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The App Store Optimization Process That Consistently Drives Downloads & Product Views

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App Masters10:43Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

A data-driven keyword process of building a long list, scoring it, and placing the best keywords in store listing fields reliably raises impressions. Since iOS 11, downloads need an extra push, such as a paid campaign right after the update.

Key takeaways

  • Every listing starts from a long pool of 80 to 200 keywords. 1:17
    • Sources are the top-ranking keywords of your app and your competitors' apps, plus what Apple and Google auto-suggest.
    • Outside-the-box terms count too: a Miami client gained downloads by ranking number two for Miami Heat.
  • Traffic and competition scores decide which keywords make the cut. 3:06
    • A traffic score under 20 (under 2 on Sensor Tower) is usually not worth targeting.
    • Indies and startups chase low competition, while big clients with acquisition budgets go after high-traffic keywords.
  • The chosen keywords go in the name, subtitle and description, as far left as possible. 4:23
    • A second Apple localization (Spanish Mexico) with English keywords doubles the keywords in use.
    • On Google Play, lead with the keyword: meditation made easy beats a sentence that buries it.
  • Keywords change first, and icon and screenshots change after, one variable at a time. 6:07
    • Changing everything at once hides which change caused the growth.
    • A new flat icon won a Google Play A/B test with 50% more downloads.
  • Since iOS 11, the process lifts impressions but downloads are mixed. 8:06
    • Before iOS 11, a new app name and keywords brought an immediate jump in downloads.
    • Some clients now see flat or lower downloads, so a paid campaign right after the update gives a head start. Early results are good but the data is still thin.

There's no doubt in my mind you're gonna get increased impressions because it's data driven. It just works.

Steve Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Building the long keyword list

Every possible source is mined for data first, and the choosing comes later.

  • Tool data and store suggestions show which keywords already carry volume. 0:39
    • A keyword tool lists the highest-ranking keywords of any app, yours or a rival's.
    • A seed word like meditation typed into Apple and Google returns their auto-suggested terms.
    • Auto-suggest is a sign of good-volume keywords, so those terms join the list.
    • A follow-along app video shows how to check suggestions without pulling up an iPhone.
  • Unusual sources can bring easy traffic. 2:17
    • Sports teams work well when the app targets a region.
    • Popular magazines in the niche work too, such as travel magazines for a discovery app for new places.
    • Magazine keywords generally have high traffic and low competition.
    • People can stumble on the app through them. This is hard to quantify.

3:06 Scoring the list

Traffic and competition data pick the winners, and the budget decides how much competition matters.

  • A low traffic score can be forgiven when a keyword is relevant and barely contested. 3:29
    • Such keywords are typically still used.
    • Small budgets depend on organic search, so difficulty and competition become key variables.
    • Bigger clients skip the difficulty check.
    • Their acquisition budget helps the algorithm, which lifts keyword rankings anyway.

4:23 Placing keywords in the listing

Each store field and each localization is another slot for the chosen keywords.

  • The Spanish Mexico localization on Apple gets its own name, subtitle and keywords. 4:48
    • It runs different keywords from the US localization.
    • Most people know this trick by now.
    • A separate video on how to double keywords covers it in detail.
  • Google Play uses three fields, and the keyword sits at the left of each sentence. 5:12
    • The fields are the app name, the short description and the long description.
    • The targeted keywords go to the leftmost part of the sentence.

5:22 Wording and visuals on Google Play

Keyword placement in Google Play text matters, and the icon and screenshots come second.

  • Put the keyword close to the front of every text field. 5:23
    • Keep it near the app name, then repeat the habit in the long description.
    • Rewrite filler openers like the app to help you meditate so the keyword leads.
    • Bold text in the long description is used for emphasis only.
    • There is not enough data to say whether bold helps on Google Play.
  • A weak icon or screenshots get fixed after the keywords. 6:01
    • Clients with bad visuals are told so honestly.
    • One client's screenshots were pretty nasty and his icon needed a refresh, so keywords went first.
    • Mixing changes would hide whether the icon, screenshots or keywords drove growth.
    • The icon result on that client is not yet in, with an update promised.
  • Google Play lets you test an icon before committing. 7:04
    • The old icon looked dated, so a flat design built from game elements replaced it.
    • The client doubted it and ran an A/B test.
    • Icons and screenshots can be tested live in real time.
    • The winning icon was then used on iOS too.

