The last couple of years has been a massive growth for the mobile app industry. There are over 4,000,000 mobile apps on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. As a result, it’s quite a huge challenge for app publishers and app marketers to gain app visibility and rank in this oversaturated markets.
With App Store Optimization, publishers and marketers have the ability to maximize their potential in their apps. On the other hand, It’s not as simple as it seems if you are new to ASO. Many people can make mistakes during the ASO process even a senior app publisher who has been in the industry for years. Thus, our goal is to guide you through this complex process.
On the first stage of the ASO journey, you need to know these 15 fatal mistakes that most app developers and marketers often make and learn how to avoid them.
ASO is a process of growing and learning at the same time. Practice makes perfect. The more you fail, the more you can learn from the experience and keep getting better.
Not Aware of The Existence of ASO.
If this is the first time you ever heard about App Store Optimization. Congratulation! You have just made the first fatal mistake on the list. Not knowing the existence of ASO in the mobile app industry is one of the most common mistakes that most publishers and marketers make.
Up to 65% of app downloads is from app store search according to Apple. Keep that in mind that organic downloads are always a free resource for you to extract without spending any cost. Thus, App Store Optimization always has a direct impact on every mobile app business. ASO helps increasing your app visibility on the app stores in order to generate more organic downloads. The more downloads you have, the more revenue you will get.
As a result, not knowing ASO is a crucial mistake that no one should make while working in the mobile app industry.
Misplacing & Stuffing Keywords.
Keywords are one of the most crucial elements in ASO. They are gateways that lead potential users to your app. However, mobile app publishers and marketers are often misplacing keywords or putting too many irrelevant keywords on their app page. The reason for this is because they do not fully understand how and where to put keywords. It’s true that in order to find the right keywords is extremely difficult. Furthermore, putting them in the right place is even more complicated.
To avoid this from happening to you, first you need to do some research about keywords in ASO. Try to understand more about its mechanic and then practice it. There are plenty of ASO tools which can help you with keywords researching and keywords ranking analytics such as Google Trends, Mobile Action and Search Man, etc.
Neglecting Visual Elements of ASO
Another common mistake among app publishers and app marketers is overlooking visual elements in ASO such as App Icon, Screenshots, Video, etc. They often think optimizing only keywords will give them a higher conversion rate and that is the only thing they need. However, Keyword is not the only factor that has an impact on the conversion rate in app stores. The visual parts of the app page are where you can convince potential users to install your app.
The visual aspects of an app play a big role in making the best first impression. The app icon is always the first thing that users look at when they are on your app page. After that, users tend to look into screenshots and videos in order to find out what the app does then they would consider based on those aspects to determine whether they want to install it or not.
So to avoid this mistake, every publisher and marketer should also pay attention to the visual elements on the app page and put some effort on optimizing them. The higher the quality, the higher conversion rate.
Not Globalizing nor Localizing Your App.
In the digital world today, everything can be easily accessed by anyone anywhere and anytime with just a tiny device. There are at least 3,000 million smartphones around the globe so there is no reason to only targeting on just 1 market or 1 country. It’s time to globalize your product and target a vast majority of different audiences from different countries. By doing so, you will get a better chance to increase your downloads and revenue.
First of all, you need to do some research on different areas around the world and see where your potential clients are. Because your app might not be very popular in the United States but it may has a better chance among China users. You might be surprised what you have been missing out.
Once you have done your studies, consider to expand your market then localizing your app by changing the languages depending on the region or countries that you choose.
Prioritizing On The Wrong Keywords
This is another mistake that publishers often make while optimizing their keywords. App marketers and publishers tend to focus on only the high traffic keywords regardless of whether those keywords are relevant to their apps or not. Thus, this inaccurate practice can lead to using non-relevant keywords. Nobody searching for a messaging app is going to download a yoga meditation app. Additionally, some publishers also only focus on high-ranking keywords and short-tail keywords because of their high rate in user traffic.
To avoid this from happening to you, research your keywords and use only those that are relevant to your app. Furthermore, try to use more long-tail keywords for a better chance to gain visibility. Start small and work your way up to the big league.
Using The Same ASO Tactic On Google Play Store & Apple App Store
First of all, Google Play Store and Apple App Store are two completely different platforms. Mobile app developers usually use the same ASO strategy in both Google Play and Apple App Store. Indeed they do have some similarity but when it comes to App Store Optimization, they have their own particularities.
