App Store Optimization (ASO): Gaining Visibility in the Mobile App Space

App store optimization, one more optimization strategy you have to worry about for rankings, but in this case it’s your mobile app rankings.

With a number of mobile apps being discovered, it is certainly a daunting task to seek visibility for your app. This is one of the major issues faced by mobile app marketers today. Hence, it stands vital for all app marketers to understand the nuances and technicalities involved in marketing an app effectively. This article aims at focusing on one such crucial marketing techniques that seem to have been spurned lately – App Store Optimization (ASO).

The ASO process requires an in-depth comprehension of the customer base and keywords as they play a very crucial role while devising an efficient marketing plan. Wendy Clark, former SVP at Coca-Cola rightly said, “If your plans don’t include mobile, your plans are not finished.” Therefore, coming up with a potent marketing plan is highly essential for mobile marketers today in order to thrive in a competitive market. So, without much ado, let us dive deep into the significant aspects and mechanics of ASO in detail. Continue to read on and do jot them down!

What exactly is App Store Optimization (ASO)?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is an on-going process that focuses on improving an app’s rank and visibility on the app store.

The higher the rank of your app, the higher is the visibility to your target audience. 

A great example of a super competitive niche to rank mobile apps is, online casino websites. The gaming industry has grown tremendously in terms of mobile apps and their visibility all over the globe. Casino site’s like; https://www.swiftcasino.com/en-gb/ find it a struggle to keep rankings and traffic up and find that optimization is essential to its mobile app visibility constantly. 

The ASO process looks like:

Higher visibility ⭆   Increase in traffic to your app store page ⭆  More downloads

The process of ASO is much similar to that of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The difference here lies with the apps competing to rank on the app stores rather than websites on Google or other internet search engines. 

ASO largely depends on how regularly you update your app page on all the app stores. This indeed heightens visibility among potent users thus ensuring high ranking. 

The major components of ASO

The major components that constitute ASO include the following: 

• Keywords
• Title
• Total number of downloads
• Ratings and reviews

How significant is App Store Optimization (ASO) marketing strategy today? 

Well, with millions of apps on all the major app stores, it becomes laborious to make your app visible among the right users. Here is where the App Store Optimization strategy comes into play. If your app page is not optimized effectively, it fails to appear on relevant searches and you could simply lose a thousand of potential downloads within an instant.

Yes, it is critical as it sounds, without a doubt!

Time and effort are the two important facets that have to be taken into utmost consideration to reap all the benefits of ASO. To elaborate, both time and effort have to be spent every single week to improvise and keep your app updated in order to prosper in the current market. 

Brittany Armour from Clearbridge Mobile says,

“ASO will help ensure that your app gets seen in the App Store and will help amplify your other marketing efforts.”

What are the benefits associated with ASO?

There are numerous benefits when it comes to ASO. If you still haven’t been convinced of the fact that the ASO marketing strategy is the reality when it comes to investing in app store optimization, below are some of the points that you must consider for sure!

Lower acquisition costs

One of the biggest advantages of ASO is that by developing a good marketing strategy, you can increase your installs that would cost minimal. Optimizing your app would definitely result in improved visibility and higher ranking with reduced acquisition costs. 

App visibility to dynamic users

Keeping the keywords relevant for your target users is extremely crucial. Finding the right keywords to attract the right set of users for your app is the thing! Apart from this, it is also most essential to keep your app description precise and related as it definitely adds value in making your app visible to the right user. 

High revenue

Monetizing your app from adds, subscriptions, in-app purchases and so on would benefit you greatly in increasing your revenue from all the extra downloads. How cool is that!

Great stability

The extra downloads and increased revenue guarantees you with a stable future. With continuous effort and regularly updating your app, you can maintain consistency thus bettering both ranking and visibility extensively. 

Caution: ASO takes its own time!

ASO is a continuous process that needs prompt monitoring over a period of time.

Today, if we have to discuss an approach to follow for ASO, the truth is that there is no approach at all. It is a gradual process that requires patience, effort and time. In most cases today, the keyword search is poor or the app description sounds irrelevant and so, the discovery of the app by the users is very low. 

The CEO of MobileDevHQ comments on how investing time in ASO has affected their customers.

He says,

“ASO is having dramatic effects on our client apps. For those who put the time in to understand, iterate, and test, we’ve seen many apps increase their downloads by a factor of 2x-10x, and an increase of revenue by a similar, or bigger, rate due to the increase in engagement of users earned by ASO. ASO is not a simple process, and you might not see the impact overnight, but if you’re willing to invest in it, the outcome can be incredibly worthwhile.”

Summing up

It is rightly said, “What you reap is what you sew.” This perfectly applies to the App Store Optimization  (ASO) strategy. The two main determining factors are time and effort. You need to invest time and effort if you want to enjoy the fruits of it. 

Being discoverable is a challenge in the mobile app space given the competition and ever-changing trends and practices. However, it is not impossible if you understand the challenges it comes with it. You can actively solve visibility problems with ASO provided you are fully committed and consistent. Good luck there!