App Store Optimization in 2021 - Optimize These 7 Things (Part 6/6)

What is up app nation? It is Steve P. Young founder of appmasters.com. You know? The place you go, when you want action pet content related to grown your app downloads and your revenues. And finally, we've made it guys. This is part six of our free ASO training, where we reveal exactly how we optimize. Our clients apps to increase download. Now in the previous video, I talked all about keyword optimization, that crazy spreadsheet that we use to optimize the app, title, subtitle, and keyword field.

Now, in this video, I want to talk about all the ways that you can still increase your downloads without touching the keywords. So let's get to it. Right? Number one, it is the app icon. Now, here are two examples I want to share with you. This is what a friend of mine did way back in the days you can tell by the graphics, but I want to take a moment. I'll pause. And I want you to guess which app icon one a or B. Go ahead and leave in the comments below.

I'll wait. And there won't be any public shaming. Don't worry about that. Alright, enough time. They're ready. Have you answers locked in? It is B. The app, look at this. Once the app icon change, look at the rankings, it's totally shut up. So that's what a huge difference in app icon can make. Cause obviously it's one of the first things, especially on Google play. It's one of the only things that you see in the search results on Apple.

You see a little bit more and you definitely see the screenshots, but it is something that you definitely want to AB test. Here's a client of ours that we optimize for this time. You won't have to guess, but a did win because as you can tell. That it went from flat to 3d. And then as the icons have changed, this is like a history of icons. The B was sort of outdated now. And then we went back to a flat icon and we saw a 50% increase.

In app downloads just by changing the app icon. The next thing you want to optimize is your app store screenshots. Yeah, you've probably guessed it. Here's what we did for one of our clients. Now you can see the old icons were pretty dated. They didn't really have any tags or any unique selling points of the app. So you really want to highlight those features in your screenshots. They're just literal screens of the app.

You want to make them look like banners as they did here with this new one. Now here's what happened after again, we didn't change. The keywords did was go from this thing to this thing. I saw it 98% increase in downloads, 98%. That's double the downloads just by chance and the screenshots from this. All right. Granted, it was pretty ugly to these beautiful ones. I'll show you some of the things that you definitely want.

But we also saw a 91% increase in conversion rates. That's downloads over impressions. Now impressions count when your app is shown in the app store search results. So I really want to look at the impression number and we saw a big jump there, right? People just saw the app within the app store search results and then hit, download and download the app. Now, when you're optimizing for these screenshots, you really want to focus on the first three.

The client has since. Rebranded and went from this teal color to this purple color. But the first three are the most important screenshots because these are the screenshots that show up in the search results. So what I typically like to do, here's my template that I use. The first screenshot is boom. What is your app? Do. Right. You want to sort of repeat the keywords that you're optimizing for. So for us, it's electronic signatures.

So we are repeating simple electronic signatures. It's very similar to Google ad words where you sort of want the keyword that you're searching. You're optimized, you're bidding for on Google search. To be in your title in somewhere in your description. So it's the same trickier, whatever the main keyword that you want to target, definitely re iterate it in a cool way, right? In the first screenshot. Now the second, third, you really want to show social proof.

In one of those two screenshots, because again, we see it everywhere on websites, but we don't see it on mobile apps. In every website you go, you see featured on or the number of customers that they have, or the, the logos of their clients. You definitely want to do the same thing here in your screenshots. And here's what we recommended they do. They've got some awesome customers. BMW us army IBM Wells Fargo. So we had their logos in that second screenshot.

And then thirdly, what makes you different from all your competitors or what's the main feature that people love of your app here? We decided to go upload documents from box or Google drive, but looking at your app story views, looking at competitors app store reviews. Look through and see what features people are talking about the most and highlight that in your screenshot. On a run through the last four with you pretty quickly, but number three, app store reviews.

You want to optimize your app for generating more apps or reviews. Now, within my app, I have that iOS prompt on second open because you know, there's a huge percentage of people roughly about, I would say 60. 50 to 70% of people that aren't never going to come back to your app. Right. They open it and that's it. They're gone. So if you're coming back, I'm like, Hey, you must like my app enough to come back. So I'm going to ask for that review, or you can then wait, like if you're a game to see when they win or they do something phenomenal within your app, ask for the app store review.

It does help Google play the same thing. There's no embedded thing. As far as I know of, but on iOS you can embed it and ask for it. Now here's a little trickier that one of my podcast guests told me. She asked people to say, Hey, would you rate this app five stars? If they say yes, then she would then take them to show that review prompt. If they said no, obviously she would show an email form, a contact us page. So that's one way.

And she showed the stats and she saw way more, five star reviews within the three months. Since launching that campaign versus like the three years that they were just doing the normal ways of asking for reviews. So reviews are super important. Number four, it's optimizing your short description on Google play. Now what we've done in the past is used social proof. In that short description while still trying to optimize for our keywords that we wanted to target.

So short description on Google play super, super important. Just like the subtitle on iOS title is the most important, but short description is the second most important on Google play. So you want to have a clever way of saying, you know, Our customers are blink YNC or one of our clients. We said, you know, we support over 800 phone numbers and we saw 11% increase in downloads just by having throwing that in there. And so if I had to pick, I would want to always lead with social proof, but definitely have some keywords that you want to target.

