ASO 101: How to Choose Right Keyword for App Store Optimization

This blog promises to teach you How to Choose Right Keyword for App Store Optimization Using Mobile Action ASO Intelligence

Those who have scrolled through the pages of this blog before would probably know: in the realm of ASO, keyword spot for us is what an uncut diamond is to a jeweler. In the right hands, it can make your app shine and reveal its beauty. Think of Mobile Action as De Beers Company in this case. We have all the data that a developer or company needs to improve their ASO and Visibility Score (raw material).  Also, we have very experienced jewelers (data scientists and engineers). Before choosing your keywords, we need to get our facts and definitions right. At this point, the interplay between keywords and search volumes becomes important.

Let us go  over one key term: A good keyword.

Q:  What is a good keyword? : A tale of two metrics

A: A  good keyword is a word with a high search score and low competition.  A high search score indicates that many people in the app store search for that keyword. For example, let us look at some possible keywords for the  connected2.me IOS app.  “Match” is the word with the highest search score (61%).  We can use it in our keyword spot, but with a slight twist. For example, the chance to rank in the top 10 for this keyword (40%) is lower than the keyword “hangout” (54%).  Thus, we can talk about a trade-off between  search score and chance here in general terms.

You might think that these keywords are made out of thin air.  No one can blame you because keyword spot is not public data. They are not visible to regular users. We pull this data daily from App Store and Google Play, thanks to our server’s daily crawling through both markets and collecting millions of data points. Therefore, we know which app has which keywords and which pools of examples to make comparisons from.

Q: What is a search score ?

A:  A search score refers to the number of searches for a particular keyword. We can say that more searches were made with the term “chat” (52) than “meet” (47). A search score is actually a logarithmic indicator of search volume for different keywords. The maximum search score that a keyword can attain is a theoretical 100. (This is never the case.)

Q: What do you mean by low competition?

A: As the number of apps that rank in a keyword increase, it is harder to rank for that particular keyword. This logic is pretty straightforward. When choosing your keyword, you do not want to exhaust yourself trying to rank for a keyword that is used by tens of thousands of apps.

Now we know how the mechanics work. Let’s try to dig into actual ASO. What steps can we follow? Here is a quick guideline to keep in mind while pushing the next update of your app.

1) Check your top keywords:

 Please go to the Keyword Suggestion tool and add all the top keywords on your list. You can do this by the “Track All” shortcut in the top right corner. Then, check your current ranking in selected countries.

Action:

When we start using your app’s name in your keyword spot, your app may start ranking higher. The rationale is that the App Store and Google Play prioritize the keywords on your keyword spot and rank you higher for those.

If you already use these keywords for your keyword spot, try to put your app name on the keyword spot instead.

The gist is, if you have used the app name before and could not rank higher, you should try new keywords

 2) Check your competitors’ keywords

 Find other keywords that have a higher search score, but are used by a less total number of apps. Then repeat Action! What we are actually doing is extending our pool of possible keywords. That will give you a better vision and more opportunities.

Competitor Search Screen Shot taken on Mobile Action Keyword Suggestion tool.

3) Find related keywords (keyword combinations), and utilize these in your app’s keyword spot.

If we think about using the keyword “meet” on your app name or keyword spot, we have to know what keywords are related to each other. Let’s look at an example, if “meet new people” seems like an important keyword phrase, then that means we should add “new” and “people” keywords on our app name or keyword spot.

Do not limit your thinking on this step. Try to use your intuition and add catchphrases to examine how they rank.

4) Digging reviews

Reviews indicate to us everything that we should take notes on. We need to check both our app’s keyword density, our reviews, and our competitors’ reviews. This shows how our prospective customers search for apps in the store. Also, Google Play’s algorithm prioritizes the keywords that are repeated in reviews. Using Mobile Action Review Analysis tool, you can save yourself some trouble and visually analyze both your and your competitors’ reviews.

Reviews have two aspects. You can see which keywords are related to positive reviews and try to keep your app that way.

For example, if your positive reviews include the word “quick”, you should think twice before applying a more complex UI. On the other hand, there is the fact that we all learn from our mistakes. If you can see which words are related to negative reviews, you can easily learn from that issue and fix it in your next update. Red flags are words such as “crash” and “bug”. If your users are not happy with your app’s stability, you should focus on improving user experience by fixing your app.

If your competitor has many positive reviews with a specific keyword, jot it down. Maybe you can implement a feature that is highly mentioned in positive reviews. Gather your team and discuss how you can integrate it into your app. Try to look for negative reviews and try to direct unsatisfied users with your relatively strong side. You can advertise the ease of usage in your descriptions to attract more users.

5) Relevancy

 After November 3, 2015, the algorithm changed so that relevancy is more important than ever – you can check out our different blog related to algorithm changes.

Any keyword that you are using for your app name and keyword spot should be directly related to your app. In this case, Apple starts to let us see our competitor’s keywords as below:

So for the combination keyword “Gmail Calendar”, the rankings of different apps are now included.

Connected2.me Case Study

If you want to see the magic of ASO in action, let’s look at connected2.me‘s success in the App Store. Connected2.me is an anonymous chat app that has gone viral in many countries, and they are using the Mobile Action product for their ASO.

What exactly did they do? Connected2.me prepared their new app name and revised their keywords using our dashboard while following ASO steps as below.

For the keyword “chat”, connected2.me has an upgoing trend in the selected dates.

Ranking for keyword “tango”

“Only connected2.me and tinder ranks for the keyword Tinder”

For the keyword “message”, connected2.me comes almost from nowhere and catches up.

Before you go, we would like to wrap up the ASO 101 advices to optimize your app and get you going with your mobile growth journey.

ASO 101 Notes:

• Analyze current app name and keyword spot
• Add all competitors on dashboard
• Create a new keyword pool with Keyword Suggestion feature
• Add all competitors’ keywords on dashboard
• Try to find the best keywords that have less competition and higher score
• Write a new app name that has around 80 characters
• Write new keyword spot regarding new app name (consider both keywords and their combinations)

Achievement Unlocked: Growth after MA ASO 101:

Category Ranking: Before ASO 805-1422 (US) —> After ASO 335-479 (US)
Download Numbers: increase in download number compare before ASO = %312