It probably wont come as a surprise when I tell you that it’s hard to get a mobile game noticed in the mobile App Stores. It’s an ocean of apps out there, and especially the gaming categories are pretty crowded. Whether it’s Google Play Store, Apple App Store or any of the others, they all have their own search and ranking algorithms and ways of featuring products. Having success as a developer / publisher in the App Stores or any other distribution platform is defined by many things around marketing and your product. But it never hurts to get the basics right.
— Also see the article on “App Store presence” for getting the visuals right on the App Stores to improve conversions. —
One of those basics is in this case the presence of your app in the various app stores. Apart from visuals and a appealing game description, the first most important thing is ‘discoverability’. To make sure potential customers can find your mobile games on the App Store. This process of making your app better visible is called “App Store Optimization” (quite similar to “Search Engine Optimization“). With App Store Optimization or ASO in short, you optimize the visibility and discoverability of your mobile game app, which leads to more organic downloads. Know, that over 60% of the App Store users utilize search to find new apps they might like, which makes it a vital part of your mobile marketing efforts.
Countless of articles have been written on this subject already but I felt like sharing my own experiences and knowledge on the subject. Similar to SEO for websites, ASO is hard to grasp and can be a bit of a gray area. It’s less complex then optimizing for Google’s mighty search engine on the web but the competition is strong. Unlike performance marketing, ASO is hard to measure, optimize and isolate to see it’s success, but it definitely works!
“The first step is to identify important keywords you want your app to rank for”
I’ve split the article up in 3 sections (research, practice and measuring) covering tools, best practices and simple tricks to make your game better findable in the stores through App Store Optimization.
App Store Keyword Research
Regardless of platform, the first step is to identify important keywords you want your app to rank for. Think hard about your game; it’s USPs, competitors, ideal customers etc. Find words that best describe your game and words that you want users to find your app on. Try to predict your customers’ search behaviour and ask yourself what they could be looking for. More importantly does your app fill that need? Whether it’s a zombie racing game with customizable vehicles or a space flight simulator, the first step is to think like your potential customer and build a solid list of keywords.
However, it can be a though call to choose between more generic keywords or more specific long tail phrases. For example if you have a Football Penalty Shootout game. The phrase “Penalty Shootout” could actually prove to be a much better option to get downloads than the generic word “Football”. Simply because you probably wont be in the top 100 of search results for “Football” in the App Store, making this keyword completely useless for your app, whereas “Penalty Shootout” is a phrase less people search for, but it will also have lower competition for your game to rank on. Especially when trying to continueesly improve your chart position with ASO in app updates: focus on replacing the keywords that you rank poorly on.
“Over 60% of the App Store users utilize search to find new apps they might like”
Another great way of checking what to rank for is by looking at competitors. There are a couple of great tools for doing this amongst other services that help with App Store Optimization in general.
Another good tool for finding potential keywords for App Store Optimization is Google AdWords Keyword Planner, probably familiar to you if you have SEO / SEA experience. It’s not in any way linked to the App Stores but could give you some new keyword ideas you haven’t thought of at first. A tool that I would personally recommend and does pretty much the same for the mobile app stores is Straply. Very handy to quickly check volume and competition on certain keywords!
Mobile Platform Differences
While many app publishers threat the stores for iOS and Android app the same; there are major differences in store layout, algorithms, ranking, categories and listings. The Apple App Store rankings are way more influenced by the amount of downloads with more fluctuating charts. While Google Play on the other hand is more about ‘stamina’ with more stable charts and slower moving charts. You simply cannot ‘burst’ up the charts in the Google Play Store like in the App Store. There’s more to it. For example good ratings seem to have more weight in the Google Play Store.
App Store Optimization in Practice
There are many ‘tricks’ or best practices that work well that not all publishers are aware of. I have to admit, I’ve made many mistakes with App Store Optimization myself when first starting out and it can be hard to stay on top of the latest changes.
App Title
All words in your app’s title function as keywords and do not need to be added separately to your keywords section. Picking the right app name for your mobile game, plays a big part of marketing and App Store Optimization. Like domains on the web there’re choices to make between going for a catchy brand name or a name based on strong keywords. A brand name has advantages for brand building, word of mouth and by being memorable and fun. While a name based on keywords is more describing which has it’s ASO advantages.
If you believe that your app name will be hardly searched for, one of the best practices is to add a ‘subtitle’ to the name. For example: if your app is called “Planetarian Defenders” but its not immediately clear from the name what its all about. You might want to add something like“Planetarian Defenders: Space Ship Simulator”. Where, “Space Ship Simulator” could be something that players search for and it saves you a couple of keywords to add seperately. This way, you will still have a strong brand for use in your marketing communications and benefit from a better position in search results at the same time. However, don’t go crazy with this like “Planetarian Defenders: Miley Cirus Flappy Gangnam Style Shooter”. You know what I mean!
“The Apple App Store handles plural automatically, so you don’t have to add keywords twice like ‘Car’ and ‘Cars’”
App Keywords
When filling out (meta) keywords for your mobile game on the Apple App Store make sure you use all 100 characters available, or as close to a 100 as possible. A couple of good things to know; the Apple App Store handles plural automatically, so you don’t have to add keywords twice like “Car” and “Cars”. Also, if your game is a free app, your game will automatically rank for the keyword “Free”. No need to separately add it to the keywords section!
