ASO Techniques that Delivered 4 Million Downloads and 300,000 Monthly Users in 2 Years

For a brief period of time, referral was making inroads for app discovery, and search was trending downward. But post-2020, search is back! Learn how to maximize your growth through ASO by following the advice of a mobile app founder who saw tremendous success with his app to help teens pass their driver’s permit tests more easily.

Keyword Relevance is Much More Important than Keyword Traffic

The concept of keyword traffic is misleading. Just because a keyword is popular doesn’t mean you’ll benefit from using it.

First, keywords that get a lot of traffic are extremely difficult to rank because there’s so much competition for them. Plus, high-traffic keywords are often open to interpretation. Our Zutobi app helps teens pass their Drivers Ed permit test more easily, and you might guess that “drive” would be a good keyword selection. But when you type “drive” into the app store search bar, the top results don’t include anything to do with driving cars. 

A better approach is to look for long-tail keywords, which are more descriptive and likely to reveal a searcher’s intent. While these kinds of keywords and keyword phrases don’t see a lot of traffic, they’re going to be a lot more relevant to your user base and much easier to rank on.

Find Valuable Keywords Using Experimentation

Optimization is a process. You may not get things right on the first try. So, don’t be afraid to experiment with different keywords to see which ones work best for you. But even if you’re seeing success with the keywords you’re using now, there’s no guarantee they’re going to be effective in the long term.

Consumer preferences can change, developments in your industry may shift behaviors, and your competition will aggressively try to steal your share. Monitor your progress often – weekly, or even daily – to get a good read on how your app is performing against your goals. 

Also, be informed about the key ranking factors for the two app stores. Both Google Play and the iOS App Store consider app name/title and description to be the most influential ranking fields for keywords. However, the App Store doesn’t index all text fields, so try to use your keywords in fields like “Developer Name” and “In-App Purchases.”

Do not be discouraged if your first attempts at experimentation don’t move the needle. It may take 6-8 iterations to get it right.

Use Data to Measure Your Success

There’s no longer an excuse to use guesswork to plan your strategy. Data is the key to determining what’s working for you and what needs improvement, and it can help guide the decisions that keep you competitive.

But the numbers can’t speak for themselves; they require that the people reviewing the figures can use context and intuition to interpret them correctly. Rely on your past experience and industry knowledge to point you and your team in the right direction.

Two good sources of data for ASO include the developer platforms and third-party mobile measurement partners (MMPs) that are integrated with your app. Using these data analytic tools can provide insights about which app store elements are most effective for getting downloads and installations.

A/B Testing is an Ideal Way to Optimize Your App Listing

A/B split testing allows you to experiment with your store elements (icon, screens, videos, etc.) to determine which version performs better in the app stores. By testing against a smaller segment of your user base, you can safely and more confidently select the highest-performing version before letting all of your users see it. 

Test only one variable at a time, know in advance how you’ll measure the results, use a representative sample (50% of the user base), and run the tests for a long enough period of time to get a read on both weekday and weekend behavior.

Google Play Console has A/B testing built into its platform (called Google Experiments). Google Experiments helped us to determine the most impactful content to use on our state-by-state permit practice test pages. The Apple Connect platform doesn’t offer this feature, so you’ll need to use third-party analytics to A/B test your store elements in the iOS App Store. Don’t make the mistake of assuming the results you see in Google Experiments will apply to the App Store. 

Use Third-Party Data Analytics to Collect Information Unavailable on the Developer Platforms

Third-party analytics companies can measure post-install events (any action taken in the app after installing) that can help app developers and marketers understand which store elements are the most valuable. These mobile measurement partners (MMPs) can also determine which medium (paid ads or organic search) and source (specific ad campaign and keywords) drove the install. The developer platforms can’t get at that level of information.

When app developers and marketers can get a read on which store elements are the most popular and what factors drove them to install, they can better prioritize their optimization efforts for their store listings. We used MMP data to help us determine which keywords were associated with installations, and that information significantly improved our performance.

Ratings and Reviews Factor into ASO

Your ratings and reviews are a strong indicator of customer satisfaction. Follow your app store feedback closely, respond to complaints quickly, and let your current and potential customers know that you will make an effort to fix or improve whatever is making them unhappy. When you let people know that you value their feedback and that you’re always open to hearing it, it will help improve your ratings and user retention.

But there’s another reason to stay on top of your ratings and reviews: They factor into ASO. The ranking algorithm takes into account which apps have a lot of positive feedback because these apps will likely offer the best user experiences. 

We closely monitor our feedback and offer to help people who are having a problem using the app. That’s why we see so many five-star reviews for our DMV permit practice tests.

Keep Monitoring Your Performance

We must reiterate that ASO is a process and not something to do occasionally or just one time before launch. Make it a point to regularly look at your analytics data regularly, identify where you need to improve, and start experimenting. Put in the work, and you, too, can gain the users and downloads you’re aiming for.