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Live App Store Optimization Tutorial (ASO)

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App Masters32:31Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

An app grows by putting low-difficulty keywords with real traffic in the title and subtitle, then matching screenshots and the paywall to those keywords and users. Each step is tested with data, so a first aggressive round can be corrected in later rounds.

Key takeaways

  • The best keywords have low difficulty and some traffic, and they are found by comparing tools and checking the real search results. 7:17
    • Over 600 candidate keywords were cut to the best 200, using traffic from MobileAction and difficulty from App Radar.
    • "Headache" beat "symptom" because few apps use it, and the top result had only two ratings.
  • The title and subtitle carry most of the ranking weight, so the focus keywords go there in both the US and Spanish Mexico listings. 11:19
    • The keyword field has less weight, and words on the far left count a bit more than those on the right.
    • Repeating the US subtitle in the Spanish Mexico title moved a music app from rank 88 to rank 8 around 2019.
  • Pick six to 10 focus keywords and be aggressive in round one, with backups ready. 18:31
    • Plan A is the highest-traffic keywords, and plans B, C and D are the fallbacks if Apple's algorithm ignores them.
    • Titles are changed in versions two and three, based on which keywords start to rank.
  • The main keyword should appear in the first screenshots, in short bold text. 21:30
    • Three to five words per screenshot is enough, and a searcher for "headache tracker" should see a headache tracker.
    • Competitor apps show that triggers are a feature worth highlighting.
  • A health app that people use for a long time should charge more and put the free trial on the yearly plan. 22:47
    • A paid intro offer of $1.99 for the first month, then $29.99 a year, is the suggested test. Raising an early app from $0.99 to $1.99 earned more money.
    • Asking for Apple Health access after the paywall worked better, because asking before it cut conversions in a blood pressure app.

It's using the data, letting the data tell you what to do, right? We don't know what's going to happen.

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Sick Days, a neglected app with potential

Sick Days is a small, half-forgotten app that suits ASO because people want to track an illness to get over it.

  • The app started as a quick hackathon project and is still bare-bones. 1:46
    • It began as two buttons, "I'm sick" or "I'm healthy", then added symptom tracking and graphs.
    • It is 1.5 years old and was neglected for most of that time.
    • It was built for RevenueCat's first Shipaton, when Flo had little time for a project.
    • The plan is to apply the ASO and monetization changes, then publish a follow-up with the results.
  • Health trackers are "painkiller" apps, which makes the market attractive. 2:14
    • A person with a migraine wants to track it and get over it.
    • Steve cites a migraine tracker that made around $60,000 MRR.

2:36 Building and scoring the keyword list

Keyword ideas come from feeding an app or its big competitors into a tool, then scoring each one on traffic, difficulty and chance.

  • Entering the app or its competitors into ASOMobile produces the candidate keywords. 4:32
    • The "app keywords" view lists every keyword an app is indexed for, sortable by search traffic.
    • Few of Flo's keywords have high traffic, so the team must be very specific about which ones to chase.
  • Each keyword is judged on three scores, and two tools are better than one. 3:25
    • Higher traffic is better, lower difficulty is better, higher chance is better.
    • If both tools agree, the number can be trusted.
    • MobileAction's chance scores look too high for everything, so they are not used.
    • Flo already ranks number one for "sick days", both as one word and as two.
    • Keywords marked with an X are only a filter. A relevant keyword with no traffic is still pursued.

6:00 Picking the main keyword and where it goes

The main keyword is chosen by checking real search results, and a different word form can go in each storefront.

  • "Headache tracker" can be the main keyword without limiting the app to headaches. 8:56
    • Headache moved from the subtitle to the title, and symptom moved from the title to the subtitle.
    • Flo sees other angles too, such as individual symptoms and "chronic illness".
  • One keyword can be split across storefronts as one-word and two-word versions. 9:30
    • The two-word "sick days" went into the Spanish Mexico title, and the app now ranks number one for it.
    • A new client app used the same split. The one-word version went in the US, the two-word in Mexico, and it ranked number one at launch.
    • That app made $1,600.
    • Headache may not work as well as symptom, because symptom had many more related keywords. Each app differs, so the result must be tested.

10:50 Where the keywords go in each listing

Each keyword has a best slot, and a few small habits push rankings further.

