ASO Strategy: Proven Tactics & Tips

App Store Optimization is vital for your mobile business. Without developing a winning ASO strategy, achieving the outcome you expect is a real challenge, both when it comes to ranking and metamorphosing your app store visitors to active users. Want to spend less money on paid installs and get more organic growth the natural way? Smart ASO is the answer.

An efficient ASO strategy includes a selection of tactics and routines that, if implemented wisely, will lead you to comprehensive marketing possibilities and ultimately help boost your app installs. Here’s a brief outline of what successful ASO strategies actually entail:

• exploring your target audience;
• thorough keyword refinement;
• in-depth competitor analysis;
• implementing a hypothesis-backed ASO approach;
• your app store creatives adjustment;
• extensive split testing with lots of insights and conclusions in the long run.

So, are you ready to delve into how to get your application recognized? Looking for in-depth answers to your ‘How does App Store Optimization work?’ question? Then, without further ado, let’s cover the basics of each of the aforementioned ASO elements — that easily transform into a straightforward manual for you to follow.

Create a Winning ASO Growth Strategy

If you strive to stand out among millions of apps already present on the scene, as well as grow your app user base in a scalable manner, mastering App Store Optimization is paramount. In this section, we’ll cover some of the major app strategies and tactics to implement for enhancing your app’s visibility within the major app selling platforms, as well as converting your app store traffic into precious installations. To effectively measure ASO performance, it’s crucial to track metrics such as conversion rates and keyword rankings to understand how well your strategy is working.

1. Explore Your Target Audience Non-Stop

A slew of mobile business owners fail to create a successful app marketing strategy because they haven’t analyzed their target audience. Make sure you start by singling out your target category prior to working on your app boosting plan, let alone putting your ASO tactics through their paces.

Identify a particular category of users that your application caters to. To form a target profile with maximum accuracy, find answers to questions like:

• How old are your users?
• Are they mostly men or women — or both?
• What is their education and cultural background?
• What’s their country of residence?

Once you are through with this task, you will see through your potential users’ needs on a deeper level and thus, be able to create a winning ASO growth strategy with your app users in mind. With that said, having analyzed your target customer group, you will most likely succeed in selecting a killer app name, writing app description and keywords, as well as picking the icon, making preview vids, etc.

Bear in mind that identifying your target client group is not exactly a one-off task. Your app user base is an ever-changing digital substance, which means people that fancy your product today may differ from people who will enjoy using it in a year. Similar to conventional optimization efforts, your ASO practices will alter with the flow of the market. So, just continue testing and evolving along with your niche.

2. Optimize Keywords Without Overrating the Process

If the only thing that pops up in your mind when someone mentions ASO is keyword optimization, then you should definitely do your homework in terms of this concept. Absolutely, refining the keywords you utilize in your product’s metadata is of the highest importance. It aids you in achieving higher positions in the app store search results and, therefore, drives organic traffic to your product. However, this tactic is just one component out of many on your ASO agenda.

Remember that keywords and creatives (the latter suggests your application’s preview vids, icon, and screenshots) are best friends. So, explore and put to use the most vital words and phrases that drive potential users to your application. Appealing creatives that show up on the search results page are sure to additionally boost your tap-through rate (TTR) and enhance your conversion, too. With all that in mind (and in use), you will get higher ranking for particular key terms in Android or iOS app store search results. As you can see, it’s all interconnected.

Additionally, it’s your app downloads, not the number of page hoppers, that matter. Therefore, we recommend that you focus on app marketing strategies that lead to quality installs. To achieve that, testing your app store creatives is a must-do.

3. Practice Hypothesis-Backed ASO

Hypothesizing on the mixture of creatives and messaging will bring the highest number of installs. Without practicing smart hypothesis testing, you run the risk of investing your money in the wrong strategies or facing some unpredictable difficulties.

A smart hypothesis is a certain affirmation that can be verified or contradicted and should be utilized as the foundation for all your future analysis. Always remember that solid hypotheses are forthright and created with the purpose of learning as much about your product users as possible. There are specific ways to measure whether your strategy is effective. To estimate the strategy, you can rely on ASO KPIs.

