As I find out more about the business end of app-development, I'm going to post and share my information here. That way it stays in my memory better, I have access to it in the future, and you too can also learn with me! Glorious :smiley:
Keywords
We need to brainstorm keywords for our app, i.e words that people search for on the store. We then include these abundantly in our app's description and title. So far I have:
Notice it combines two keywords pretty effectively. It has 'Calculator' and 'Unit'. So if you search either 'Calculator' or 'Unit Converter' it'll show up pretty high in the list.
We can do something similar with our app. Say our keywords our 'Calculator' and 'Theme', and our title is 'Calculator - 50 free themes!'. Hey look, that's three keywords in our title! Now if somebody searched 'android themes free' in the search, the might just run into our calculator and check it out.
Apparently, we should stay away from keywords that are too generic as well.
Keywords with Download Intent
We must use keywords with download intent. Meaning specific words that people would search for that would lead them to download your app. 'Calculator' has download intent. 'Funny' does not, because a lot of things could be funny and you can't download a funny.
I don't think this necessarily means that we should include other words like that in our title and description, but that the most visible word should be a keyword with download intent.
Tools
There are tools out there that can hep us determine the best keywords, how much competition each keyword has, and other great analytics that help the business end. Unfortunately, most if not all cost lots of money :moneybag: . So not a good investment for our first app, but good to keep in mind for the future.
Long-tail keywords are words that are not searched as much as the top-dogs, but still represent a considerable number of searches. They are usually multi-word keywords, and it is recommended that new developers exploit these as these words have less competition.
Say you have the keyword "baseball". Pretty darn competitive to rank high for that. But say you change it to "baseball coach". Suddenly you rank higher. I think the Asus Calculator did this but with "Calculator Unit". Maybe we can do "Calculator Theme".
Criteria for picking keywords (www.apptamin.com)
Download relevance – Is this keyword something that people will search for, with the intent of downloading an app, or is it just a generic keyword?
Ability to rank – You are looking for keywords that are easy to rank for, especially if you are just starting out. This means a high Chance or a low Difficulty Score…or a similar competition level, for whatever metric you are using.
Searches – Only after you have evaluated those two metrics do you look at the amount of search volume that the keyword is getting. All else being equal, now choose the keywords with higher traffic.
So as for the title, the top 3 and many others start with the word 'Calculator'. I think this might be a wise course of action for ourselves too, as it ensures that the first word people see is what they searched for.
However, the downside is that our app might not be as unique anymore. Maybe having a different first word than calculator would make us stick out more? I'm still ambivalent on this one, but am leaning toward having a first word that is not calculator.
Have a good design and great screenshots. We got this one covered :smile: :art:
Have a demo/promo video. We'll get one.
Get lot's of reviews, lot's of GOOD reviews. We can get our loyal friends support for this one as we start up :smiley:
Increase usage frequency. If we've done our app right, user's should be using our calculator everyday I hope.
"Focus on the first 167 characters of your app description, for web search. The first part of your Google Play app description also becomes the meta description on your app’s public webpage. Be aware of the web search terms you want to rank for and add them to the beginning of your description. " A very valuable tidbit of information indeed!
Research findings
As I find out more about the business end of app-development, I'm going to post and share my information here. That way it stays in my memory better, I have access to it in the future, and you too can also learn with me! Glorious :smiley:
Keywords
We need to brainstorm keywords for our app, i.e words that people search for on the store. We then include these abundantly in our app's description and title. So far I have:
'Calculator' is obviously the main keyword here, but it's also the most competitive. But take a look at our good ol' favorite asus calculator:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asus.calculator&hl=en
Notice it combines two keywords pretty effectively. It has 'Calculator' and 'Unit'. So if you search either 'Calculator' or 'Unit Converter' it'll show up pretty high in the list. We can do something similar with our app. Say our keywords our 'Calculator' and 'Theme', and our title is 'Calculator - 50 free themes!'. Hey look, that's three keywords in our title! Now if somebody searched 'android themes free' in the search, the might just run into our calculator and check it out.
Apparently, we should stay away from keywords that are too generic as well.
Keywords with Download Intent
We must use keywords with download intent. Meaning specific words that people would search for that would lead them to download your app. 'Calculator' has download intent. 'Funny' does not, because a lot of things could be funny and you can't download a funny.
I don't think this necessarily means that we should include other words like that in our title and description, but that the most visible word should be a keyword with download intent.
Tools
There are tools out there that can hep us determine the best keywords, how much competition each keyword has, and other great analytics that help the business end. Unfortunately, most if not all cost lots of money :moneybag: . So not a good investment for our first app, but good to keep in mind for the future.So Google is great once again, they have a beautiful tool right here: https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home?__c=8672972144&__u=7202855173&authuser=0&__o=cues#start
Long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are words that are not searched as much as the top-dogs, but still represent a considerable number of searches. They are usually multi-word keywords, and it is recommended that new developers exploit these as these words have less competition.
Say you have the keyword "baseball". Pretty darn competitive to rank high for that. But say you change it to "baseball coach". Suddenly you rank higher. I think the Asus Calculator did this but with "Calculator Unit". Maybe we can do "Calculator Theme".
Criteria for picking keywords (www.apptamin.com)
http://www.apptamin.com/blog/aso-google-play-app-optimization/
Title
So as for the title, the top 3 and many others start with the word 'Calculator'. I think this might be a wise course of action for ourselves too, as it ensures that the first word people see is what they searched for.
However, the downside is that our app might not be as unique anymore. Maybe having a different first word than calculator would make us stick out more? I'm still ambivalent on this one, but am leaning toward having a first word that is not calculator.
Description
Check out our descriptions as they are being written at our google docs page: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AHmvgx1trNR8h57or8CYbpxTI-zfS1obd2h_UZ9o9wY/edit?usp=sharing
Sources
http://www.apptamin.com/blog/optimize-play-store-app/ http://www.apptamin.com/blog/aso-google-play-app-optimization/ https://sensortower.com/blog/how-to-find-long-tail-aso-keywords-and-overcome-ranking-frustration http://www.androidb.com/2014/07/10-tools-to-help-with-google-play-store-optimization-for-your-app/