π Growth Gems #25 - Gems from "What App Store Optimization Techniques are Working Right Now?"
Hi there,
Today's gems are mined from an APS London WFH 2020 talk by David Bell (CEO at Gummicube - ASO Agency).
π #1
Apple will tell you "do not use search ads data for ASO" because the timeframe of the trend they are reporting is short term. You can not use a short timeframe for ASO because it takes 2-3 weeks to get your keywords fully indexed.
05:24
π#2
Apple will still index you for 2 to 3 weeks after an update. If you have good rankings already, you can do keyword metadata optimization every 30 days and have a solid view of how an optimization performed.
12:25
π#3
Paid marketing can support organic success but organic success is not a pay-to-play model. If you do not set the foundation with ASO then you won't get volume for ASA.
14:32
π#4
The Apple Search Ads algorithm does crawl descriptions. So even though your description does not improve ASO, it can improve ASA.
16:10
π#5
For new apps or during major updates, ASA can help achieve 2x-3x indexation speed for keywords (it provides additional CTR data).
17:05
π#6
With a new app in a high volume category you will need click data first, so the goal is to build relevancy. Focus on what your core set of keywords is going to be, find the related phrases (because they will index faster), target them and build a footprint as large as you can. You can then double down through ASA to improve the top keywords.
25:56
π#7
For an established app, don't be afraid to go after top keywords. Look at the themes where you're ranking well (top 10-20) and start building out a footprint that is broader.
27:34
π#8
If you have a perfect keyword metadata optimization but you're struggling to get above top 20 it's not a CTR problem that you have so think about conversion optimization.
28:34
π#9
For the Play Store, ask yourself what are the core keywords you're targeting and what are the phrases related to these keywords that have a similar audience. Then look at placements (title, short description, description). You don't want to feed Google only keywords, you want to feed it context too.
29:05
π#10
Volume and velocity is not going to have a huge impact on your search rankings, but it may have an impact on indexation time because Apple and Google will crawl your app faster.
33:04
π#11
If you're A/B testing on the Google Play store it will be traffic across all sources. Once you find a winner and choose to deploy it, look at every channel through your MMP to see how conversion has been impacted to get some channel granularity.
37:05
π#12
The reason user-facing metadata tends to perform best is because users searching for these keywords see the actual keywords and convert better, leading to better rankings.
41:08
π#13
The format of your Google Play description can be more important than where you place keywords: inside a fixed place paragraph vs. somewhere that is easier to crawl. You want to balance user experience and easiness to crawl for Google.
45:08
π#14
Even for very large apps, Gummicube still changes the selection of keywords every 30 days before Apple and Google have a linear degradation in the value that they see for older keywords. If you stop making incremental changes while competitors do, Apple and Google will start to see you as less relevant.
48:13
Stay savvy!
βοΈ Sylvain