How to Create an Effective ASO Strategy

App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy can be overwhelming.

Multiple ranking factors – from keywords and creatives to ratings, download velocity, and retention – have an impact on your app’s visibility. Measuring the impact of your hard work is another puzzle piece that is difficult to solve.

So where do you start? Let us show you how you can create an effective ASO strategy with a step-by-step approach.

#Tip 1: Define your ASO goals & KPIs

First things first, to understand the bigger picture, you have to set your ASO priorities, goals, and KPIs.

Examples of ASO goals and KPIs include:

• Increase keyword visibility by 35%
• Increase app page conversion rate by 20%
• Double reviews while maintaining a 4.5 rating
• Localize app listings in APAC countries and reach top 10 rankings for most relevant keywords

Read these actionable tips and insights to navigate the complexities of App Store Optimization

#Tip 2: Audit your current metadata performance

Once you’ve established your main goals, you have to understand where you’re currently standing, especially when it comes to keyword optimization.

• How is your metadata currently working?
• Are you ranking for the keywords you are currently targeting?
• Do they drive volume and downloads to your app?

This kind of research is crucial, as it will make sure you don’t remove keywords that are currently driving downloads to your app while replacing those keywords for which you lack visibility.

To audit your current performance, you need an ASO tool like AppTweak. Let’s understand the importance of this step using a quick example from Spot Hero.

On the App Store, Spot Hero targets keywords, including “parking,” “find,” “garage,” and “airport” in its metadata. By looking at its rankings and keyword installs, we see the keyword “garage” (and “find garage”) brings very little visibility and downloads to the app. This indicates Spot Hero should consider replacing “garage.”

On the other hand, the keywords “parking,” “airport,” and “find” work well and should not be replaced to avoid a loss in ranking.

Even though Spot Hero targets the keyword ‘garage’ in their subtitle, this keyword does not drive any downloads to the app. Therefore, Spot Hero should consider replacing this keyword.

While the keywords you target play a pivotal role in ASO, there are other ranking factors you should not neglect when optimizing your app store listings.

#Tip 3: Review competitor strategies & A/B tests

Before crafting your own strategy, look at what competitors have been doing and try to understand what worked for them and what did not. Carefully analyze your competitors’ strategies to get ideas for your own and avoid pitfalls. This goes for both keyword optimization and creative optimization.

To demonstrate the kind of information you can extrapolate from competitive research, we’ll dig deeper into the icon updates from the popular game Empires & Puzzles:

• First, they tested the theme of the icon. Based on future updates, it seems the first icon (with the focus on the main character) was the best performing one.
• Next, they wanted to find out whether to remove the brand name from the icon.

• They also wanted to see whether adding “match-3” gems in the icon would help players understand the game type (a match-3 puzzle game).

It is likely that the addition of the gems in the icon had a great impact on the conversion rate. In the next round of creatives, the game tested a version focussing more on the gems.

Learn what A/B testing is for ASO and how to set up your first A/B tests

#Tip 4: Prepare metadata updates

Now that you’ve finalized your audit and reviewed your competitors’ strategies, it’s time to create high-quality updates.

AppTweak’s ASO Trends & Benchmarks Report reveals that half of the top iOS apps updated their screenshots more than twice in the past year (2023). However, nearly 75% of these apps didn’t update their icons even once during the same period.

Dive into the ASO Trends & Benchmarks Report to see how often top apps and games update metadata on App Store & Google Play

When preparing textual metadata changes, start with careful keyword research.

• Find out which keywords users use most often when searching in the app stores
• Discover which keywords are driving downloads to competitors
• Select relevant keywords for which your app has the highest chance to rank

With AppTweak’s Keyword Research tools, you can find Opportunity Keywords – keywords for which your competitors rank but your app does not.

When designing new creative updates, carefully research trends and best practices in your category.

• Which color palette is used most often?
• Do apps and games in your category have horizontal or vertical screenshots?
• What value proposition do others put forward?

Benchmark your app category trends when creating or updating your app icon

AppTweak’s colour palette analysis indicates which colours apps use most often in their icon.

#Tip 5: Define an update timeline

Before you start implementing your metadata updates, it is important to establish a timeline.

This step is crucial to help you measure the impact of your ASO efforts, as there are a lot of internal and external factors that influence app downloads.

• Never implement both creative and keyword updates at the same time. Otherwise, you won’t be certain if an increase in conversion rate is due to an increase in keyword visibility or due to creative optimization.
• Also, make sure to leave enough time between updates. We usually recommend waiting 3-4 weeks between each update. That gives you enough time to gather adequate data to assess the performance of your creative updates. Additionally, the app stores’ algorithms take about 3-4 weeks to fully assess your keyword changes and update your rankings.
• When defining your update timeline, you should coordinate with the UA and product team so that every step of the entrance funnel is aligned and all efforts get maximum traction.
• Make sure each team stays clear of each other so that each team can measure the impact of the changes they submit. For example, neither Apple nor Google differentiate between downloads from an organic search and downloads from a paid search. This means if you update your keywords and increase your ASA budget at the same time, you won’t be able to fully assess the organic uplift of your ASO efforts.

Find out how often you should update your app metadata

#Tip 6: Implement, measure, monitor, iterate

On the Google Play Store, you can choose to first A/B test your updates before fully implementing them (with the exception of title updates). When you create an A/B test, Google will divide your audience into various samples, show them the different versions and measure how each version performs. So, instead of personal preference, data can guide you to decide which version to implement.

ASO is a long-term process. Once your updates have been implemented, you need to carefully monitor your performance and iterate your updates accordingly. Also, newcomers and algorithm updates can shake up rankings from time to time. To maintain your visibility, it is important to monitor rankings and adapt as needed.

TL;DR

To create an effective ASO strategy to increase organic app downloads, follow this step-by-step approach:

• Define ASO goals & KPIs
• Audit current metadata performance
• Review competitor strategies and A/B tests
• Prepare metadata updates
• Define an update timeline for your metadata updates
• Implement, measure, and iterate your ASO strategy

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