Focus on thinking outside the box, research extensively, and make the most of all the details you can lay your fingertips on in order to pinpoint the ideas that may resonate with your potential users’ way of thinking. Start forming categories of ideas for testing only after you’re through with this analysis.

Here are some vital steps to take if you’re aimed at mastering hypothesis-based optimization:

• conduct an ASO audit of your competition: analyze the creative assets utilized within your niche category in the leading app stores, let the process become your source of inspiration and the possibility to discover some valuable insights;
• pay attention to what your application users say in their reviews and overall feedback: that way, you will determine what attracts people to your product and what drives them away;
• figure out which functions of your application its users enjoy the most;
• determine the type of ads that were a success in your case, think over the ‘whys’ and let it help you choose the best direction for further endeavors;
• if you were given up to five seconds to stimulate a certain user emotion or let them in on your app’s best perk, how would your message sound?

4. Polish Your App Store Creatives

Did you know that app store creatives are paramount for boosting your app usage statistics? As a matter of fact, you can significantly increase your revenue just by improving these seemingly minor details! Not sure how to sort the whole thing out? Here are some points for you to take into account:

• you have up to 7 seconds to win the fight against your visitors’ very short attention span: they will not watch your video until the end, study the screenshots, or make a logic-based decision. As a matter of fact, over 50% of people install apps without even taking a closer look at the info pages. With that said, focus mainly on the creatives in your First Impression Frame and make them as powerful and engaging as you can;
• avoid confusing or annoying your potential app users: do not overstuff your app page with too much information, for that will drive people away;
• ask people’s opinions: the fact that you know your application very well may prevent you from explaining its main value the best way possible.

We recommend discussing your creatives and messaging with people who are unaware of your application. If they succeed in understanding why your product is excellent based on the data you provide, then you’ve chosen the right path.

5. Understand the Significance of Split Testing

ASO A/B testing, which is also commonly referred to as split/bucket testing, is when two or more versions of a web page get compared against one another for the purpose of identifying the highest-performing one. In other words, it’s an experiment.

During that experiment, several versions of a page are displayed randomly to people who have no idea that they are participating in some sort of testing. Because the users act naturally when browsing through the pages, you get to identify their genuine interest and i.e., make some really important ASO-bolstering conclusions.

Although split testing is mostly aimed at enhancing conversion rates, its advantages in terms of helping you master your ASO are enormous. The whole experiment aids you in evaluating your audience groups and measuring the degree of user engagement, as well as in analyzing the efficiency of new traffic channels. Wondering if you should make a positive change in how you position your product? By eliminating the guesswork from your ASO approach, A/B testing will give you all the needed answers.

6. Accept the Cyclic Nature of ASO

You’ve run all the tests and have all the required data on hand, so what’s next? Now’s the time to focus on the key component i.e., how you will translate the data into a vision that will further lead your way. In this respect, it’s crucial to always remember that your niche, your competitor companies, and consumers are in the constant process of evolution. Therefore, to arrive at correct post-experiment guiding conclusions, never stop creating new hypotheses and using them to your advantage. After all, it’s the ASO Cycle of Life.

The Bottom Line: Experiment. Implement. Monitor. Repeat

ASO app store search optimization is a long-term process. Once the changes you’ve made are available, go the extra mile to keep track of the results. Has your app performance improved? Has the number of installs increased? What about the freshest user reviews? Are they mostly positive or the other way round? Monitor like a pro and make conclusions (as well as further adjustments) accordingly. Once you gain enough experience in this, you will excel in maintaining a broad bird’s-eye perspective on what tactics to implement next for maximizing your product’s growth.

At the end of the day, a worthy app optimization strategy is more than just a one-off CRV-boosting attempt. Instead, it implies developing a solid plan structure that will work to your benefit for years. With a better understanding of ASO in general and app store ranking algorithm in particular, your product will be positioned in front of the right target customer, while your chances to succeed in the app stores will significantly increase.

Feel free to contact us in case you need any assistance in your ASO efforts. We’re always delighted to lend you a helping hand and more ASO guiding tips. ASO does come with a steep learning curve. But with our expert tips and cutting edge mobile marketing tools at your fingertips, you are bound to succeed in maximizing your app expansion endeavors.