It is vital to be aware of one of the App Store’s significant features for efficient app promotion. At the time of its first release in each country, an app can get a boost on the keywords in its title via auto-suggestions. The RadASO team is about to tell you how Apple helps new apps gain more visibility and why it is so important to handle the first metadata correctly and add the most relevant and popular search terms to the app’s title.
Important Note! That boost can only happen once, during the first app’s launch or its open in a new country where it was never accessible before. By adding a new locale to the country that already has access to the app, you won’t get the boost, and auto-suggestions won’t appear.
Аuto-suggestions at the App Store are suggestions provided by the store when users type a few letters or a word in the search line.
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It is very common for a user not to finish typing the search phrase and just tap on the search prompt offered by a store. That’s why these auto-suggestions are a valid method of attracting more traffic.
The company won’t disclose this info. However, the RadASO team makes an educated guess that the algorithm works based on the following aspects.
The platform may note the user’s search history to suggest apps that match their interests and preferences. If a user often searches for a particular type of app, the auto-suggestions will prioritize similar apps above all else.
Algorithms often consider other users’ search requests. If particular search terms or apps are popular, they are more likely to appear in the auto-suggestions.
The algorithm indicates search terms used for similar apps and adds those to the auto-suggestions.
While you work in your textual metadata, add to the title the most popular and traffic-generating search terms for each country. A search suggestion may appear for every term in the title. That’s your golden opportunity to gain more views on relevant search terms in a competitive niche.
Note! New apps, for their first release, tend to add to the app’s title their brand name, which no one knows yet. That is an obvious mistake, for the app misses on a unique chance to get a boost on a popular term they could’ve added to the title instead of the brand name.
The brand name can be easily added to the title on one of the post-boost releases when the time comes to improve brand awareness.
According to the RadASO team’s observations, the auto-suggestions will continue appearing for the next five days for each search term in the app’s title.
For its first release, this app had “shopper: grocery shopping list.” in the Title. The boost started immediately after the release, and suggestions (prompts) for other search terms appeared. The boost lasted for five days.
For its first release, this app had “word duo – crossword & puzzle” in its title for the English (UK) localization. After the release, auto-suggestions appeared in the UK and other countries because English (UK) is active almost everywhere. The boost lasted for five days, the same as in the previous example.
So, the app’s boost during its first release is a chance for a new, totally unknown app to attract a significant amount of traffic via auto-suggestions gifted by Apple. The most important task here is to be smart about goal setting and use the maximum possible number of relevant and traffic-generating search terms in the app’s title.
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