Posted on December 13th, 2016
The holidays are almost here, and the influx of new phones, tablets and gift cards that comes along with them will undoubtedly bring a wave of revenue to the App Store and Google Play. Whether or not last year’s record-breaking $1.1 billion in App Store spending can be beat remains to be seen, but regardless app developers would be wise to plan ahead for the holiday season. A well-optimized app needs only a quick update to position itself strongly for the holidays. New creative assets, keywords and a blurb in the description can be enough to capitalize on holiday attention for an app that already has a dedicated fan base. But what about apps that have yet to be optimized? The influx of users that occurs each holiday season can only be fully capitalized upon if your app is appropriately optimized. A strong optimization will increase the number of search terms your app ranks for, and during the vital holiday season, this change alone can make a huge difference. On Apple, that means tailoring your title, keywords and description towards your target audience. Your app’s title should be descriptive and to the point, with a subtitle utilizing highly searched terms to flesh out your rankings and quickly explain your app to users. You only have 50 characters to work with, so be certain to focus on words that will improve your rankings. You want to target the most popular searches in the App Store while describing your app’s features at the same time. Your keyword bank is where you have more room to experiment. Of course, you will still want to use highly searched words in your keyword bank, as these have more potential for putting your app in front of the most users. Focus on words that are relevant for your app and searched the most by users. You may also target competitor apps in your keyword bank, but be careful in doing so – many apps in the store target competitors in their title and keyword bank, but only a few are deemed relevant by Apple. In order to be deemed relevant, your app must have notable similarities to its competitor, and you must position your app’s description in a way such that those similarities seem reasonable. Smaller companies often have difficulty landing large competitors, too, so watch out for that. On Google Play, optimizing your app works a little differently. Your app’s title is still important, but most notably, you don’t have a keyword bank to work with. Instead, Google crawls your app’s description for words that may be relevant to your app. Words that are placed at the front of sentences, or grouped together near similar words, are deemed especially important. That means the best way to optimize your app on Google Play is to create a description that features a bulleted feature list, almost like an outline, that details like features together with one another. Another important element of a Google Play optimization is your app’s Short Description. This is an 80-character field that exists to give users a clear, concise description of your app. The words placed here are especially important for establishing rankings and guiding users to your app’s most important features. By optimizing your app separately for each storefront, you can capitalize on the unique searches and trends that occur in each. And during the holiday season, with potentially over $1 billion being spent over just a few weeks, a strong optimization is more important than ever. If your app hasn’t been optimized yet, now is a great time to start.
Posted on December 10th, 2016
On December 2, Google announced their top trending apps for 2016. Included were games like Pokémon GO and Clash Royale, as well as apps like Face Changer 2 and Castbox. The popularity of these titles won’t surprise most who work in the apps industry, but Google’s announcement is still worth looking into for the sake of determining trends that have influenced the Google Play market this year – And may continue to do so throughout 2017. For starters, Google’s Top Trending Games of 2016 were:
Posted on December 8th, 2016
The holidays are a prime time for developers to update their creative assets on the App Store and Google Play. As we approach the end of the year and the impending App Store shutdown, be sure to take the time for a quick app update in this busy season – it can ultimately
Posted on December 2nd, 2016
Yesterday Google revealed App Maker, a relatively low-tech way for developers to compile simple applications for Google Play. With the goal of simplifying the iteration process and opening app development up to a wider swath of creators, App Maker seems poised to do for Google Play what Apple’s investment in Swift has done for the App Store. App Maker boasts “features like built-in templates, a drag-and-drop UI editor, and point-and-click data modeling \[to] accelerate app development”. In other words, Google is attempting to democratize app development. This raises several questions for app developers and hobbyists alike. How will the introduction of App Maker help want-to-be developers who have been turned off of development by the complexity of programming? Will existing developers see a shift in competition on Google Play? Let’s start by addressing new creators looking to get into development with App Maker. While the promise of a code-lite, drag-and-drop creation suite is certainly exciting, it’s important to take into consideration the limitations of such a program, too. App Maker supports coding languages such as HTML, CSS and Javascript, so depending on how simple your proposed app is, there’s a good chance you’ll still have to dip into some coding. That said, the simple interface may expedite prototyping for simple apps. The development environment is cloud-based and intuitive, making it easy to sync with your data from G Suite applications, Google Maps, Contacts and Groups. You can also plug in other APIs to easily expand functionality. Google’s goal here is to make it simple for teams to handle development of specific, simple apps in-house without bringing on an outside developer. Yes, there is a relatively deep IDE that lets developers tool around deeper with code, but ultimately the main target is companies looking to expand into the mobile marketplace without bringing on a whole new team. On that same train of thought, App Maker likely isn’t going to become the go-to for developing complex games or other feature-dense applications. For existing developers, however, App Maker will likely mean a slight increase in competition on Google Play. A lower bar to entry for developers means more developers will be able to create high-quality apps that can compete in the Play store. With Google targeting enterprise companies, those who already have such apps in the store can expect more competition around related search terms. It will be necessary to monitor the Google Play store more closely, tracking trends that may be influenced by an influx of new apps. Just as in a standard optimization, app descriptions and creatives should be adjusted slightly to cater to these new trends, without completely reindexing your app. Use your current title, description and short description as a base, and make edits from there. With App Maker, Google is attempting to lower the bar to entry for corporate developers on the Play store. How successful they will be, and how many apps will come from this effort, remains to be seen, but App Maker is certainly worth keeping an eye on for both new and experienced developers - especially companies in Google’s target market.
