learning path piece about creative optimization, we gave this guide as a bonus brick at the end, but we’ll start with it: our Complete App Store Optimization Guide. It encapsulates most of what we’ll share below, so if you’re looking for the bigger picture and you have some time (the automatic words counter states it takes 43 minutes to read this one) take it in to understand how discoverability fits into the whole ASO way of operating and thinking.
Orange brick #2: Choosing the Right App Category
The category you add your new app or game to can have a massive effect on your CVR. Users often go to the charts to look for a solution or a new game to pass the time with, and high-ranking apps generally receive a lot of traffic, which translates to more downloads. This article lists the different categories out there, discusses what you should consider when choosing the best fit for your app and gives you a three-step method to choosing the perfect category for your needs.
Orange brick #3: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Your App Featured
How can your app take the higher, more noticeable spots in the different categories? Being in the top 20 of a certain category isn’t the same as being in the first 200 of another. This piece will teach you how the App Store team decides which apps to feature, the types being featured and gives you a framework to follow to get featured yourself.
Orange brick #4: Ranking Factors for App Store and Google Play
Many discuss the intricacies, not to mention mysteries, of the app stores algorithms. Still, many ASO experts including our own have identified the trends and insights that cover the mechanism which controls the search results and the app rankings. This article isn’t solely for developers.
Orange brick #5: Keyword optimization: How to Improve Your App’s Discoverability
Keywords – a key metric of discoverability. It’s a whole dogma we’ll cover in the next few bricks, but let’s start with the following robust KW strategy. This piece shows you the three pillars of an effective keyword, teaches you how to develop an optimization plan for your KWs, validating, adding and finally, testing these KWs. Plus tips for better ranking and the right ASO tools to use while doing so.
Orange brick #6: Your Guide to Writing the Perfect App Title, Subtitle and Description
So we have the strategy, now let’s put pen to paper. This guide is all about the nuts and bolts of the different text elements associated with your app. We list the different ones for both stores and how to choose the right app title, subtitle and description according to a proven framework. The cherry on top? How to test their effect.
Orange brick #7: 5 Best Practices for Mastering Keyword Localization
After discussing the strategy and the hands-on work, this article explains how important it is to make your app or game appeal to different people, languages and cultures. The US audience is different to the European, Latin American etc audiences. So we offer five app localization best practices – starting with researching in every region to partner with local linguists. We also surface three key mistakes we’ve seen many app developers fall foul of. Avoid avoid avoid.
Orange brick #8: App Size and Your App Store Optimization Strategy
This piece covers a very narrow topic, but would you be surprised to hear that lack of storage is one of the top reasons why people delete apps? Don’t get uninstalled – learn why it’s crucial to keep your app size to a minimum.
Orange brick #9: Webinar – How to Get UA and ASO teams to Work Together
This resource can very much be used on our UA learning path as it sheds light on the connection between paid user acquisition and organic, and the effect ASO teams have on UA teams and vice-versa. The webinar we held with Gameloft demonstrates the importance of maximizing both paid and organic install growth via a more holistic approach to the pivotal growth loop (the new funnel).
Orange brick #10: 3 Insights About Organic Mobile Installs and Their Connection to Paid Installs
This piece doubles down on the connection between paid and organic described earlier, by highlighting some interesting insights discovered by our analytics team. Like how brand volume dictates search volume, and how total App Units are dictating category rankings. This may be classified under ‘expert’ level, but if you made it through the previous bricks, then you’re an expert by now.
Bonus Orange brick #11: The Full Growth Loops Map
There’s been enormous changes in mobile marketing in recent years, and one major change has been looking at the marketing funnel. Our eBook describes this reconstruction in the form of growth loops and the massive effect they can have on your mobile marketing strategies. To go even deeper, check this blog we wrote on that exact topic.
