An app or mobile game development is a time-consuming and crucial ASO process that can determine its success or failure. The RadASO team prepared checklists to assist you at any stage, including pre- and post-release steps. Read below to ensure you are ready for a successful mobile app launch on the market.
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Before planning the app launch, you should answer the following questions:
Answers to these questions are helpful during the marketing promotion strategy development. Moreover, determine the app's purpose and what specific requirements and issues it can solve.
When you start ASO, you should know this is a strategy that forms a clear vision and step-by-step algorithm for the app to achieve its goals.
ASO strategy components include the following:
Due to a well-thought-out ASO strategy, a mobile app has a chance to become visible among competitors and attract its users.
This important research stage helps identify the market where you plan to launch the app.
Key questions for competitor analysis:
Major topics for analyzing competitors’ feedback:
Answers will help not only enter the market successfully but also provide more profitable offers to the target audience and attract more users in the early stages.
Examples of competitor analysis are provided below:
The app store optimization strategy process forms an understanding of how competitive the market is before the launch, what features to focus on for competitiveness, what to pay attention to, and which countries to prioritize for the application promotion.
Textual metadata (title, subtitle, description, and keywords) is an essential step when launching an app. It helps the user get introduced to the app content, and search engines “analyze” what the app is about and display it to the target audience.
Well–formulated metadata includes relevant keywords that users apply on search pages. This makes the app more visible in search results, which leads to more traffic and income.
The RadASO team applies such rules to successful app indexing at the very first stages:
Common criteria for the App Store and Google Play are the following:
There are also criteria for the Google Play:
Criteria for the App Store mention the next aspects:
The list of “free” words consists of:
A, about, above, after, again, against, all, am, an, and, any, app, are, aren’t, as, at, be, because, been, before, being, below, between, both, but, by, can’t, cannot, could, couldn’t, did, didn’t, do, does, doesn’t, doing, don’t, down, during, each, few, for, from, further, had, hadn’t, has, hasn’t, have, haven’t, having.
He, he’d, he’ll, he’s, her, here, here’s, hers, herself, him, himself, his, how, how’s, I, I’d, I’ll, I’m, I’ve, if, in, into, is, isn’t, it, it’s, its, itself, let’s, me, more, most, mustn’t, my, myself, no, nor, not, of, off, on, once, only, or, other, ought, our, ours, ourselves, out, over, own, same, shan’t, she, she’d, she’ll, she’s.
Should, shouldn’t, so, some, such, than, that, that’s, the, their, theirs, them, themselves, then, there, there’s, these, they, they’d, they’ll, they’re, they’ve, this, those, through, to, too, under, until, up, very, was, wasn’t, we, we’d, we’ll.
We’re, we’ve, were, weren’t, what, what’s, when, when’s, where, where’s, which, while, who, who’s, whom, why, why’s, with, won’t, would, wouldn’t, you, you’d, you’ll, you’re, you’ve, your, yours, yourself, yourselves.
Note: During the first release on Apple within 5 days, the store automatically adds suggestions from the title for each keyword in it. This boost is displayed for any keywords from the title in the App Store.Read more on how to boost an app at the first app store release: life hacks from RadASO.
Icons and screenshots are the first elements users see when they search for an app or get to know it. Attractive visuals grab users’ attention, show them what the app is about, highlight the app among competitors, create a first positive impression, and increase the probability of downloads. Therefore, it is important to make high-quality graphics.
The main guidelines for creating icons and screenshots:
Note: Don’t forget to add unique details to stand out from competitors.
The following steps in visual development will also help to increase performance:
The screenshot examples, created following the tips above, are mentioned below:
Read more about the visual component in Netpeak Journal articles:
ASO is an ongoing process that requires careful analysis of the results and their adaptation after each iteration.
The following factors are important to consider for correct conclusions:
The following analytics tools will help you track changes after the first release: ASOLytics, Sensor Tower, App Store Connect, and Google Play Console.
The App Store and Google Play algorithms are constantly updated, and people’s interests vary. It is important to regularly adapt metadata and graphics to meet new requirements and stand out from competitors.
Managing metadata (title, description, and keywords) makes your app more relevant to users’ search terms, which leads to better rankings and increased conversion and profit as a result.
This makes the app more user-friendly and accessible. Localization increases user trust, while descriptions and screenshots provided in their language motivate them to download the app.