7:55 Getting downloads after iOS 11

On iOS 11 the keyword update alone no longer guarantees downloads, so a paid burst fills the gap.

  • Impressions rise reliably, but downloads vary by client. 8:13
    • Some clients see good results, some flat, some down.
    • Impressions are certain because the process is data driven.
    • Downloads are the unpredictable part.
  • A paid campaign right after the update creates a burst that can settle in. 8:30
    • The sequence is low downloads, update, paid burst, then a hopefully higher steady level.
    • One client in a difficult category saw a tremendous amount of downloads.
    • It has been tried with only a couple of clients, so the data is thin.

In the growth library

Steve Young, Founder of App Masters, an app marketing agency. A step-by-step, data-driven ASO process: build a long keyword list, score it on traffic and competition, then place keywords in the app name, subtitle and description. It also covers what changed after iOS 11, including a 50% download lift from an icon test and a paid-to-free push after metadata updates.

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

Transcript284 lines
0:00

coming up you're gonna discover the exact ASO process that consistently increases product views and downloads stay tuned what is up app nation is Steve Young founder of app masters our code the place you go when you want action-packed content in the app business and today I want to show you our exact ASO process that has consistently driven more downloads and more product views and definitely guarantee more impressions for our app clients and it's just the process and I want to kind of share with you what has changed versus iOS 11 and before iOS 11 I was 10 so a few things that we do differently now in terms of the process the process is pretty much the same but I'll get into some of the subtleties the difference is the key difference is with the process now so without further ado let's get into the slides here we go here's how we consistently increase product views impressions and downloads with ASO

1:11

hashtag data-driven because it is completely data-driven for us all right step one we build a long list of keywords and essentially anywhere from 80 to 120 to even 200 sometimes we just look at all the data we just want to pool the data for all these keywords okay because we're gonna use the data to kind of determine which keywords we're gonna actually use but I want to build along this the first step so a few tools that I like to use a penny is one a penny unlike other tools a penny will actually tell you and apps keywords highest ranking keywords so you can put in your app you put it in your competitors app and it'll spit out all the keywords that you rank really well for secondly I want to see what the actual app stores are Auto suggesting because that's an indication of good volume keywords right so I'll put in meditation and see what Apple and Google auto suggests and those become keywords

2:07

that we consider so look at our app follow video and you'll see how you can easily do that without having to pull up your iPhone alright the other thing is it's hard to sort of quantify this but out-of-the-box strategies so things like looking at sports teams if you're targeting a certain region we helped a client that was based in Miami they're downloads just by helping them rank number two for Miami Heat right so looking at those type of keywords thinking outside the box than just like generic here we go keywords like that and the other thing that I've thought thought about too is looking at you know magazines popular magazines are in your niche so if you're like a discovery app for new places maybe look at travel type of magazines because they generally have high traffic and low competition for those keywords and you can have people stumble upon your app if you start targeting these particular

3:02

keywords in this optimization right step 2 after we build this long list we actually pull all the data for it so we want to see traffic volume we want to see competition now traffic volume I look at keywords that generally have a Lisa - when I'm trying to optimize well for them anything under a traffic score of twenty or two on sensor tower it's probably not worthwhile right they're not going to drive that much volume so but if they're relevant enough and there's a little competition I do put like 0.5 I'll typically use those keywords but we want to pull that data to figure out ok which keywords have low competition especially if you're a lot if you don't have a if you have a very limited budget you want difficulty is difficulty in competition are gonna be key variables for you because obviously we're reliant on organic search to drive the downloads but for some of our bigger clients we don't care so much about

3:56

difficulty we're gonna go after the high traffic keywords because they have an acquisition budget which is gonna help the algorithm which is gonna help our keyword rankings anyways so I'm not too reliant I don't care about the difficulty or the competition when it comes to the bigger clients if I'm working with Indies in startups I do care about that so I do look at the difficulty and competition closely I look for keywords to have low competition and try to optimize for them and that way that drives the downloads next you optimize for those keywords okay you look at the competition you like the traffic scores and you figure out which ones make sense for using them for targeting them in your app name and your description so on Apple and just break it down for you we often we use these keywords we optimize the app name the subtitle and the description and in the the trick and so I'm pretty