  • Filler words like "app" and "free" are optional but can help. 11:31
    • Apple tends to index them automatically, so they are not required.
    • They helped most when aiming at phrases like symptom tracker free.
    • Steve says that when he did add them, the keyword tended to rank a little better.
    • The tracked keywords are listed first in the field, because the far left carries a bit more weight.
  • The focus keyword should be repeated in the Spanish Mexico title. 11:47
    • Symptom tracker sits in the US subtitle, so it is copied into the Spanish Mexico title.
    • Other lower-difficulty keywords go in the Spanish Mexico subtitle.
    • This is the only repetition he allows: a subtitle copied into the title of a different localization.
    • The US listing indexes about nine other localizations. Spanish Mexico is the long-standing default, so it shows the most effect.

14:33 Choosing focus keywords and splitting long tails

Focus keywords come from real user need, and the data decides which long tails to push.

  • Focus keywords are chosen for the users most likely to install and pay. 14:50
    • Chronic symptoms tracker fits people who live with an illness and want to track it.
    • The two tools disagree on traffic, so the tool choice stays under test.
    • App Radar sometimes shows much higher traffic than MobileAction. Steve doesn't have enough data to say which is more accurate.
    • For chronic pain, MobileAction shows no traffic and App Radar shows some. The live ranking will settle it.
  • Split the long tail across fields, then let the rankings show what to push. 16:36
    • Apple combines the words from different fields. Chronic is in the title everywhere, and chronic pain stands alone in the Spanish Mexico title for extra weight.
    • If one phrase starts to move, the title changes in the next version.
    • Version two could drop sick days if the two-word version already ranks first.
    • Ranking one to three for symptom tracker would make a huge difference.

19:12 Screenshots that echo the keywords

Screenshots should speak the same language as the title, and competitors show what works.

  • Screenshots should carry both the tracker keyword and the wider story. 19:43
    • Pair messages such as Track your symptoms and manage your headaches.
    • Bearable and a migraine tracker are good models to adapt, not reinvent.
    • The migraine app's screenshots read migraine, headache, chronic pain, then track and analyze.
    • Steve would test moving that app's social proof, a million users, to third, with selecting triggers second.

21:41 Pricing and paywall flow should fit how the app is used

A migraine app is used again and again, so its paywall should sell a long yearly plan and adapt to how sick the user is.

  • A weekly plan suits one-off tasks, not a long-term health habit. 22:45
    • One-off AI image tools fit a weekly plan, because people sign up for a single project.
    • Migraines come back, so the trial belongs on the yearly plan.
    • Steve's wife suffers from migraines, and he says it is "not a one-time type of thing".
    • He suggests a 7-day or 14-day trial on the yearly plan, with no trial on the weekly.
  • The onboarding answers can decide how hard the paywall is. 24:29
    • Someone with a headache right now is more likely to pay, so show them a hard paywall.
    • If they close it, offer a free 14-day trial instead of a discount.
    • Flo's lesson is to design for the real target user, not for advice that floats around on X.
    • He names the common rule of 3-day trials on weekly plans, which is meant to raise LTV because people keep paying without using the app.

26:15 Apple Health can send downloads

An Apple Health integration can bring in downloads, but a health app should ask for access only after the paywall.

  • Apple Health recommends integrated apps, and that becomes a real download channel. 26:56
    • One client that got featured makes over $10,000 a month, and App Store Connect shows Apple Health as the referrer.
    • Filling in the feature nomination form in App Store Connect improves the chance of being shown.
    • Another indie developer made $5,000 to $10,000 a month, with many downloads coming from Apple Health.
    • For photo apps, asking for photo access before the paywall raised conversions. Health is the exception.

28:58 The upgrade button and paywall should show what you get

Clear, benefit-led wording and a visible upgrade button convert better than generic prompts.

  • Onboarding should show users how a feature works. 28:58
    • An older audience may not know how to add a widget, so a screen recording can replace the text instruction.
    • The current screenshot only says to press the plus button.
  • The upgrade call to action should name a benefit, not just say "upgrade". 29:36
    • Lines like "unlock additional stats" or "understand your triggers" work better than "upgrade to pro".
    • The paywall should spell out what the subscription gives, such as unlimited tracking and AI analysis.
    • In a client A/B test, a crown icon alone won, and crown with "upgrade" came second.
    • The upgrade button must not sit below the fold on small iPhones, because people don't scroll.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young and Flo, Steve P. Young, founder of App Masters; Flo, indie developer and YouTuber. A live ASO and monetization audit of an indie symptom tracker shows how to pick keywords with low difficulty and some traffic, place them in the title, subtitle and a second localization, and then align screenshots and paywall to them. It also gives concrete paywall, pricing, and Apple Health tactics drawn from client apps.