It is also necessary to consider the cultural characteristics of certain countries and regions. For example, specific colors may have negative meanings in particular cultures, and the use of inappropriate images may lead to criticism and rejection of the product.
Read more about the impact of cultural and national peculiarities on metadata localization.
Nike, United Kingdom:
Nike, Korea:
Uber, United States:
Uber, Japan:
Note: Involve native speakers to adapt the content and do not skimp on quality translation.
In-app events — are specific activities in apps or games that last for a limited time. For example, they can be game competitions, movie previews, and live broadcasts.
Users can find these in-app events in the following areas:
In-app events encourage new users to try your app, existing users to get even more excited about it, and ex-users to download it back. It’s a chance to increase your app’s visibility, get more downloads, and collect reviews.
Promotional Content (LiveOps advertising content) is a type of content that informs about events, new products, promotions, special offers, and significant program updates. This is possible within the Google Market in the Games Home, Store Listing Page, Event Tab, and Search Results sections.
Three main types of advertising content can be used to spread the news:
Promoted In-App Purchases are the buying of virtual goods that appear on the app page, in search results, and on the Today, Apps, and Games tabs.
They provide additional visibility for the app and can potentially affect conversions since they have a larger space in search results due to their location below the app. It is possible to promote up to 20 different purchases at the same time.
Note: Each promoted in-app purchase contains its own metadata:
• the title (up to 30 characters) is indexed, description (up to 45 characters) is not indexed;
• the title and description can be optimized for 39 localizations (just like the regular metadata of the app page);
• the icon is the same for all localizations.
The purpose of A/B testing is to identify the most effective visual elements of the store page (screenshots, icons, videos, and metadata for Google Play) to increase conversion from views to downloads.
Find out more about A/B Testing in ASO. What Is It and How to Conduct It in Apple’s App Store or Google Play?
To perform an A/B test, it is important to do the following tasks:
Note: It is important to continue testing until you identify a group of people with the best conversion rates.
In the App Store, you can test icons, screenshots, and videos, and perform only one test at a time (for all localizations or specific ones).
On Google Play, you can test short and long descriptions, icons, feature graphics, screenshots, and videos, and perform five tests at once. There are also two types of tests on Google Play:
In both cases, the current element variant is compared with a maximum of three new variants.
Variant А:
Variant В:
Variant А:
Variant В:
Stores strive to protect users from harmful, fraudulent, or inappropriate apps. Policy compliance ensures that the app meets these standards.
Here are a few more reasons why this is important:
Follow the official Apple Store and Google Play for updates.
To attract the first users, launching advertising and marketing campaigns is important.
Key platforms that are worth using:
ASO featuring is the posting of a mobile application in special App Store and Google Play sections, such as “New and Interesting”, “Recommended”, “Editor's Choice”, etc.
This tool can significantly increase the app's visibility, attract users, and increase the downloads number from other sources in the stores.
To get featured, follow the next steps:
The mobile app rating is a numerical mark that is generated based on reviews and ratings from users.
Work on increasing the app’s rating has several benefits for the app:
To increase the app rating, do the following:
☑️Enable App Rating Prompts – a pop-up window for requesting a rating within the app, also called Rate Us windows.
It can be either standard (provided by the store) or custom (a window in the application created by the developer). It allows users to rate the app and write a review. This window should appear after a positive experience (after completing a game level, a win, or a successful activity) in the app.
Find out more about how to boost mobile app rankings using App Rating Prompts.
☑️ Respond to negative reviews when there are any. If you can solve the user’s problem, he or she is more likely to change the rating to a positive one.
Find out more about reviews and ratings in App Store Optimization (ASO) and App Promotion Strategies.
User reviews are a valuable source of information about an app.
Due to reviews, you can get answers to the following questions for free:
Note: Always respond to user reviews and show interest in his/her opinion.
You should use keywords in your answers on Google Play, as the store takes them into account when indexing.
Analyzing reviews and making improvements based on them leads to a high level of user satisfaction. This is usually automatically reflected in downloads and income.
It helps the app to stay up-to-date, increase ASO efficiency, and adapt to changes and user behavior.
You should take into account the following aspects:
This is a basic requirement for any mobile application to function. You can find the requirements in the App Store and Google Play.
The aspects below describe why it is important and how it affects the application:
So, ASO is a long-term strategy that includes app pre launch and post-release activities described in this article. Use the checklist to ensure that your app optimization not only maintains a successful launch and improved visibility in the future but also increases organic traffic and downloads as well.
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