Posted on September 25th, 2018
Pandora, the popular music streaming app, has just been purchased by SiriusXM. SiriusXM is no stranger to the app business, and will undoubtedly make good use of Pandora Music, but a solid App Store Optimization strategy can help it succeed even further. Is Pandora fully optimized for the stores it’s available on, or can SiriusXM improve it to increase the app’s already impressive success? 1. iOS On the Apple App Store, Pandora Music is the second-highest rated app in the Music category, only behind Spotify. It’s the 5th-highest app under searches for “music apps,” 9th for “free music” and 11th for “radio.” However, most of the apps it ranks in the #1 spot for are low-volume terms such as “artists songs” or “favorite radio.” While it is a successful app, its keyword rankings do still have room for improvement; it’s ranked in the 30’s for keywords such as “mp3 music player offline” and in the 20’s for “HD radio” and “listen music offline.” Creatives: Pandora’s icon is distinct and easy recognizable – a large P with a mix of red, purple and blue colors. It’s great for building the brand name and identity. Following that, it has five screenshots, each showing off a function of the app while including callout text that talks about the features. These all work well, and quickly inform potential users of what Pandora has to offer, although it does have room to include more. Further screenshots could highlight additional functions from the app, including Premium and Plus features, or even appeal to fans of certain artists by calling out their latest albums. The last time it changed the artists featured in the screenshots was in November 2017, but if it regularly highlighted different artists, it could appeal to a wider range of users. The first three screenshots are the ones users see while browsing the app store, so including popular artists there could help reach their fans. Title & Subtitle: With all the music and streaming apps on the market, apps like Pandora need every edge their metadata can provide. Its title and subtitle, “Pandora Music” and “Play Music and Stream Radio,” respectively, do include important keywords that quickly describe the app’s features. The title does have room for more characters, so it could include another keyword there. Notably, both the title and subtitle have “music” – this double-up is a missed opportunity to target more unique keywords using these metadata fields. Description: The description itself is formatted nicely. Each line is short and to the point, making it easy to read. The features are clearly spelled out, while keywords like “music,” “songs,” and “playlists” are sprinkled throughout. It utilizes bullet lists to describe the additional features from Pandora Premium and Pandora Plus, so potential users can quickly see the benefits of each. Yet it does not have a bulleted section for the free version. While it does describe everything that the app does in the description itself, a bullet list of the features that are available to everyone would be helpful and provide more opportunities to utilize its keywords and build relevancy for Search Ads.
Posted on September 11th, 2018
Fate/Grand Order is a mobile game based off the popular franchise by TYPE-MOON. It’s a financial success, earning billions in worldwide revenue, but is its achievement based off of the brand alone, or does it have an App Store Optimization strategy that helps increase its downloads and conversions? For this week’s App Store Spotlight, we’ll take a look at Fate/Grand Order and see if its ASO is grand as well.
Posted on August 28th, 2018
GasBuddy is an app designed for people trying to find affordable gasoline. It provides searches for gas stations with a wide range of filters and options, making it a popular app for anyone who drives. However, is it optimized for the App Stores it’s available on? iOS GasBuddy is not utilizing the full 30 character iOS Title space to target additional keywords, opting to only use its branded name. The subtitle, “for the perfect pit stop,” could utilize more advantageous keywords as well- while “pit stop” is a high-volume term, most of the top results for the search term are games. On the Apple App Store, GasBuddy’s description starts off strong. The description itself immediately lets users know the value of the app as it tells them that they can save time and money on gas. The introduction is three short lines, and while it could be split into two smaller paragraphs of 1-2 lines, it’s still short enough to be read easily on mobile devices. The description’s features list is succinct and utilizes bullet lists under headers. It calls out the two most appealing benefits – finding gas and saving money – then elaborates on them in the bullets and describes the app’s various features. The third part is just used for “Other Features,” which could stand to utilize more keywords, but maintains proper formatting. While the description does include a good range of keywords, there are sections where it doesn’t seem to include any. Utilizing keywords throughout the description can help build relevance the for the keywords targeted in the Title, Subtitle and