So when you are planning to put your app of both platforms, you should consider doing more research and rethink your tactics and strategy.
Only Implementing ASO Once
As you may already know that App Store Optimization is an ongoing process for mobile app. Like the mobile industry, it keeps on evolving rapidly every minute around the globe. App publishers and developers tend to think ASO is just a one-time implementation and they would stop optimizing once they have achieved the goal that they were aiming for. However, there is always something that can be improved for the purpose of maximizing your potential. The only limit is your own imagination.
New competitors are joining the market every second and new wave of audience are coming from the world. In this digital century, once you stop improving yourself, you will be left behind.
Not Researching Your Competitors.
In this new era of the internet, all of the good and the bad are available and public for everyone. This is one of the advantages that every marketer and app publisher should take. The reason for this is because you are not alone in this ocean of mobile apps. There are over a million of competitors that you have to compete against. Not monitoring and researching your competition is considered to be a major mistake that often be overlooked by many.
So practice and work on researching and understanding your competition because you can learn a lot from them and improve yourself based on your studies. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
Black Hat ASO
For everything in this world, there is always going to be an easy way out. Black Hat ASO is a shortcut that some publishers and marketers use to cheat the system itself by using fake installs, fake reviews, bot users, etc.
These methods of earning revenue are often being used by many. However, what goes around will come around. The price that you might have to pay for doing Black Hat ASO can result in losing your app store account, suspended apps, lost in revenue, and so on. The best way to avoid falling into the same footsteps of others is NOT DOING BLACK HAT ASO at any cost.
Choosing The Wrong ASO Tools
Perhaps you might be familiar with some ASO tools out there in the market. There are numerous App Store Optimization tools that assist you on every aspect of the optimization process. However, not always do publishers and marketers choose the right tools for the tasks. It is a common mistake that everyone make even in other industries.
In order to pick the right tool for the right task, every app marketer and publisher should first understand how the app stores work, how the apps perform on the app stores, what aspect of ASO you work on, etc. Reconsider and summary your needs then start choosing the ASO tools that fit your requirements.
Not Updating With The App Store Changes.
Both Google Play Store and Apple App Store usually update and improve their store algorithm a couple times a year. Due to this factor, not being up to date with the app store changes is another mistake that publishers often make. So whenever an algorithm changes that affect your app page, you must respond as quickly as possible.
Mistaking ASO Is SEO.
If you have already known or heard about SEO, then you might think that ASO is just SEO for mobile apps. However, this is completely being mistaken by many publishers and marketers. Indeed, they both share some similarities but they are two entirely different processes.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of optimizing and improving website visibility in Google Search. SEO surely has some similarities with ASO but the most noticeable difference is: Paid campaigns do not have any impact in SEO,only in ASO.
Bad Quality Mobile App.
The reason why this is considered to be a mistake because a bad quality product can ruin your reputation and some publishers and developers often do this intentionally. In some cases, new developers don’t have enough experience in the field and they are still learning. On the other hand, others tend to use low quality app and trick users to download and use the app.
These developers and publishers believe that they can succeed by producing bad contents because it does not need much effort. However, the main goal is to satisfy users and keep on improving yourself. There are many aspects in an app that needs to be polished in order to be considered as a good app. So learn from the best and stay away from the worst. In the end, quality will always lead you to quantity.
Stealing Others Ideas.
In this oversaturated market, it is commonly known that everyone can steal anyone ideas due to the fact that every information and data are public on the internet. As mentioned above, there are over 4,000,000 apps out there and most of them might be clones. It is understandable that when there is a hot trending movement, people tend to follow it and try to get to the top at any cost. However, cloning a complete app is considered stealing and this happens in the mobile app industry all the time.
This is one of the most fatal mistakes that you should not make when getting into the mobile app world. Be unique and use your imagination. Create something for yourself. As Tim Ferriss once said: “ One can steal ideas, but no one can steal execution and passion “.
Quit Doing ASO.
It is true that App Store Optimization is a challenging process that requires a lot of hard work and efforts. People tend to quit and it is understandable. However, success is no accident, it is hard work, perseverance, failing, learning, studying and sacrifice. So if you are truly love what you are doing, work hard on it. Because once you stop optimizing and improving, you have reached the end of the line.
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