Search for, and build a list of competing apps. Just like in Search Engine Optimization, knowing your competitors and what are they doing will help you improve your app. There a plenty of tools to measure their (your competitors) performance, you can find a useful list in this post.

But don’t stop here, research what your competitors are doing outside of the app store. Google their apps and see which sites / blogs are writing about them and reviewing them. Below are some useful search engine queries you can use:

• CompetitorsAppName + review
• CompetitorsAppName + app review
• CompetitorsAppName + ratings
• CompetitorsAppName + comparison
• CompetitorsAppName  intitle:review
• CompetitorsAppName inurl:review
• CompetitorsAppName site:youtube.com
• CompetitorsAppName review site:youtube.com

Another way to find out who is talking about your competitor’s app is via their link profile.

Grab the tunes url of their app and use a toll like Majestic or Open Site Explorer to see who links to their app store page, most of the reviews will link either to the iTunes page or to the developers page.

Review app Title, Keywords and Description

These are some basic components of your ASO and should be reviewed on a regular basic. Search trends re changing as so need your keyword strategy. We have already covered the basic principles of ASO in this article.

Analyze How People Use Your App

Decide on your KPI and measure them, tolls like Yahoo’s Flurry Analytics can give you some insights into things like retention, usage, demographics and interests. Downloads are great but you have to make sure people continue using your app. Listen  to their feedback and take it into consideration when launching your next update.

Listen to your users

Ratings and Reviews are very important part of ASO and we believe them to also be a ranking factor. Apps with better ratings and reviews tend to rank better on the app store.

Do check your reviews regularly and take notice of the feedback from users.

Create a video trailer for your app

I don’t have to explain you how popular online video is. Having a good quality trailer within your app store description can increase downloads of your app.

Promotion Outside of the App Stores

Using the data from your competitor analysis, get in touch with sites and blogs where your competitor’s app has been reviewed and see if they can review/talk about your app as well. Your SEO outreach skills and contacts will come very useful here.  Don’t stop on the contact’s you’ve discovered during your competitor analysis. There are plenty more opportunities out there.

Use tools like Impactana to find influential YouTubers, journalist and bloggers in your niche.

Paid Promotion

In addition to the influencer outreach we have discussed above, you can use paid channels as well. Both Facebook and Google AdWords offer ways to promote your app. Check out Facebook App Ads and mobile app installs campaigns form Google AdWords. If you have a video trailer for your app, you can also use it for your Facebook and YouTube campaigns.

ASO – App Store Optimization is a process of improving the rankings and visibility of a mobile app in the app store. There are two main popular ecosystems – Apple’s App Store for all the iOS apps, and the Google Play store for the android apps. Most of the publishers will have their app on both of these platforms; therefore it is important to know the differences between the two. In this post we will focus on the Apple App Store.

Is ASO the next big thing in search marketing?

Possibly. The mobile App market is huge. According to statista.com there are 1.3 million apps on the Apple App Store, and in the period from July 2008 to October 2014, 80 billion apps had been downloaded. This should give some idea of how lucrative, and at the same time competitive, the market must be. Of course, for all of us working in the search marketing

this is very good news. The harder it is for publishers to get their app seen, the bigger the demand for ASO experts.

So how do you optimize an app?

When it comes to optimizing for the app stores, some of the ASO principles are similar to Search Engine Optimization. Before we even start optimizing, we have to make sure that our app provides good value, just like with websites and content. Promoting a low quality app which doesn’t offer much to the user is probably not going to end well. Unfortunately the app store is flooded with poor quality apps. If you are about to build your first app or thinking of getting someone to build one for you, please do check this article as it contains some useful tips on finding a good app developer.

Keyword Research – just like with SEO, keyword research is  essential. Picking wrong keyword can be a disaster. Ideally you want to find keywords with high search volume and low competition but as we all know most of the time this will be just like finding a unicorn.

You’ll most likely need to compromise and pick the keyword which you can realistically rank for. Apple doesn’t share any official search volume data but there are many tools which use a variety of factors to make an educated guess. Some of the most popular include SensorTower and AppTweak.

App Name – this is an absolutely crucial element of your ASO. App name is the first thing potential users will notice after the icon. It much be descriptive so your user know what to expect when they download the app. Your app name is also where you want to include your most important keywords. But make sure you don’t make it look spammy. Here is a good article from AppTweak explaining the process in more detail.

App Keywords – when submitting your app the the app store you can put up to 100 characters worth of keywords into your keyword field. You do not need to include any of the keywords which are in your app name as this will be automatically included. Hugh Kimura from SensorTower posted a very insightful post on the subject, explaining the ASO keyword research in more detail.

User Review and ratings – these are important for two reasons. Good rating and reviews can encourage more people to download the app. We also believe they are an important part of the app store ranking algorithm.

Monitoring your performance. Once your app is published you need to monitor its performance. Some of the tools mentioned above as well as other tools like SearchMan can help you track your rankings across multiple categories and keywords.

It’s important to remember that ASO is an ongoing process – it never stops. You will need to regularly review your keywords and work on promoting your app. I think we covered enough of the basics to give you some idea of what ASO is about and we will be posting more articles explaining App Store Optimization in more detail.