Lessons that draw on this:

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript963 lines
0:00

Coming up, we're going to show you a real case study of our entire ASO process and break down an app of a popular indie developer YouTuber as well. Stay tuned. What is up App Nation? It is Steve P. Young, founder of appmasters.com. The place you go when you want action-packed content related to helping grow your app downloads, and more importantly, those revenues. And today, we're going to go behind the scenes and show you exactly how we do ASO, how we help our clients audit our apps, and we're doing a special YouTube collab with Flo as well.

0:40

So, Flo, welcome. Or welcome to this collab, Flo. Happy to do this collab with you, man. >> Thank you. Thank you. That was a quite experience being live there for your introduction, watching it so many times on YouTube myself. >> Well, super excited to do this. I know you had reached out and you know, we're like, "Hey, why don't we do something together? We look at your app. We'll try to help you optimize the ASO for your app. I want to help you with some of the monetization tactics. And then you're going to implement some of these changes and we'll do another video and kind of share the results of this as well.

1:15

>> Yeah, exactly. That's what we're going to do. I mean, the app is already 1 and 1/2 years old, but pretty neglected for for most of the time. And then I came back to it a few weeks ago and I thought, "Why not get the best of the best to to have a look at it and do some ASO together?" >> This is going to prove it. All right. So, the full backstory, Flo said, "Hey, take a look at all my apps and then you pick one, Steve." And I picked this one called Sick Days, Flo. You want to tell us a little bit about the app?

1:44

>> Yeah, of course, of course. So, 1 and 1/2 years ago, Revenue Cat did their first Chip-A-Thon and I decided I don't really have a lot of time to work on a project. So, I just did a very, very small project to track sickness symptoms and track your sick days and healthy days. And in the beginning it was just two buttons, I'm sick or I'm healthy, and then I added symptom tracking. And then as you can see in the screenshots, got a bunch of graphs and stuff like that in there.

2:10

It's still pretty bare-bones, but I think it it it has some potential. >> Yeah, and I do like this type of market. I did a video about a migraine tracker and how that was making I forget at the time I think it was like 60,000 MRR, but I like this type of stuff that are what I call painkillers. And so if I have a migraine, I actually want to track it and get over it. All right. Flo, you want to get straight into the ASO and what we kind of prepared for you?

2:36

>> Sure. >> Okay. So, we put this ASO together and I'm going to kind of break down our entire process for everybody, give you behind the scenes. The we did a lot of keyword research, and so what we did was we did over 200 keyword research. We pulled it from MobileAction, App Radar right now. We use ASOMobile.net to do all the keyword research, and then we kind of put it into App Radar and MobileAction. It's just part of our process, and so it's not that like we're recommending one tool over another. I do find that App Radar tends to have pretty good difficulty accuracy above all other tools. And most tools have the same traffic scores. I like having two different tools and data cuz then I can just sort of compare. If both tools say the same thing, then great. So, traffic-wise, the higher the better.

3:29

Difficulty, the lower the better. And chance, the higher the better. But MobileAction's chance scores are not very good. >> [laughter] >> I said that publicly, but it's just everything has a high chance and that doesn't seem to be right. And so that's why I don't really can see like everything's pretty high chance. So, I usually use the App Radar's difficulty score. And then we obviously have your current rank as well. And so you're number one for sick days and I believe you're number one for the two-word version now for sick days as well. So that's always good to have. And then, you know, we see what else you're actually ranking for. Any questions so far, Flo?

4:08

>> Yes, so of course over 200 keywords, that's impressive. That's not an amount that I put in when I worked on the app first. So could you share anything on how you how you get to those 200 keywords? So is it just trial and error looking at apps that already rank for some of the top keywords and then looking at the keywords that they are also ranking for? How does that process usually work? >> Yeah, no we it's we use ASO mobile uh one of our sponsors and a tool that I really like. I I used to use App Annie.

4:36

I follow. I don't like it as much anymore. It's just not >> [laughter] >> doesn't give me the right keywords as it used to. And now we use ASO mobile to really figure out which keywords. So what we do is we put your keyword your app into the tool and then it comes out with a lot of keywords for us to really put in. And I can kind of put it in. I'll try and put it in right now just on this screen just to show you what it looks like. But that's how we kind of do it right now through ASO >> That sounds interesting, yeah.

