App Masters · Mar 28Yelp App Store Optimization Audit
Renaming from "Yelp" to "Yelp: The Best Local Food, Drinks, Services, & More" lifted keywords within a week: drinks from unranked to 17, services to 3, local food from 4 to 1. Overall U.S. rank moved from 50-75 to the 20s-30s, though other campaigns may have contributed. The March 2017 name dropped local food (1 to 5) and added generic shopping (rank 32).
Tips
- Put your highest-value keywords in the app name first▶ 2:41One week after the change, Yelp went from unranked to 17 for drinks, from 6 to 3 for services, and from 4 to 1 for local food.
- Add keywords to the name even if your brand is strong▶ 14:04Yelp's U.S. overall rank moved from hovering around 50-75 to about 25-30 after the name change.
- Put the most important keywords at the left of the name▶ 11:33
- Match the phrasing users actually search, such as "near me"▶ 11:51Yelp already ranked well for both nearby variants, but the "near me" version has more traffic according to Apple Search Ads.
- Don't drop a keyword you already rank well for▶ 7:36Yelp ranked number 1 for local food with it in the name and dropped to number 5 after removing it.
- Avoid generic keywords that don't signal what your app does▶ 6:57Yelp ranked 32 for shopping, while local food has decent traffic and Yelp was already at 5.
- Find keyword ideas from phone autocomplete suggestions▶ 9:06Mobile Action showed a 96% chance of ranking well for "cleaning services", with a traffic score of 24.
- Pick keywords with high traffic where you currently rank poorly▶ 10:37Yelp ranked 126 for food delivery, meaning it wasn't ranking at all.
- Measure ASO changes by tracking keyword ranks before and after▶ 4:57Yelp's tracked terms moved within a week, with restaurants rising to number 1.
- Big companies should use their download scale to amplify ASO▶ 14:20
