A Guide on ASO for Google Play Store

With millions of apps already published on Google Play Store, downloads for your app are hard to come by if you aren’t reaching the right audience. To reach the right audience, ASO for Google Play store is the best strategy to follow.

We have already understood What is ASO? in our previous post. But ASO for Google Play Store has it’s own do’s and don’t. We have tried our best to cover every aspect of ASO for Google Play Store. Let us discuss them in detail…

A developer or the app publisher when publishes the app to the google play store, he/she has full control over the app page of google play store. If the app page is optimized properly, the chances of getting ranked in the play store increases. Below are the App page optimizations ideas to be followed.

On-Page ASO for Google Play Store

Keyword Research

As we do with SEO for websites, keyword research for ASO is very important. It is also found that keyword density plays an important role in the title and the description of your app page.

Title

• Keep it under 50 characters
• Include your seed keyword
• Try to be descriptive and remain very close with your app category

Description

• Use the seed keyword in the first 2 lines of the short description. Short description allows a maximum of 80 characters in the google play store
• Make the description contextually relevant with the app
• Elaborate on each and every important aspect of the app in the long description
• The long description should be less than or equal to 4000 characters
• Try to use bullet points so that it is easy to read

Icons

• The icon is a very first thing that the user notices about your application
• For a website, the logo is what people remember, an icon of the app holds the same importance for the user
• Try to use soothing colours while developing an icon or try to develop an icon which showcases a major functionality of the application
• The icon should be of less than 1024 kb and its dimension should not be more than 512 x 512 pixels

Screenshots

• Screenshots are an integral part of app page optimization
• Use the complete real estate provided by the play store for screenshots
• Don’t take screenshots from the phone of your app, instead, ask the app developer to send high-resolution images of the app
• The more clearer the screens, more are the chances of user trusting you
• Screenshot preferred is of the .jpg type 
• Make sure to place your USP screens on the first 2 slots of the screenshot
• Right a superb copy to make sure users download the app looking at the screenshot
• If you are thinking to localize your app, don’t forget to localize your screenshot as well
• Minimum Dimension should be 320px
• Maximum Dimension should be less than 3840 px

Preview Video

• Apart from screenshots, an explanatory video about your app can turn out to be a game-changer in ASO for google play store
• This same video can be used for marketing your app on other social media platforms
• A one-time investment but worth doing it

App Updates

• Google Play Store loves app updates
• Make sure you keep updating your app at least once a month or immediately when a bug is identified
• This way you tell google that you are concerned about the users using the app and know what your users want

Off-Page ASO for Google Play Store

Off-Page ASO is similar to Off-Page SEO with a small twist in it. Off-Page ASO comprises of factors which are not under the direct control of developers. Let’s see what are they and how to optimize them

Backlinks

• You can build backlinks but still at a certain point you can’t control them
• You never know when the referrer removes your backlink to the app

Total No. of Downloads or Installs

• We all make apps so that the users download and install it 
• No. of Installs play a very important role in ranking your app
• More the installs, higher you rank on the app store for that category or your seed keyword

Uninstall Rate

• Similar to Total No. of Installs, uninstall rate also plays a very important role for google play store to decide whether you should be ranked higher or not
• Lesser the uninstall rate, the better it would be for your ranking

Reviews and Ratings

• Reviews and ratings are the deciding factors for the user to download your app
• Lesser the negative reviews, better for the app. Users generally check the first 10 reviews of the app and decide whether they would like to download it or not
• This makes it very important for the app publisher to reply to each and every review the app has received, irrespective whether it is positive or negative
• Regarding negative reviews, make sure you reply to the user and take him to another mode of communication, this is the basic fundamental of ORM

In App Purchases

• Most of the app earn revenue from in app purchases
• If the users are buying additional functionalities from your app to use your app more extensively, this sends a strong signal to google that the users are liking your app and you’re app is keeping them engaged

Apart from this, there are some don’ts regarding the play store optimization by google itself which can be read here.

One major difference from the apple app store and google play store is google play store does not give you the keyword field which is present in the apple app store. 

Well, we have tried to cover as much as we can and we hope you might have gained valuable information from this article. Do leave your valuable feedbacks below.