5:13

>> Yeah. Here, I'll pull it up real quick. So we go I've got your app in here now. Let's show the screen. And then you can go to app keywords. Right? And these are all the keywords you're index for. So you can put any app You can put your app or some of the big competitors. We can search sort by search traffic. Right? And you can see the search traffic scores a little bit higher here. And then some of these are very low.

5:42

So and that's what we're finding. So what I'll do is typically Mobile Action has a pretty good traffic scores. So, I'll sort by this, but as you can see well like there's not a lot of keywords for you that have a lot of traffic. Now, I'll kind of blow this a little bit for those who can't see it as well. It's It's not That's the That's the downside. The upside is well, we can be very specific in what keywords we try to go after as well. So, what we found was symptom tracker, right? Or headache tracker.

6:12

It's up to you. Now, this is going to change as we go, but what we try to do is we take these 200, we put X's around this. And I've already filtered off of the ones that are X's. We kind of see what's relevant, what has traffic. What's relevant, what has traffic. And then if it's relevant and doesn't have traffic, then we go after it anyway. So, they'll put And what I tell my team is X's are cheap. It's just for you to filter those 200 into What do we have here now?

6:40

Okay, we had more than 200 actually. We So, we If we put in the ones that we did not consider, we'd have a little bit more keyword. We'd have 600. We took those 600 and gave up with our came up with our best 200. And then off that 200, we start optimizing based off the data that we're seeing. And so, we're trying to see okay, I just sorted off of App Radar, the difficulty score. We can see some of these interesting things. And what these are like what we call low traffic or low difficulty keywords. And so, we're trying to kind of balance between low difficulty, decent traffic. I mean, the best keywords are the ones that are low difficulty, high traffic. Those are very hard to find. The next best thing is low difficulty, some traffic. And so, we're trying to kind of find those keywords and put them into the right places for for you.

7:33

The The thing that we found obviously with symptom tracker had a a good amount of traffic obviously, right? And then what I do Flo is I always look at the App Store. So, I'm like, all right. There's a few key apps that have symptom tracker. So, it might be worth going after. Right? And then the other keyword, but there's a lot more. So, when we when we're kind of deciding between these two, I'm like, okay, maybe headache would be better.

8:05

Right? Because we see not a lot of people have headache here. There's headache diary, headache diary, headache But this one is in the top 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, and it only has two ratings. So, I think headache would be better than symptom. Right? But this is what we have to start thinking through. And we can balance it out. So, let's make that change right now. >> That's something interesting seeing your search results there. So, of course that's what I that that's what I thought when when we were first talking about doing ASO for this app because it obviously has the potential for for different angles. You know, all of the different symptoms you could have as keywords, and then you know, you we've already seen chronic illness there as well as a potential keyword. So, I think there's different ways we we could go about this. And I mean, setting headache tracker um as the main keyword doesn't of course

9:00

restrict the app to just track headaches, right? >> Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, we can make that change. That's what I try to do. Is kind of look at the search result. You know, my team and I worked on this together, and what I did right now was headache used to be in the subtitle. I moved it to the title, and then symptom used to be in the title, moved in subtitle. But I also try to what we're trying to do right here because at the time you weren't number one for sick days, the two-word version, we made your Spanish Mexico title sick days, the two-word version. Now you're number one, so that's good. But we wanted sort of have a balance of both in here, and that's how we can balance just ensuring. Now, you're already number one with the you know, with no space, that's good. Sometimes for a new client of ours, one of the apps that we launched we got it to be as big as app right now, but we did the same strategy. The

9:54

one-word version had a little bit more traffic, so we put it in the US. The two-word version, we put it into the the Spanish Mexico title, and we're able to obtain number one ranking right on launch. Because we found that keyword flow that had decent traffic and low competition. We got it to number one pretty quickly and made $1,600 from that app. So, I'm going to change this. We'll go to headache. Now, it's also something that you're going to have to see cuz each app's going to be different, right? So, maybe headache doesn't work as well as symptom. And I think what we when we decided to put this together, we went with symptom because we had symptom a lot more keywords with symptom, right? Versus headache, which is just headache tracker.