Company / Seller Name
Your company/seller name that appears in the store functions as keywords as well and do not need to be added to your separate keywords section. There are even companies that update their name to have their apps better findable. (For example, when as a company you only publish sports games, consider a name that has something to do with sports as it will help your App Store Optimization efforts.
App Categories
The categories you pick for your app are a vital part of App Store Optimization. The volumes and competition for each categories differs a lot. Think about the core mechanics and theme of your game and choose your categories wisely, some categories are extremely competitive to rank in and it might actually be better to pick something less competitive that would also go with your game.
Also, the name of the categories your app is in will function as keywords for people to find your game on. You do not need to add these to your app’s keywords section as you will already rank for those words.
Also, the name of the categories your app is in will function as keywords for people to find your game on. You do not need to add these to your app’s keywords section as you will already rank for those words.
Apple’s GameCenter
GameCenter for iOS doesn’t have much to do with ASO at first sight, but if your game uses it, its good to know that there’s a separate GameCenter chart to rank in. Apart from the benefits for your players and for Apple, it makes your app available in an ‘additional’ chart upping the chances for users to find your game.
In-App Purchases
What mobile publishers often don’t actually know is that the names of your in-app purchases function as keywords as well, but only in their full phrase. For example: An IAP named “Big bag of diamonds” will rank you for “Big bag of diamonds” not the words “diamonds” or “bag”. Also, there doesn’t seem to be that much weight on it in general, but still, every little bit helps. So keep App Store Optimization in mind when you start naming your IAPs during development.
App Description
While on the Apple App Store you should mostly focus on the keywords section and not so much on keyword stacking in the texts, the app’s description still seems have a little impact on search results. For the Google Play Store however, it should be your primary focus for stacking some strong keywords! On the Google Play Store there is no separate keywords section and the description plays a crucial role in discoverability. The Google Play Store allows an app description of up to 4000 characters! It sounds silly but try to use as much of it as possible. 
Keyword stacking seems to help rankings but don’t go nuts with this and make the text unpleasant to read with extreme keyword density… Google and Apple will potentially penalise your app for going overboard with this. A great tool to preview your app’s description and store listing in general is: App Snippet Preview by PickASO.
Keyword stacking seems to help rankings but don’t go nuts with this and make the text unpleasant to read with extreme keyword density… Google and Apple will potentially penalise your app for going overboard with this. A great tool to preview your app’s description and store listing in general is: App Snippet Preview by PickASO.App Store Reputation
It’s never really been confirmed but there seems to be a sort of ‘reputation’ for developers to rank on certain keywords. Say, if you only make racing games and have published 5 racing games in the past, your keyword reputation could rank all your apps higher for racing game related search keywords in general.
Social Media for Apps
Social media can be an acquisition channel on its own but besides additional downloads it won’t directly effect rankings. However, on the Google Play Store, the Google +’s seem to matter, but other social media mentions do not impact search results. Also, be sure to add a YouTube video there, it doesn’t just help conversions and showing customers what your game is all about, but it also benefits App Store Optimization. Last but not least, think about adding full links to your app description, like “http://twitter.com/xxgamexx” or “http://www.companynamexx.com“. Some blogs and web services directly copy your app description for app listings and will function as ‘link builders’ to your personal websites.
App Ratings
Your mobile app’s ratings definitely play a big part in App Store Optimization. Good content with good ratings will put way more weight on your selected keywords, prioritizing your app over competitor apps in search results. Check your ratings often and try to find ways to improve you game with feedback from your customers.
App Downloads
While getting more app downloads is not really a ‘trick’ you can apply for App Store Optimization, it does play a big part in keyword ranking. Simply put, more downloads will mean more weight on your chosen keywords. For the Google Play Store it’s a wider combination of influencing factors but actual downloads still play an important role in discoverability. A strong combination of App Store Optimization and a user acquisition campaign can really improve your positioning a lot.
App Store Localization
Localizing your app’s description and keywords can have great benefits for reach but will also your discoverability in the stores. In the Netherlands (where I live) and Sweden for example, people are perfectly comfortable with an English store description and even search for a lot of English phrases and keywords. However, many other countries are not. This is where localization comes in, to appeal to these local markets. In certain European countries but definitely in Asia it comes down to “can’t read, won’t download” and you have to adapt your store presence in order to gain traction there. Also, don’t forget to do separate keyword research per country if you really want to maximise your ASO benefits. A tool that can help in this area is: Google’s Global Market Finder (A cross over tool between the AdWords Keyword Planner and Google Translate) showing competition and volume for keywords on the web in multiple countries.
Measuring and Optimizing
App Store Optimization is something that you will need to be constantly doing with every app update in order to keep improving your organic position. Keep checking your chart positions and keywords you rank well or poorly for, and optimize wherever possible by replacing weaker keywords. Great tools for keeping an eye on the charts are Distimo or AppAnnie. Those two are my favourites that I would recommend but there are many other great tools out there that will offer similar services. A paid subscription either of those two will give you the ability to check competitor downloads and revenue but these packages can be expensive.
Also, don’t be afraid to try crazy things like changing your app title post launch or do a complete rewrite of your description etc. just to see if something changes for the good. But keep in mind, like SEO, most App Store Optimization changes are long term investments and it can take a while before you can pick the fruits.
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