Right. So we are targeting second phone numbers. So it was like over 800. Phone numbers that you can choose for your second phone number without repeating phone number, hopefully, but that's the things that you want to do. Or I think we put over 80,000 countries or cities that we support for a second phone number. So have some social proof in that short description, and that will help you increase your downloads and within Google play, you can actually AB test that.

So it's super easy to do within Google play platform. Just do it in there. Number five. It is backlinks. So in, especially just on Google play, it's building backlinks to your app store listing. And so maybe you talk to a popular blog out there. We have a video and I'll link that into the description that talks all about backlinks. But what you want to do is have your keyword that you're targeting be the keyword that people link.

To your Google play store listing. So if I were targeting meditation and a popular blog post was top five meditation apps, you got to check out, right. And they list off the five. And one of them happens to be my app. I want them to link up the word meditation. In my app store section, and the section of the blog posts that word meditation and linked that to the Google play store. So it's just like as Google SEO, same thing, right?

The more backlinks you have from reputable websites and domains, the higher your keyword rankings are going to be on the web. And same thing applies for Google play. Now, if I had to focus all my efforts on a few things, I wouldn't worry about backlinks too much. We've run other different campaigns that have performed pretty well. And so backlinks takes a lot of work. It's not controllable. It is good to do, but at the same time, isn't it.

I like control, right. And it's not within our control. And so it's one of those things I say, I just want you to know it exists, but at the same time, should you be going after it? Probably not. There's a lot more campaigns that you can run that you have more control and you can see a faster result, right? Number six, Google and Apple search ads. Now. It does help within Apple. If you want to AB test screenshots, you can't do it just like you can on Google.

You're going to have to run Apple search ads. So search ads are great for AB testing screenshots. Now with Apple, you actually have to upload all the screenshots you want to AB tests. And so primarily what you're wanting to test on Apple is. Which the order, right? Which first three, which three screenshots should be in the first three slots. So that's what you can do on Apple search ads. And it does really help because the more download you're able to get download velocity, the more your keyword rankings are going to be.

Now, it doesn't hugely impact keyword rankings on Apple, but it is something that you should look out for. Now on the Google side, we've actually had clients where they're running a lot of Google ads and anytime they stop it, their keyword rankings and their organic downloads. Suddenly drop. And so if you've got a little bit of budget, maybe put in some money for Google ads, because it is going to actually help you get better results, get better data, tell Google that you're relevant and obviously help you increase your organic downloads.

The last thing I want to mention here is. Retention and monetization now on the Google side, extremely, extremely important. We have a video that's coming up that talks all about how this developer really focused more on the retention and monetization side and saw tremendous growth. I think it was like three X growth from organic downloads and keyword rankings just by optimizing the product. So I want to make sure I.

Reiterate this point that your product, when it comes to monetization, when it comes to retention is extremely important. Now of all the different things that I've listed. I would say this is probably the most important, because even if you don't grow downloads, or even if you have a way of going downloads in other areas, that's non ASO, the product and monetization, the retention and monetization is going to help you grow a profitable.

Business. So I would say this is the most important. That's why I saved it for the end. Save the best for last. Right now, these factors are more important on Google play for the time being okay. Google has all this data. They show you all this data actually on the platform on the council, but on Apple. Not as important we've noticed. Okay. I think it's going to become popular, especially as the app stores get more and more crowded, it's going to be one of these things that obviously Apple wants to make more money.

They make more money when you make more money. All right. And so if your app is already generating a lot of money for them, while they're going to show your app first, when they, when people search for popular terms like meditation or dating all these things. So you really want to focus. The retention monetization, especially on Google, like, especially, and especially so in the future for Apple. All right guys, that's it.

The journey doesn't have to end here. We're going to create a lot more YouTube content. So make sure you stay subscribed. And if you want to know some of the black hats secrets of growing your downloads and your keyword rankings. Well, I can't share all our little secrets for free. It is under the app masters Academy course and community. It has everything you need. It has the courses so that you learn from us and see exactly all the tips and tricks, all the secrets that we're able to share with you guys.

It has the community. That's going to keep you really why I love the community is one. It keeps you. Focused. Right? Cause people see it, it keeps you energized because you're around people that are just like you app entrepreneurs and support. If you need help, like I rely on that community. Hey guys, how do I do this? How do I do that? I'm asking for a client. I don't know all the answers. That's why the community is so important because look, the course is great, right?

Obviously you're going to learn a lot. You can do everything. You need to grow your app business, but the community. That's the main thing that on those, especially on those days where you're like, Oh, I'm not sure I want to keep doing this. Apps are so hard. It seemed the other people have their wins, have their success, continue to build upon their success. That's what's going to drive you. As well. So if you're interested in that, go check out appmastersacademy.com and stay tuned for more free trainings.

That's going to happen on YouTube. This my big focus for 2021. That's my big focus for the rest of the year. And I want to share with you everything that's working on our end. All right, till next time guys, I'll see you on the next video. Thanks for listening to the app masters podcast for show notes and amazing app marketing content. Check out appmasters.com