10:41

There wasn't too much. Actually, not bad. That's not bad, actually. So, I'm going to go with headache. I like headache. The other thing I want to point out was chronic illness. Now, we're kind of giving this away for free because we you and I decided to be open up the playbook, but this is the right keyword, right? And so, what we try to do is once we've optimized it, now you see chronic illness, you're like, all right, low difficulty, decent traffic, and the pain killer, right? And so, you have chronic illness chronic symptoms tracker as well. So, these are great keywords, and when we've done this, so we'll take all these keywords, we'll put them into the right places. The title has the most weight for those beginners out there.

11:22

The subtitle has the second most weight. And then from a keyword perspective, the keywords to the far left have a bit more weight than those on the right end, All You don't necessarily need to have app and free, but sometimes it helps when we've had it, especially when we're trying to rank for keywords like symptom tracker free. We don't need it. Apple tends to auto index, but sometimes what we've seen is when we do put it in, it tends to rank a little bit better.

11:47

And then I like to copy or like the keyword that I'm targeting or what we call focusing in on, I'll repeat the keyword that I'm kind of tracking and focusing in on in the subtitle. So, in the subtitle here in the US subtitle, symptom tracker is the one that I'm going after even though tracker's up here. So, I'll repeat it in the Spanish Mexico title as well. And then any other keywords that have a little bit lower difficulty that I feel pretty positively that we can rank well for, I'll we'll put it in the Spanish Mexico subtitle. So, the keywords tend to have some weight, but not a whole lot. It's really the title and subtitle that is going to make the huge difference.

12:25

>> That makes sense. Yeah, so um you know, you always say that you shouldn't keywords. I mean, that obviously makes sense given all of the the waiting stuff that you just explained. So, does that also apply across localization? So, if I repeat symptom tracker across US and Spanish Mexico, would that be an issue or would that be totally fine because they're indexed as two separate apps, so to say? >> From my data, I did do this.

12:53

So, just imagine this was headache tracker. When for another for This was years ago, but for another app we were working on, I was like, "What happens if I repeat my subtitle in the Spanish Mexico and I mean, I'm sorry, the US subtitle into Spanish Mexico title?" I was like, "What What would happen if I just did it that?" Symptom tracker. And it increased the rankings. I didn't do any black hat magic. I didn't do anything. I just put the title I just changed the title to match what the US subtitle was. I isolated the US subtitle subtitle was the same, but I isolated and I just like what if I repeated it? Would it help?

13:34

And it did help. And then way back in the day, low I went after music. And I had to do it like this. So I just did that as a Spanish Mexico title and we jumped from 88 to eight. Again, no black hat strategies, we just jumped. This was like 2019 time frame. And so, this is why I like to do that. That's the only time I will repeat is the subtitle into the title of a higher different localization. And so, what I've also found is, you know, US indexes like nine other localizations including Spanish Mexico. I haven't seen the other localizations do as much in terms of a weight and keyword ranking perspective as Spanish Mexico cuz Spanish Mexico has been around since I've been around in the App Store, right? It's been the one default that the US always indexes out of. So.

14:24

>> That makes sense. So it's probably just a second entry into the ASO lottery, I guess, and and thus improving your chance of getting found. >> Yep. So after all that, we also pick and I I always tell the team come to come up with like six to 10 keywords to put focus. And this helps us kind of figure out like, okay, here are the keywords we're really really going to pay attention to. All right? And these are keywords that have hopefully some traffic but lower competition. And you can see and the this is what I tell my team is those these focus keywords better be in the title and subtitle in the US and Spanish Mexico.

15:04

Cuz as we launch, these are the ones that we're really paying attention to, right? And chronic symptoms tracker, this is one that I feel very good about with you that I think, you know, if you were to rank pretty well for this, it would drive installs and it would drive sales because again, you know, if you don't have your health flow, this is nothing else matters. All you think about is your health. And when you have a chronic symptom or an illness, then you're more likely to want to track that and hopefully likely to pay as long as your app is helping them out as well.

15:38

So, what we're noticing is sometimes App Radar has a little bit higher traffic. I don't have enough data to tell you if App Radar is more accurate than Mobile Action with these like huge traffic score differences, but we're trying to test that out right now and kind of figure out. And maybe your app will tell us, right? Like, "Hey, we got to number one for" hopefully, we got pretty high for Let me pick one that's decent. Um maybe here, chronic pain, right? And Mobile Action say no traffic, but App Radar says some traffic. So, we'll figure that out once this goes live. But chronic pain, so that's why we have chronic and pain right here as well.

