Is it Worth Using Misspelled Keywords for Promotion in the App Stores?
If you see that your competitors are using the keyword ‘fitnes’ for promotion of a sports app, do not rush to draw conclusions about their literacy. They might know something. In this post we we’ll tell you what you can gain and what the risks are when working with the “incorrect” keywords.
Why Use Keywords With Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes. So why not use misspelled keywords to promote apps? With this approach, you can find more key queries with high search volume and less competition, so the strategy is quite workable. It’s a million-dollar idea, but there must be some pitfalls, as always in such cases.
There are many variants of the same keywords: from ‘futbol’ to ‘futtbals’. The thing is that not every keyword with a typo has traffic. Without special tools, we can only speculate and stuff the semantic core with questionable keywords.
For example, in the query ‘which’ the first letter is obviously missing. However, the Total installs metric showed more than a thousand installs for one week.
At the same time, a keyword without a mistake, which is directly related to the app, shows the poorest results:
To discover non-obvious keywords, you can use the Ideas tool to collect semantics and the Installs metric from Keywords Tracking.
Not All Keywords Are Equally Valuable
There is another kind of misspelled keywords — contractions. For example, for the query ‘Gen’, the app stores always show the popular game Genshin Impact at the top of the search results. We, as the ASO specialists of this mobile game, would be completely satisfied with this scenario.
Check the latest search results for a keyword to see how relevant it is at all. You can do this either on a real device or with the Live Search tool on our platform.
At the same time, for the keyword “Fb”, the search results consist of products related to the Meta company. What about file readers that support the fb2 format? To ignore such a high-competitive query? In the case of file readers, Google Play will quickly enough consider that some users are satisfied with this kind of search results, so such a keyword can be used.
However, there is no definite answer, because everything depends on the particular search results and specific keywords.
The App Stores’ Policy
The App Store and Google Play have different policies regarding misspelled keywords. Starting with iOS 14, Apple introduced auto-correction. The feature is designed not only to improve literacy, but also to close a loophole for little-known apps that get traffic from keywords for which popular brands are searched. It’s all like fighting the non-factory manufacturing of nominal Abibas sneakers.
Does this mean that for iOS devices, promotion for such keywords has stopped? Not at all! Since apps may have a different number of users with older devices (iPhone 5, 6, which do not support iOS 14), misspelled keywords can be especially relevant.
Unfortunately, we can’t set up the app home page to segment it by device.
In other words, you should also take into account the essence of the app itself. This refers to apps that release features of newer operating systems as a separate app. For example, password managers or screenshot tools.
Due to the fact that Google Play is largely controlled by a neural network, which is not very fond of mistakes, we will talk about ‘sanctions’ in the next part.
The Cost of Mistakes
Yes, we said that misspelled keywords have the growth potential, but here’s the thing: don’t add such queries in your metadata.
To a greater extent this rule applies to Google Play, but you can’t relax with the App Store either.
If an editor reviews a submission for featuring, and you have mistakes in the metadata, the chances of getting featured are close to zero. Thus, the use of misspelled keywords will not turn the matter in your favor.
The first thing Google Play prefers to do is to satisfy the user’s desires. If the user got the desired app for a misspelled keyword without immediately uninstalling it — it’s a golden ticket. But if the Retention Rate is low, the app store may suspect a ‘shady scheme’.
For this reason, don’t forget to keep an eye on your competitors. Information about what keywords they use will help to improve your semantics and rank higher. Checkaso has the Keywords Intersection tool, which will show you the keywords (in number and percentage) for which your apps overlap.
Summary
Add to your semantic core only those keywords that have real search traffic. The rest of the queries are not only useless in terms of attracting new users, but can hurt your ranking. Checkaso tools help you build or update your semantics so that your app can get more traffic from non-obvious keywords.
