App Store Optimization in Asian regions is made complicated by strong language barriers, but we at RadASO are well versed with handling various complexities that Asian locales bring to the table. To help ease and speed up the optimization processes involved, we will be discussing the key online services that will streamline localization in Far Eastern countries. We’ll start by describing their main functions ASO specialists will be interested in. Let's go!
AppTweak, DataAI, Appfollow and other standard industry tools do not always help when Asian regions are involved. There are three key issues that can be distinguished when working with this region.
1. A lack of clarity regarding the realistic search volume figures in China.
This occurs due to the difference in algorithms that services use to calculate the level of search term popularity
2. Specifics of hieroglyphic input.
The biggest obstacle in visual perception of a person who doesn't understand hieroglyphic language is the absence of any punctuation. A notable example is the difficulty of visual perception that’s related to the three variants of written Japanese language - hiragana, katakana and kanji. They are interchangeable and can mix with each other. So you can see different types of hieroglyphs at the same time in one sentence that won't be divided in any way by spaces or punctuation.
3. Inaccurate translation using popular online translation tools.
You are not always receiving accurate keywords translations. You need to search for synonyms that are spelled correctly and have bigger popularity among locals.
E.g.:
For the keyword "order a taxi", Google Translate returns a translation consisting of 4 Chinese hieroglyphs — 叫出租车. Any kind of phrasing is rarely used in spoken language, thus it has a low search volume.
Popular analogies among local population:
打车 — take a taxi — a search volume of 7176.
叫车 — call a taxi— a search volume of 5424.
Further recomendations that can address these questions.
Qimai is the Chinese counterpart of widely familiar ASO services like AppTweak, DataAI, Appfollow, etc.
It covers data originating from the main app stores (App Store and Google Play) and 9 others serving Android users in 155 countries/regions all over the world. Qimai supports numerous multidimensional data functionality, including rankings for the apps you’re interested in, comparison of competing products, gives you profit estimates, etc. The semantic core gathering process in Chinese language with Qimai will take 15-20 minutes max. This core consists of relevant keyword queries that have an accurate translation and the greatest search volume relevance at the same time. The service is relatively free to use, but it also comes with a paid subscription. Making the switch may be necessary If you’re going to analyze more than 10 apps and 1000 words. Pricing is quite affordable and starts from 4600 CNY (approx $350).
It's fully in Chinese, so for comfortable work, you’re almost certainly going to need some form of automated translation to translate the pages. If you work in Chrome, you will automatically be given an option to translate foreign languages. In other cases, you can use browser extensions such as Select to Translate, ImTranslator, and others.
Let's take a look at the interface.
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These services let us split phrases into individual words.
Atilika.org (Kuromoji) — is an open source Java based Japanese morphological analyzer. It has been transferred to Apache software fund and provides Japanese language support through:
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Key features of Kuromoji:
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RomajiDesu — is a free online Japanese-English dictionary with a bunch of features.
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Key features of RomajiDesu:
The site has a RomajiDesu Bookmarklet that allows you to quickly go to the dictionary and grab its output without having to visit the site separately. You can find this feature and the instructions for it in the RomajiDesu section of the site.
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Thai2english.com — a Thai to English online translation tool with a word separation feature.
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Key features of Thai2english:
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The service mdbg.net is focused on helping students learn Chinese.
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Key features of mdbg.net:
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Chinese words separator automatically separates the Chinese text into individual words by color. When hovering over a word an English translation of each character pops up and there’s an annotation to it.
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We couldn't find any noticeable downsides to this service :)
Chinese Tools significantly simplifies work with Chinese characters. It converts the text into different versions of Chinese (simplified/traditional, pinyin), splits them into individual words, and pronounces them by going to the corresponding section of the purpleculture.net site.
To use it, you need to highlight the desired text, click with the left mouse button, and select what you need to do with it using the plugin.
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At toolnb.com you have access to a large number of tools that can simplify many tasks. Here are some of them:
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Weblio — this is a collection of Japanese online dictionaries that allows you to search and receive results from multiple dictionaries and glossaries.
The key feature for ASO specialists is the thesaurus, or synonym search.
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In comparison to other regions, preparing metadata for Asia is a more complicated and laborious process. RadASO’s experience shows that this service will help simplify work with Asian locales.
It's only a small selection of services that are available, but we tested them all and these will certainly help you get more acquainted with the ASO specifics of the Asian region.
For the best results, it’s recommended to alternate between these resources and their features. It’s the process we use at RadASO ourselves, so we highly recommend you work it into your very own workflow.
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