16:15

>> So, could you briefly explain how splitting up these uh long-tail keywords works? So, for example, chronic symptoms tracker is split up about into the title, of course, there's tracker, then in the subtitle there's symptom, and then chronic's also in the subtitle, but also not in the correct order. So, how does that work in terms of ASO then? >> I mean, Apple do its magic, so you'll get indexed. If I'm starting to see movement, right now you are not indexed for any of those keywords, right? So, once you do become indexed, let's say you're like, "Okay, now we're able to go." You're like, "All right, chronic pain tracker." Now we have this, right?

16:52

So, we wanted chronic pain, we have chronic pain, and that's the one we're focusing on. So, that's how we'll try to repeat it. Right? We have chronic in the title everywhere, but I want the long tail of chronic pain, so we have it in the Spanish Mexico by itself to give it a little bit more weight. So, if I'm starting to see more movement on the chronic pain side of things, I might change this title, you know, in version two to this. It's a little bit too long, so we might have to do this or remove it altogether, but that's how I kind of have to we kind of play with that, right? We might say, "Okay, forget sick days altogether. We're already number one for the two-word version. Let's just go all in." And that's what I mean by going all in.

17:34

Like that music thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but we As of we just got to keep testing. >> Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so so you would say it makes sense to split it up to get started and see which other keywords you get indexed for and then focus on the ones that make sense and put them into the title or into the Spanish Mexico title to, you know, drive more more impact there, more weight there.

17:56

>> To phrase it a different way, Flo, yeah, I would say this. It's using the data, letting the data tell you what to do, right? We don't know what's going to happen. But if you get ranked two or three for symptom tracker or like one, that's going to make a huge difference, right? So, might as well be a little bit aggressive in version one. Round one, this is our round one. Might as well be a little bit more aggressive. These have the highest traffic, right? Even when we're not focusing on it. But if it doesn't work, this is why the focus I say six to 10. You want to have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D. And that's why we have these 11 keywords.

18:37

Plan A is, let's go crazy. Let's be aggressive. Cuz if this if we can get these guys to rank really well, these two keywords, it's going to make a big difference in your app, right? If we can't, then we have these as plan B and plan C and plan D, right? So, that's why we're being aggressive because we don't know how the algorithm is going to take your app yet. Cuz if it takes it, beautiful. If it doesn't, we've got backup and we'll change it in round two and three. But we might as well be aggressive in the first round.

19:08

>> All right. Thank you. That it a lot of sense. >> Cool. All right. Any other questions or should we move on to the app? >> Yeah, let's move on to the app and perhaps you could while we're moving on tell us a bit about linking the keywords in the title, so your main keywords with for example your app store screenshots. So, should they be linked together? Should they tell a story? Does it not really matter? So, in this case of course if we're moving to headache tracker as the main keyword, I would probably have to update the screenshots to reflect that a bit better because right now it's yeah, just focus on symptoms.

19:43

>> Yep. So, I would do both, right? Track your symptoms, uh manage your headaches, right? And then some other stuff. So, you don't need to let's say headache tracker. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, right? So, this is the the the video I did, migraine tracker. You can do headache, migraine, migraine headache, and chronic pains. Track all your symptoms. Right? So, it doesn't, you know, and I might just copy Bearable. Like I like their screenshots.

20:18

This is awesome. >> They're great, yeah. Definitely a good inspiration. >> Yeah, they're great inspiration. So, and this is great. Migraine tracker is a great inspiration, too, right? Migraine headache chronic pain, track analyze, trusted by you don't have all these, but like yeah, you can select your triggers, share reports with doctors. They already told you kind of what kind of works. So, I would just I love the big bold text here. I love that it's short.

20:45

It's three to five words. That's it. Short to the point. We don't need a lot of text. Right? So, yeah. Recognize any changes, generate reports. But understand your users. I think your other users want to track mood symptoms, find what triggers. So, it looks like triggers is the important part. Now, I'd I have this as one of the first couple. I definitely would have migraine chronic right this. And then it might be fast and easy tracking, select your triggers. I might just move those if I were Migraine Buddy, I might test moving this back a little bit more given that you already have this for a million users.

21:23

But I like the social proof, but I might test select your triggers as number two and then maybe this is number three, right? You can AB test, but definitely have the main keyword that you're targeting in your first couple of screenshots. >> Okay, thank you. Yeah, I mean of course that makes sense because then there is the connection, right? I mean they're searching for headache tracker, then they also want to download a headache tracker, not a symptom tracker, a generic app.