Posted on November 3rd, 2016
Google announced this week that they would be cracking down on apps that try to fake their way into the Play Store’s top charts. Through the use of a new detection and filtering method, Google will remove apps that utilize fake or incentivized user ratings and installs to get a boost, and will even remove apps outright from the Play Store. This isn’t anything new for Google – the company made a similar pledge to remove fraudulent top apps a little over a year ago – but what has changed is the method of detection. Google has introduced a method of detection which will supposedly “detect and filter” apps that utilize suspect methods of ascent. Apps that are found to be utilizing these means will be removed from the top charts in an effort to “make Google Play the best platform for enjoying and discovering the most innovative and trustworthy apps”. The big news for many developers is that Google will actually remove apps from the store for violating this principle. Google warned in a blog post that “developers who continue to exhibit such behaviors could have their apps taken down from Google Play”. It’s not as wide-spanning a threat as Apple’s recent title limit change, but the removal of a popular app (even one that only became popular through suspect means) could still shake up the Google Play store. Google promises than in most cases, no action will be required on the case of the developer. They also ask that should developers request marketing assistance from an outside source, they make sure the means of the marketing are legitimate. A strong Google Play campaign doesn’t necessarily need to utilize fraudulent reviews or downloads to boost onto the charts. The strongest method of discoverability is and has always been search; most app downloads come from searches, not from the top downloads charts. Similarly, the primary determinants of your app’s keyword rankings are its title, short description and long description. A solid marketing agency will take these elements into account instead of suggesting burst campaigns or fraudulent downloads.
Posted on September 8th, 2016
Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus at their San Francisco press conference today, confirming many rumors about the device and revealing a host of new features as well. How will the iPhone 7 impact the world of mobile? Let’s take a deeper look.
Posted on September 3rd, 2016
For the first time since in its eight-year history, the App Store’s title field will be shortened from the previous 255-character limit to a new, concise 50 characters. Apple made the announcement to developers early on September 1st, sending shockwaves through the development community as many apps will be forced to alter their titles.
Posted on August 26th, 2016
This Fall Apple is preparing to initiate the biggest shift for App Store search yet in the form of Search Ads, sponsored app placements that will appear at the top of certain searches within the App Store.
Posted on August 17th, 2016
Another season, another batch of brand-new App Store trends. This Fall you’ll find everything from presidents to Pikachu ruling the mobile roost. Look for these topics to dominate the mobile conversation in Fall 2016.
Posted on August 12th, 2016
Pokémon Go - It seems like all anyone can talk about lately. And why not? It became the top grossing app in the US within 13 hours, raising Nintendo’s market value by $9 billion in five days. 21 million users play the game daily. Between four and five million more download it each day. And with well over $1 million daily setting the app above competitors like Candy Crush and Clash of Clans, it seems like The Pokémon Company and Niantic are on top of the world. It might come as a shock, then, that Pokémon Go is in desperate need of ASO. Beneath the sheen of the Pokémon brand, surprisingly little has been done to market Pokémon Go to mobile users. And while brand recognition and online chatter have contributed significantly to make the app number one on the charts, those factors can only take a game so far. As of now, when the social media masses move on to the next big craze, Pokémon Go won’t have a leg to stand on. Let’s start with the app’s most crippling weakness - its keyword rankings. As expected, Pokémon Go ranks for multiple Pokémon-related terms, such as “pokémon games free” and “pokémon RPG”. However, many of these rankings fall well below what you might expect. For instance, as of this writing the app is only rank 8 for “pokémon games free” and a whopping rank 600 for “pokémon RPG”, a shocking figure given that Pokémon Go is, for all intents and purposes, the biggest Pokémon role-playing game of all time. The rankings only get worse from there. A series of surprising oversights means that users who may connect with Pokémon Go will likely never find it through search. For example, the app does not rank at all for Nintendo, a brand closely associated with the Pokémon legacy. Similarly, the app doesn’t register for its world-famous mascot, Pikachu. Nor does it rank for other famous creatures like Mew, Mewtwo, Squirtle, Charmander or Bulbasaur. Even generic phrases are missing from Pokémon Go’s keyword rankings. Core words and phrases that are extremely relevant and could help the app grow by leaps and bounds are outright missing, such as:
Posted on July 24th, 2016
iOS 10 is coming, and along with it a long list of major changes for developers. But along with those changes come a plethora of small and medium quality-of-life updates that should make this iteration of the iPhone experience the smoothest yet. The below features haven’t been widely publicized by Apple, but expect fans to be extolling their virtues when iOS 10 releases later this year.
Posted on July 1st, 2016
The recent reveal of iOS 10 means big improvements for users, but it will be even more revolutionary for app developers looking to take their feature set to new heights. Here is a rundown of how these new features will help you make your app more accessible than ever before.
