The must ASO strategy before launching an app
There’s a saying, ‘As you name the boat, so shall it float’. Guess what, it’s all about ASO! In general, if you’re up to releasing an app, not only the name is important. You may want to perform a thorough analysis, comparing your app with competitors, selecting the right keywords, compiling text, and improving the graphics. You can find more details in this post.
Why is ASO before release important?
Do you know how many apps are buried deep down in the stores? We have no clue what happened to them. But look at these numbers. App Store currently has 1.96M apps. Google Play has 2.87M. On average, how many apps do you use? Understandable, right? The battle for user attention is fierce. You need weapons, expertise, and strategy. A plan like ‘We just upload our app to the store, ask our friends to install it, and then success will come’ could work back in 2008 but not now. Turn your calendar over and don’t repeat other people’s mistakes. Now we’ll explain step by step how to become visible.
How to start getting ready for the release?
It is important to identify your competitors. But first of all, you need to start with yourself: describe your app, find out by what queries you can be searched for, and who is your audience. You can find your competitors based on the keywords you have in common. There will be many. Identify the major ones. This is where relevance may not play a large part. Say, you’re developing a music streaming service. Will Spotify be your main competitor? No, those are apps like yours that have little traffic. As you develop and expand your presence, your competitors will change. Don’t worry, you’ll reach Spotify too.
If you find it challenging to identify competitors on your own, refer to our algorithms. They are based on common semantics and they know who you will be fighting for users soon. Find it out too. You also may want to read our post about 5 ways to track competitors.
How to improve text ASO before the release?
As you already know, users will find your app by key queries. Approximately 65% of users will come from search. Your task is to find relevant keywords and put them in text. It’s not that hard. Follow basic text ASO rules.
- Collect keywords based on their metrics: impressions and popularity. Initially, you don’t need the most popular queries. You will hardly be able to climb high if you use them. Focus on medium-frequency queries.
- Place the keywords correctly. Different text elements affect the ranking differently. For example, an app title has the greatest influence and a developer’s name has the least influence. Different elements can work in different stores. Use the chart as an example.
- These rules are fundamental. The optimization process never ends. That’s why it would be great to keep analyzing your results and updating your text.
What time after the release suits to draw some conclusions?
Start analyzing the results after a week on App Store and 3-4 weeks on Google Play. First of all, this is relevant if you don’t do anything else besides optimization (that is, if you use neither ads nor additional traffic). See which keywords work worst and try replacing them.
Checkaso’s algorithms will select 50 keywords for you automatically. You also can use the Keywords Analysis (basic tool), Keywords Explorer (store hints), and Proposed Keywords (analysis of your competitors’ keywords). Focus on keyword metrics and read our detailed guide to text ASO.
How to improve graphic ASO and conduct A/B tests before release?
Graphic ASO is no less important than text ASO. They work together like yin and yang, only in mobile promotion. Text ASO helps to make you visible so that users can find you. Graphic ASO helps you make them interested and convert views to installs. There are basic rules here too.
- Get an understanding of the value and strengths of your product to convey them to your audience.
- Track your competitors and their updates. Study their graphics, think about how you can stand out and communicate your benefits precisely.
- Define the overall concept and design. Make sure to check technical requirements. Here are the App Store rules, and here are the Google Play rules.
Find out how your competitors’ graphic ASO has changed with the Comparative Analysis tool. You can track all updates in the Overview tab of the Analysis section too. Read more about how to improve graphic ASO here.
Before the release, you can conduct A/B tests of the graphics to select what brings the most conversion. This can be done through third-party services like SplitMetrics or Storemaven. They are quite pricey, and you have to pay for test traffic separately. But the tools and data are very accurate. It’s worth it. If you’re interested in learning more about tests, start with the following articles. Here is a basic description of the process, and here you can find different test types compared.
Bonus: submit an app to get featured before the release
Should you apply to get featured before the release? On the one hand, you may want to be a part of the editors’ choice and acquire an audience fast. On the other hand, at the initial stage, your app might have some bugs and vulnerabilities, as is the case with many new products. Getting featured can be a big challenge for you. If you still want to take the risk, follow our advice.
- Make sure you are technically ready (in particular, make sure you’re aware of your server limitations).
- Play it safe by adding a Support button to your app. If users have a negative experience, they will contact you right away instead of using reviews and ratings to get anger off their chest.
- It’s quite important to select a right release date for your app as you won’t be able to move it. Submit your app at least 2 weeks before date X, but 6-8 weeks is a better term as app developers advise based on their experience. We have a detailed post on how to get featured here.
P.S.
We hope that your app will be a breakthrough and you will find a dedicated audience, quite a large one. Subscribe to our updates, share them with those who launch apps, and follow the news. See you around. 😉