21:46

>> Yeah. I mean symptoms could be anything, right? But headache, obviously straight to the point, and then you can still have track your symptoms like you do for your app right now. Track your symptoms. But triggers seems to be a big one, right? You can see from the two of the popular apps, the symptom tracker, they're number one for symptom tracker. They have triggers. That's what I mean. I like the triggers. >> Yeah, so that's definitely a new feature that I got to implement.

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>> [laughter] >> There you go. After after afterwards. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Get into the app? >> Let's get into the app. All right, let's open it. >> How you feeling today? >> I'm feeling good. >> Love it. Okay. So for your pricing plan one, you could probably charge more. I'm fine with the $20, but you could probably charge more. Two, I think for an app like this, having seen the migraine tracker app, I would go on the yearly, the trial on the yearly rather than the weekly. The weekly is good for like one-time use apps, but if you got migraines like, you know, my wife sometimes suffers from migraines, it's not a one-time type of thing.

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AI apps where there might be a one-time type of thing like, "Oh, I need an AI image generator for this one big project, so I'm only going to sign up for the week." Great. But, for your app where there's going to be more health-related stuff, I would charge a bit more and give a 7-day trial or a 14-day trial on your yearly instead of than the weekly, I would do nothing. The other thing I would do as well, and this is what I've shared in the past, is I would do paid intro offers. And so, what we're trying what we're starting to see is that these paid intro offers were and I'll show you this real quick. You know what?

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I'm just going to bring it up cuz this is a like a live behind-the-scenes type of thing. Doesn't need to be fancy editing. [snorts] So, 7-day free trial on the yearly? Right? 60 bucks. $1.99 for the first month, renews at the yearly. That's what I would do. So, if you're going to do And this is flow back into the days when I first started in the app space, we I charged up front for an app of mine $0.99. I bumped it up to $1.99. Guess what happened?

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I made more money. That's it. It's that simple. >> this more money. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. So, $1.99 cuz $0.99 just seems too cheap. $1.99 for the first month and then $29.99 for the whole year with the 7-day trial. Works it. If they say no to here, what we're starting to see is sometimes longer trials, instead of doing discounts, which I'm a big fan of, you can also do a longer trial. Because for an app like yours, you know, either I'm suffering from a migraine right now, which if I answered yes, I have a headache right now, then they're more likely to pay, right? So, maybe you hard paywall them. You're like, "All right, I'm going to hard paywall you." If they answer no, but they're getting ready for it, then maybe you don't hard paywall them. So, I think that's where the onboarding stuff can happen. But, let's say I hit X on that paywall, maybe give them a longer trial instead of a

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discount. Say, "No problem. Try it for us for 14 days on us for free." Right? Like, then they have to subscribe. >> Those were some great pieces of advice. So, first of all, what I learned there was that the onboarding and paywall flow doesn't have to be linear, but it can can depend on which type of data they entered. So, if they're sick, perhaps it's more urgent for them to use the app, and then you should have a hard paywall. And if they dismiss that paywall, there might be another paywall shown.

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And then you also talked a bit about, you know, designing the paywall and and the experience there. So, not choosing weekly, instead going with yearly and a trial there. That makes a makes a lot of sense if you explain it like that, you know. I think what we learned from that is that we have to really consider what our target user is and how they are planning to use the app or how this app will be used instead of just thinking about what people post on X and which recommendations float around in the internet regarding your paywall strategy and always doing 3-day trials for weekly because that increases LTV because people don't churn out immediately, and then they pay for several weeks without using the app, and so on. So, that was very interesting. Thanks for sharing both of those pieces of advice there.

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>> The last thing I would say is integrate with Apple Health. Uh we have one of our clients where they do integrate with Apple Health. They have a great app. They got featured, and they make over $10,000 a month from Apple Health. I mean, it's a pretty decent number, chunk of change. It's actually more than that, but it's a pretty good chunk of change that when I look at the analytics from App Store Connect, and the app referrer is actually Apple Health. And so, Apple Health will recommend some apps to you if there's some integration, and it's a great way for you to get additional downloads.