Keyword fields, while also helping index the app for impressions on keywords targeted in Apple Search Ads. After the main description, the bottom section includes praise and positive reviews from news outlets, showing users that the app is acclaimed by users and third parties. However, it could still benefit from a call-to-action at the end, encouraging users to download the app once they’re done reading. GasBuddy’s creatives are effective, utilizing screenshots that showcase different features of the app. It shows how users can find and compare gas prices, showcases savings and so on, each accompanied by callout text that describes its benefits. The light colors it uses are easy on the eyes, and the rolling city background at the bottom of each one provides a sense of continuity from screenshot to screenshot. They are also utilizing 8 screenshots, allowing users to see multiple features of the apps and problems it can help users address. That being said, the callout text used on the screenshots could be more concise and keyword-driven to allow users to more immediately connect their search term to the app’s features and functionality. With a few exceptions, GasBuddy’s Apple App Store page is well-optimized. As a result, it ranks as the top search result for valuable keywords like “cheapest gas,” “fuel prices” and “gas finder.” Google Play The Google Play Store page listing for GasBuddy is nearly identical to its Apple App Store page. It uses the same screenshots, just in a slightly different order, although the screenshots themselves are still very effective. Unlike Apple, Google allows developers to upload a video that shows off more than a screen-capture of the app in action- GasBuddy could potentially benefit from including a video showcasing people using the app to find cheap gas, although it would have to test the video to ensure effectiveness; a bad video can be just as detrimental to an app store listing’s effectiveness as a good one can be beneficial. The description is the same on both App Stores, and while the feature list and bullet points works well for both, the description on Google Play needs to be formatted differently than the Apple App Store listing to get the most out organic visibility of its metadata. Since Google’s algorithm crawls the app listing to find relevant keywords near the start of each line, GasBuddy’s Google Play description could rank for irrelevant phrases such as “earn achievements.” It does still rank well for relevant keywords, including “cheapest gas” and “gas money,” but its Google Play rankings drop quickly after those. The remaining keywords it ranks well for are not high-volume or relevant and includes terms like “help find,” “playing for cheaps” and “fundango.” While the description may be formatted well for readability, and the bulleted lists are great for quickly calling out the app’s features and benefits, it needs to be reworded in such a way to make better use of its description for organic indexation potential.
Posted on August 21st, 2018
You might recognize letgo from its commercials, featuring people selling things in the unlikeliest of situations (like skydiving or in the middle of an avalanche). On the app stores, it’s a high-ranking shopping app, with positive reviews on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Is this success due to its commercials alone, or is the app accompanied with good App Store Optimization as well? For this week’s App Store Spotlight, we take a look at letgo and see.
Posted on August 14th, 2018
Facetune is a selfie editing app, ranked as the #1 photo and video app in the Apple App Store and with over 1 million downloads on Google Play. For all its success, is it optimized for both the app stores? Let’s shine a spotlight on Facetune and find out.
Posted on July 31st, 2018
Snapchat is one of the top apps for taking and sharing photos, known for its many filters and effects. Yet for all its success, is it optimized for the App Stores, or could it do better with a proper ASO strategy? For this week’s App Store Spotlight, we look at Snapchat and all the things it does right or wrong.
Posted on July 24th, 2018
Nintendo’s foray into the mobile space has had some ups and downs, starting with the short-lived Miitomo and progressing through more and more successful apps. One of its bigger hits is Fire Emblem Heroes, a mobile game that made $295 million in its first year alone. It instantly appealed to fans of the Fire Emblem franchise, but while that propelled it to success, is its App Store Optimization strategy helping it reach that height or hindering it from achieving even greater success? Brand name recognition can only take an app or mobile game so far. While anyone familiar with the Fire Emblem franchise will find and enjoy the app, it can’t and won’t reach players outside the existing fanbase without optimizing its ASO accordingly. Relevant and properly utilized metadata will help it reach potential users outside of current Fire Emblem fans, while creatives that appeal to users whether or not they know the franchise will help increase conversions. As it is now, Fire Emblem Heroes is an app for Fire Emblem fans and no one else.