4:46

sure most people know this by now but we utilize the Spanish Mexico localization we put English key word it's in there so we have a different app name we have a different subtitle and we have different key words than the US localization that then that allows us to double the key words that we're using then you want more details go check out another video where just look for how to double key words ASO all right the last thing for Google Play is we optimized app name the short description in the long description so what you typically want to do is the keywords that you're targeting you want them to the left most of the sentence so if you're targeting meditation you want it very close to your actual app name and then for the short description you're gonna lead off meditation made easy for example instead of like the app to help you meditate meditate and blah blah blah you know you want meditation closer to the front of

5:38

the sentence and same with a long description I've been playing around bold I don't have enough data to tell you guys if bold actually helps on Google Play or not but I do just put that just for emphasis as well all right bonus stuff because we care right part of the outside the box thinking is having a really good app store listing presence so I definitely look at an app icon look at screenshots typically when we work with clients if they have horrible screenshots or a app icon I'm honest with them like we got to change it but let me change the keywords first because I don't want to change anything everything all at once and then after we change the keywords will change the app icon and so forth right so I'll walk you through a few case studies here's one client this is exactly what we did with them came to us hey can you help us I did and I said hey man your your screenshots are pretty nasty

6:29

yeah app icon probably needs a refresh too and so we'd we shifted its around but before we did any of this redesign we actually redid his happening we focus on his keywords so we did all the keyword stuff and then after that we did the app icon change and now we're off enough data at this point to show you if that made a huge difference so I'll probably update you guys on that but right now that's this we take because you don't change too many things at once otherwise you won't know if it was the new icon and the new screenshots that helped the growth was it that or was it just new keywords right so I tried not to change too many variables at once and then one icon one client we I've shared this case study in the past but we increases downloads by 50% I looked at his icon which was originally B if you haven't guessed it but a is the new one that we created for him I see man it looks a little bit

7:21

dated I think we should change it I had my designer mocked something up to make it look like this which were elements in the game and then we did that because I went I wanted a flat design and he ran an a/b test because he wasn't convinced that we would get an increase here an a/b test on Google Play if you want to learn how to do that go check out the other video but on Google Play you can literally a B test your icons and your screenshots on the fly in real time and Google Play said a had a 50% increase in downloads with that new icon so he went when we launched the iOS obviously went with our new icon as well the last thing I'll mention is once with iOS 11 things have gotten way more difficult like on iOS n we would update an app name and put some new keywords in there and boom an increase in downloads immediately right on iOS 11 now we see an increase in impressions like there's no doubt if you follow this process

8:16

there's no doubt in my mind you're gonna get increased impressions because it's data driven right like it just works but now we haven't seen we've seen mixed results in terms of downloads certain clients have been really good results certain clients are kind of flat and certain clients were like flat or even down right and so what we started doing was after the update after the new app update with the app name and the keywords we run the pay to free campaign immediately after because we want to give it a little bit of a push right well like go go give it a little head start and so doing that has there's not enough data yet again today I started doing with a couple of our clients doing that has helped out a lot more one recent client was like Steve good job I was like well thank God because it was a difficult category they were playing in but he saw a tremendous amount of downloads and now he's starting to get that so you

9:09

know obviously if you look if you think about this your downloads are like low right here let's start here low and then you do the update so on Iowa Senate just like update get up right so on Iowa Slim's like maybe maybe not so I've run the page of free campaign which will give you that burst in downloads and then hopefully after that burst is done you start settling in that's the idea that I had and started executing on and it's pretty it's working pretty well for a few of the clients that we've already read the strategy on it alright hope that was helpful and a plug for me so if you want to stop watching you can do that but guys if you want to see our exact ASO strategy go check out at masters Academy com it's one stinking low monthly price for you to access our entire playbook really our ASO courses in there our exact strategy and then our Apple feed sure influencer marketing anything that will

10:00

help you drive growth that we do for our clients you want to do it on your own then go check out at masters Academy it's the exact process that we help our clients with with new materials being added every single month and I'm starting to do a series where I walk you through an app that I just bought and show you the results how I've been able to optimize it and then walk you through the results if there are we good results great if they're not I'll show you what I'm gonna do to get those results all right all that is under app masters Academy com go check it out got some phenomenal success stories already on there at masters Academy comm and I will see you on the next video