In the first quarter of 2018, it was estimated that there were over 7 million apps available for download on app stores worldwide.
It’s now become imperative more than ever in a saturated market to ensure your game stands out in the crowded app stores through the correct App Store Optimisation (ASO). After publishing numerous games on both iOS and Android app stores, Homa Games have learnt the correct techniques and tricks to ensure that your game gets seen and even featured in the app store. Below you’ll find the five things every developer should do to improve their ASO:
1. Choose the right Images and Video Assets to improve your ASO
Likely the first thing a user will see when arrive at the landing page of your app will be the media you choose to display. Every app store gives you the option to include a preview video along with your screenshots, so take advantage of it! A 30 second video clearly showing the onboarding and level progression of your game is the best way for a user to really understand your game before they install. With this preview video, include 4-5 screenshots showing key aspects of gameplay. For further explanation, you may include some text to highlight the key features of the game.
Above: Image and Video Preview selection seen on Itunes Connect.2. Localisation of stores has an impact on ASO
If you’re planning to make your app available in different stores globally, it makes sense to ensure your ASO is localised for the local language. This means that you are able to target all people from those locations and do not miss out on potential users. There are number of localisation companies that can offer localising services, or you can find a publisher that offers it inclusively. Here at Homa Games, we are able to localise games into more than 10 languages.
3. Keywords are a key component of your ASO
One of the most important features of your website are the key words in which you choose to select for your app. It’s extremely important that these key words reflect your game and are repeated consistently in the description, title and subtitles. This will help significantly in search optimization of your app, not only for organic users intentionally looking for you app but also for those who stumble on it as a result of keywords being searched. It’s also important to ensure that the keywords that appear in your keywords section can also be found in your game title – this will greatly increase the success rate of organic searches.
Above: Ensuring keywords are relevant to your game is essential to increased organic installs.
4. Short and Sweet description will improve your conversion rate on the Appstore
When writing the description of your game and/or the updated versions released, it helps to keep your writing short but sweet. This means that your description should be simple and straight the point: stating the objective of your game and 2-3 exciting features. As your user will evaluating your game in the first 3 seconds of seeing your app store page, it’s important that the information is concise and quick for them to read.
5. Ratings and Reviews have a huge impact on the ASO
Another important feature of your landing page is the ratings and reviews section. This part plays a significant role in terms of how your app will be positioned in the store. The higher the rating the better, with apps with rating over 4.3% having an increase in organic installs. It’s also important to actively respond and help your users in their ratings and responses, as consistent replying to ratings will keep your at the top of search feeds.
These are the top 5 tips that we recommend developers to implement when making their next game live on the store. Here at Homa Games, we also have other tips and tricks to implement in ASO – get in contact with us today to find out how!
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