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And uh let me show you where it's shown. Yeah, right here. So, I'm in the Apple Health app. You can see these apps. If I I know one of our clients is on here not here, but one of our clients when I look at their App Store Connect data, I can see App Refer is Apple Health. And so, Apple Health is driving a lot of downloads and sales for them. And especially if Apple is recommending it. What I've also seen is that it's better to ask for Apple Health integration after the paywall.

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Because we did it for a blood pressure app where we asked for it before the paywall and we saw a decrease in conversions when we did it before, but definitely after it works a little bit better. Whereas for photos, and this is just for a broader category, for photos asking for photo access before the paywall for a photo type of app actually increased conversions then. So, most things increases conversions except for health. I would wait until after the paywall and say, "Hey, you want to integrate Apple Health?" And hopefully Apple knows that you're doing this and then they hopefully they'll feature you as well, Flo, cuz you got a popular YouTube channel.

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>> [laughter] >> If it only worked that way, that'd be great. Yeah, so you'll probably have to fill out that feature request form that's now part of App Store Connect. Right? You have these uh feature nomination sections there in your in your App Store Connect sidebar. You should probably fill that out to get a chance to be shown in the Health app, right? >> Yeah, I mean, I don't know how it all works, right? I just know that there was another indie developer, too, that was making a good chunk of change. Like, it was more indie numbers, right? Like, $5 to $10,000 a month, but a lot of his downloads were coming from Apple Health.

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And so, just integrating it Apple Apple always knows. If you got a good decent app, they will start featuring you. Apple's pretty good about that. But yeah, I would fill out the nomination regardless and be like, "Hey, we've got Apple Health integration. We help you track the severity. It's simple. It works, you know, seamlessly." And do it that way, too. And I like your widget feature. And so, you you might if your audience is a little bit older or not as techy, you might want to show them how the widgets work instead of like, you know, you're developer-oriented. I know your screenshot just said "Uh press the plus buttons." Like, uh not everybody knows how to put widgets together like us techy people. But yeah.

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>> Yeah, I mean, going after a bit of an older audience makes sense with headache and migraine. I I believe that would make sense. And then, um of course, you could just do or I could just do a video recording, right? Of adding the widget to the home screen and then add that to the onboarding flow instead of a text description. >> I would also say like upgrade to pro. Like, nobody wants to upgrade. So, it would be more like unlock additional stats.

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Or >> Or take control of your health. Understand your symptoms. Something like that. >> Yeah. Understand your triggers, you know, see what triggers your headaches. That's more interesting. And when we did an AB test with this call to action, we saw that, you know, client had star, crown, all this stuff. And I was like, at the time I was like, "I think crown would be better. That's just what I've seen." And he's like, "Funny enough, we're Steve, we're AB testing this right now. We actually see that crown has the best. And crown with upgrade was the second best. But crown by itself was the best." And so, you can just do a crown up here by your little settings thing. Or you can just I like I don't mind this, but I might just put it up here and just really call it out. Be like, "Hey, you know, upgrade to pro and unlock these, you know, symptoms. Like, what are you tracking? Unlimited tracking?

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Like, you know, we'll do AI analysis and tell you when you might be feeling it so check in every day all that stuff so I might try to play around with that and play up what you're going to get here too because right now I plus I have no idea what I'm actually getting from subscribing for your app so this paywall seems like a revenue cat paywall. >> It is and you've got a good eye. >> [laughter] >> Love the guys at RevenueCat but their paywalls are pretty basic and so I might play around with actually what you get out of this app.

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>> That makes sense yeah and I mean even just having the um having the upgrade to pro button at the very top that makes sense. I mean obviously you said it I'm a developer so I make these apps on an on a on a pro iPhone and that of course has a lot more real estate than some of the smaller iPhones and for some of the smaller devices that button might actually be hidden and you'd have to scroll to see that button so that would of course be an issue right?

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>> mhm. Yep people don't scroll they don't and you'd be surprised you'd be surprised I have data that supports that but yeah. >> [snorts] >> Cool. That's it Flo how did it go? >> That went well so some now I know exactly the keywords that I have to choose the title that I have to adapt for both the US and Spanish Mexico localization. I'll give those a try and then we'll have a look at how they perform and whether I can increase my ranks for some of these new keywords and perhaps even make some more money from the app so thanks a ton Steve for and your team of course for putting together the ASO and walking through the app and the monetization that was very helpful and very insightful for me.

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>> Yeah well we'll do another video and you tell me how it all goes. >> Definitely. >> All right all right guys that's it for now until next time I'll see you on the next video.