Seo Keys: February 2016

Monday 29 February 2016

Its Hardly A Surprise Keywords Are A Key Factor For Good Rankings

It's hardly a surprise keywords are a key factor for good rankings at Google Play Store. For truth's sake, it needs to be mentioned there are ASO experts who dispute the huge role of keywords and place more weight on other factors, such as reviews and downloads. However, it's hard to believe that properly placed keywords don't matter, so even if you are not absolutely convinced about the ranking role of keywords, don't totally neglect them.

As with SEO, keywords matter especially in the title, the headings, and the description. Even if it were true keywords aren't that important for ASO, they are important for your human visitors ‐ when you see a title with a keyword you are looking for, you are more likely to open this link, than a link with no keywords in it. For even better results, use variations of your keyword(s).

All equal, apps with more and favorable reviews and better rankings rank higher for the same keyword. The reason why reviews and ratings have such a weight is simple ‐ they show how your users view your app. Therefore, it makes sense to try to get better reviews and ratings. However, don't go the slippery road of buying favorable ratings and reviews because if caught, this can get you into real trouble.

Similarly to apps reviews and ratings, app downloads and installs, as well as frequent app use, are other major ranking factors. This is for a reason ‐ all these measure user involvement and satisfaction. The rule here is simple - the more the better.

In order to ensure more app downloads and installs, you need to actively promote your app offstore. Active promotion on social networks, such as G+, Facebook, Twitter, etc., as well as on forums for mobile apps, can drive lots of traffic to your app and affect the number of downloads and installs in a favorable way.

Sunday 28 February 2016

Finally Off Site Factors Are One More Group Of Factors To Consider

Finally, off-site factors are one more group of factors to consider. These can be tricky because they are somehow outside of your control. These factors include: number of downloads, as well as ratings and reviews.

In order to increase the number of downloads, you can write good descriptions that make users go the extra mile and download to see your app for themselves. However, with the fierce competition at the Apple App Store, many good descriptions go unnoticed, so don't expect miracles simply because your descriptions are perfect.

Your second option is paid promotion. You can use PPC, Facebook promotion, or traffic from other social networks/popular sites in order to bring users to your app and hope they download it. However, as you probably guess, getting a good number of downloads via paid promotion is everything but cheap.

The second off-site factor for good rankings at Apple App store are user ratings and reviews. What you need is favorable reviews, but these need to be authentic because otherwise they might do you more harm than good. However, don't pester users for reviews, though ‐ a single annoyed user can give you such a bad review and a low rating that it can literally kill your app. While it's great to have numerous positive reviews, it's much better to have no reviews at all, than to have bad reviews and low ratings from disgruntled users.

If you make the effort to optimize your App Store pages as described above, this seriously increases your chances to rank well there. Of course, even if your pages are superb (in your opinion, of course), this doesn't necessarily mean you will be successful, but it certainly makes it more likely.

This is why when you launch a new app, you should always spend time to fine-tune its keywords, to
make its visuals appealing and to promote downloads, ratings and reviews (in an unobtrusive manner). If your app itself is good, it's quite possible you will see good results.

Saturday 27 February 2016

Visuals Are Frequently Neglected By Developers

Visuals are frequently neglected by developers but they have a huge sales potential. As a rule, the more competitive your niche is, the more important visuals are. Visuals include stuff such as logos, screenshots, trailers, etc. Technically they are not part of the ranking algorithm, but their role is very important ‐ they attract users' attention and they do help for branding.

Your icon is the first (and frequently last) visual users see. This is why you need to put lots of effort in it. It's especially important you use the same icon everywhere in your app and on your pages. This consistency helps you big time to build brand recognition.

The same goes for the first two screenshots. Make them as nice and informative as possible. You might think that if your screenshots expose all your functionality this will lead to less downloads because users can see right away your app is not for them, but the logic is just the opposite. You don't trick users with vague screenshots just to make them increase the number of your downloads because even if you somehow manage to fool them, it's almost certain they will leave you a negative rating. A negative rating really hurts!

Friday 26 February 2016

While For Google Play Store Many Experts Do Not Consider Keywords

While for Google Play Store many experts don't consider keywords to be of top importance (though many others dispute this approach), with Apple App Store (almost) everybody agrees keywords, in addition to the number of downloads, are the most important ranking factor.

This is so because the ranking algorithm used by Apple App Store isn't as sophisticated as the one used by Google Play Store ‐ in a sense Apple App Store is more like the search engines from decades ago when no complicated algorithms were used for rankings. Unfortunately, this opens the door to abuse. Needless to say, it won't help if you abuse the simplicity of the algorithm and stuff your pages with keywords.

Since you don't have a limitless text field for keywords, you need to be very picky which keywords to include. Quite naturally, keywords are most important in the title and the description, so pay special attention to these areas. It really helps, if you perform some A/B tests with these to find the winning combinations.

Very often your keywords come naturally, but sometimes you need to be more creative. For instance, if you are selling an app with lots of competition, you might have to think about minor keywords as well. You should start with the major keywords, but if this drives you nowhere, think a little about less competitive keywords as well.