What makes a great app? Is it the brand name or content or maybe that it’s well-known? Surely, all of these are important, but that does not that mean that users will simply find an app among millions of apps.

Every app competes against over two million other apps for attention in the App Store and Google Play Store combined. Because of this, you need a tool to make your app more visible to users.  Enter App Store Optimization (ASO) – the process of optimizing your app’s metadata to become more discoverable in the app stores.

In the App Store alone, over 65% of apps are discovered through search. Knowing that so many apps are found through search means that the need to be visible and rank for high-volume keywords is more important than ever. If you want your app to become more discoverable, consider these steps to help you optimize your app’s metadata.

01.Define Your Audience

The first step is to understand who your audience is. When users are searching for an app like yours, what do they look for? What kind of terms or phrases do they search with? Most users search using two to three word phrases. This is key to helping you determine what keywords to target and what user trends and behavior to look out for.

Understanding your audience will also greatly help you later when tackling your creatives. Depending on what engages with your audience best, certain design elements might make users more likely to convert than others.

02.Improve Your Metadata

• Keywords: Determining the right keywords is the foundation of your ASO strategy. Keywords need to be integrated throughout the app title via title tags, description, and creatives. You should avoid stuffing keywords in every place imaginable, but should strategically incorporate your target keywords within your metadata to emphasize your app’s core features.
• App Title: The app title is the focal point of your app as it is one of the first things a user sees. It’s easy to become attached to a well-crafted app title, but it needs to be address your app’s most important core feature while being relevant to what users are searching for.
• Description: Both stores allow app developers up to 4,000 characters for their description. This area is the largest space for developers to place keywords and hook users! The description needs to use high-volume keywords that are relevant to the app to describe its core features. Integrating keywords will help the app build relevancy for terms and phrases, and become more visible to users in the app stores.

03.Convert with Creatives

While other pieces of metadata focus on helping your app become more discoverable, your creatives (app icon, screenshots and preview video) are the element that drive users to convert. You need to create memorable, yet straightforward creatives that make your app unique.

First, focus on your app icon, as it is the first piece of creatives users will see. If the app icon doesn’t engage your audience, then you’ve already lost them. Your app icon needs to convey the core features while staying on brand to make it easily recognizable.

Likewise, creating engaging screenshots and preview videos is vital to showing users what your app looks in action. If users are confused by either the screenshots or preview video, they are less likely to convert. Make sure that whatever in-app images, callout text, and more are straightforward and engaging to avoid any possibly confusion.

Key Takeaways

No matter how great an app is, it can’t become discoverable without App Store Optimization. You’ll have to constantly monitor user trends and behavior, and make changes accordingly to align your app with what the audience wants.

By improving your app’s metadata, it has the opportunity to become more visible in the app store, and ultimately improve your conversion rates.

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