5 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Android App's Visibility

Because we work with hundreds of app developers, we're keenly aware of how daunting entering the mobile marketplace can be. The time, energy and love spent building an awesome new product is merely a first step on the road to success. App Store Optimization needs to play a role in every developer's process, both before and after app launch.

Though there are many steps one can (and should) take to continually optimize an app's metadata, our team of ASO experts has created a list of five straightforward action items you can tackle today to improve your Android app's Google Play visibility.

Set Up an Icon Experiment and Drive More Conversions

Since late May, the Google Play developer console has included the ability to run metadata experiments. Think of these experiments as an easy way to do A/B testing on your audience (at no additional charge from Google).

First impressions matter! They may be small, but app icons can have a huge impact on the quantity and quality of conversions your app is generating. Don't believe us? Ask Spotify about the reaction their new icon received this week, and you'll see how strongly app users react to these visual cues.

To ensure that your icon isn't leaving downloads on the table, create up to three variations that feature different colors, images, etc. Once your different versions are ready, setting up the experiment in Google Play's dev console will take less than five minutes. Then, simply watch the data roll in and leverage customer behavior to make informed decisions around media assets.

Revisit Your Title - Keyword Density Matters

If you missed our 3-part data series with new insights into the Google Play algorithms, you'll be interested to know what we discovered about Android app titles. It's been known for some time that keyword density is an important consideration for the description field. But we discovered in our research that keyword density also matters in your Android app's title.

What does this mean? In a nutshell, you have two options when crafting your app's title:

• If your goal is to rank for more terms, adding the terms to your title is the way to go.

• If you want to increase your rank for a specific term, reduce the total number of terms in your app's title, making the targeted keyword more prominent.

Identify the desired end result, and then use the information above to make necessary changes to your title.

Generate Loyalty and Lasting Relationships by Responding to Reviews

User reviews serve as strong quality indicators to app store browsers. Of course, you can indirectly improve your reviews and ratings by constantly improving your product. Though you can't directly control the content that is posted, Google allows developers to respond on-page to reviews.

Take some time to publicly address concerns, gratefully accept feedback, and let your existing users know that they are valued. Not only will this encourage better retention rates, your responses will become an additional indicator that your team provides quality support.

Here are our pro tips on how to respond to seven different types of reviews.

Grow Your Fan Base by Localizing for a New Market

So you've decided to release your app in a foreign country for the first time. Great idea! Strategically positioning your product in all applicable markets is crucial for survival.

It's imperative that you review your metadata in newly added countries. Are keywords in your title translated to the appropriate language? What about your description? Because Google pulls keywords directly from the title and description fields, the language of your metadata needs to match that of the consumer. Localizing an app's profile page can have a very significant impact on growth, so make sure this step of the process is a high priority.

Trim Your Description to Make Those Keywords Pop!

Recent data trends have revealed that more succinct Google Play descriptions are more successful when it comes to keyword rankings. Kayak's strategy around this is extreme, but their top 10 keyword rankings certainly indicate a movement away from writing a novella to describe your app.

If you're currently using all 4,000 available characters, try trimming your description down and focusing on which keywords you are repeating. To maximize the impact of keyword density, repeat major terms approximately four times. Repeating terms more than this could have an adverse affect, making your description appear spammy when scanned by Google.

Most Importantly, Don't Forget...

Testing and iteration are crucial, specifically because conditions in the app stores are constantly changing. Revisit the action items on this list on a regular basis to make sure your metadata continues to follow best practices and unlock maximum results. We'll keep you updated with new data and shifting trends so that your app can work its way to the top of the charts, and stay there.

If you want to review the ASO basics for both iOS and Google Play, our training video and platform overview is a great place to start!