Posted on July 17th, 2018
Whenever anyone talks about apps that were massively successful from the launch, or apps that brought augmented reality into the mainstream, it’s safe to assume that Pokémon GO will be mentioned. Niantic’s killer app was an immediate success, bringing Pokémon into the real world with augmented reality, but even though the app is a household name, is it properly optimized for the app stores? Apple App Store One thing that Pokémon GO did well was update its creatives with screenshots showing off all the new features that users were demanding. A recent update added trading and a friends list feature, so two of the first three screenshots include those features. The screenshot before those properly demonstrates the app’s features by showing a rare Pokémon in augmented reality with the pokeball (an item used to capture Pokémon) ready to be thrown. Each screenshot shows off a different feature of the game, including gym battles, sending gifts and completing research tasks. There are even small touches to several of them, like the inclusion of rare Pokémon or scenic poke stops, that further demonstrate its value. However, with all of those features, it doesn’t include the overworld or trainer customization features, in spite of having space for two more screenshots. The screenshots could benefit from callout text. These would explain the gameplay and features to the users in a quick, concise manner, while integrating important keywords and explaining the game’s value. Without them, the features such as gyms or trading are not immediately clear to people who don’t already play. Additionally, many of the creatives seem focused on players who are already familiar with Pokémon. While the screenshots feature rare Pokémon such as Mew or a golden Magikarp, that means little to people unfamiliar with the franchise. While those do appeal to longtime fans, they make it harder to bring in new users, especially without a call to action explaining why they should care about those. While the creatives are quite good, save for the lack of callout text, the description is very bulky on iOS. While it does properly call out each feature, include important keywords and mention the awards it earned, each section forms a large block of text. Even the headers take up a few lines, and without bullet points underneath them, they seem like another part of the paragraph. Google Play Store On the Google Play Store, Pokémon GO uses very similar descriptions and creatives. However, it does include more screenshots there, including the overworld map. It also includes an outdated screenshot from before the in-game gyms were revamped, which could be replaced with one showing a more recent feature. These screenshots could also benefit from callout text to better demonstrate the game’s features and value, because as with iOS, the images only stand on their own to players already familiar with the game, or at least with Pokémon. The creatives no longer feature a video, but considering the number of updates the game has gone through since its promotional videos were filmed, that is for the best, as it avoids presenting outdated information. Additionally, its previous video was part of its featured graphic, which Google Play is experimenting with not using on many devices. The description is written and formatted the same as the one for Apple, but it works much better on the Google Play Store. Here, larger paragraphs are acceptable, and the headers are more evident. With that said, the description could benefit from placing its keywords closer to the start of each line, so that Google’s algorithms can better identify them. As it is now, the algorithm would read it as targeting “join one of three teams” and “succeed in defeating it in battle” as key phrases before “catch Pokémon” in some sections.
Posted on July 12th, 2018
While the app ecosystem is a competitive one, there are many apps that manage to thrive and become hit successes. However, just because an app ranks well doesn’t there’s no room to improve, as even the most successful of apps can still benefit from ASO. In our App Store Spotlight series, we’ll look at hit apps and see where their App Store Optimization strategy succeeds or fails. Gamers that are into chatting and social networking have probably heard of an app called Discord, which they can use to easily communicate among their friends. While its primary audience is gamers, it is seeing use beyond gaming alone and is used as a communication tool for all sorts of needs. While it is seeing success with multiple audiences, is its ASO strategy optimized? iOS On the Apple App Store, Discord ranks as the #11 app in Social Networking. With over 232,000 ratings at 4.8 stars out of 5, it has achieved remarkable success. However, it can still stand to improve its ASO in a few areas. The screenshots it features do a good job at demonstrating the app’s features and highlighting them with callout text that includes relevant keywords. While the dark colors used throughout the screenshots match, they do tend to make the in-app images difficult to comprehend, although the white text does stand out. Additionally, Discord opts not to include a preview video. This is a missed opportunity, as videos are key for showing off an app’s features while it’s in action. A well-made preview video can increase an app’s conversion rate up to 25%, although a poorly-made video can be equally detrimental. A preview video can demonstrate a chat in action as players coordinate on their games or show how Discord supports gifs and videos. Without one, it’s missing out on converting more users and highlighting its app’s core features. The description, furthermore, is flawed from an ASO standpoint. The introduction is a single paragraph of multiple lines, creating a large block of text for anyone viewing it on their mobile devices. The list of features is properly bulleted, but it’s all put into a single lengthy list, where it could instead call out its features and their benefits individually. With that said, it does include important keywords and features throughout its description, so the content is solid even though the formatting needs improvement.