App Store Optimization (ASO) | The best tips, tricks, and strategies for Optimizing your App in the App Store
As an Indie developer getting your app discovered..
..in the App Store can seem like an outright daunting, near impossible task. Since the release of iOS 6 it's been said that the changes in UI have been geared to alleviate these issues for developers.
With over 60% (since September) of people having already installed iOS 6 and even more updating to the recently released 6.01 which fixed some minor issues, as well as Apple Maps. Additionally, allowing users to update wirelessly from their phone, without having to connect to iTunes.
Any way, let's take a look at what the redesign of the App Stores UI has to do with being discovered.
Niren Hiro, co-founder of SearchMan.com, says that,
"savvy developers could still use the changes to their advantage."
“If you assume that some of the user behavior we see on the web will transfer to mobile, then when it gets cumbersome for users to browse results, they will enter more descriptive phrases to get relevant results fast,”
For instance, users will search for
“free video poker game” instead of just the word “poker.”
“Longer phrases are 70 percent of search volume on the web (indicator), they’re less competitive, and probably see higher post-click conversion (download) rates because the user explicitly searched for
“free video poker game,”
Hiro said, whose service launched three months ago.
Developers can take steps to get the No. 1 rank under each of their “long tail”
keywords. That is, developers can optimize their rankings for keywords that will give them better results on the App Store when users go searching for certain kinds of apps.
“For developers without access to a giant ad budget to boost-market their App into the Top Apple Charts, App Store SEO might be the best bet to improve discoverability inside the over-crowded App Store,” Hiro said.
As noted by VentureBeat.
SearchMan.com Mountain View, Calif.based is a data service that helps app developers track search rankings of their apps and optimize their keywords to improve discoverability.
Here's a Slide-show that covers more in depth some of these changes I've discussed above.
You can also see a cheat sheet (below) from the folks over at Apptamin.
Lastly..
As a second option if you're looking for something as an alternative to SearchMan then there are the folks over at MobileDev HQ
Best,
Kevin