Creating an app from a website is no more a big deal, especially when you have a reliable app builder available at your disposal.
The real challenge lies in increasing the visibility of your mobile app on Google Play Store after you’ve launched it successfully.
Before we discuss various tips to boost your app’s visibility, it is important that you understand why you want to do it after all. The idea behind scoring a good position on Play Store is inviting more downloads.
When customers come looking for an app for a service you cater to, your app must be in top results. If you don’t, the existence of your app will not matter.
While there are multiple ways to improve the ranking of your app, App Search Optimization is one of the best ways to rank well on Play Store.
In this post, we will unfold a few tips to optimize your app that will boost the ranking of your app. Let’s get started:
1. Important elements that matter
When you submit your app to the Play Store, you have to understand its algorithm. The Play Store prefers ranking apps who give important to the following elements:
a. Title
b. Description
c. Promo text
d. Keywords
a. Title
The first thing that your user interacts with is the app title. You can easily say that this is the name that your potential app users will recognize you with.
You can also make a little modifications to your brand name and name your app the same. This practice is usually carried out to optimize your brand name so that it more searchable on Play Store. The change can be subtle and not change the name of your brand completely and focus on giving your app new wings to get a ranking.
Here are a few tips to consider when you are picking up a title for your app:
- Make it as unique as possible.
- Do not use standard terms or phrases.
- Reference and reinforce what your app does.
- Keep it short and precise.
b. Description
Now that your title of the app is finalized, it is time to focus on its description. The description of your mobile app gives you a chance to explain the main offerings of your app.
Primarily, it is important that you optimize the description with relevant keywords for better search results. However, stuffing in the description with unreasonable amount of keywords, will call for ‘keyword spamming’ and can ban your app from the Play Store.
Additionally, you cannot include anything that Google considers restricted content. This restricted content includes, for example:
- Violence
- Gambling
- Hate Speech
- Harassment or Bullying
- Sexual Content
- Illegal Activity
Google guidelines are mostly focused on providing genuine content to the users. This is why, it restricts app owners to mislead users with the app description. In simple words, you cannot say that your app does something that it does not.
Moreover, your app description must not seen as an imitation of another app, brand, or business. You cannot even use anyone else’s intellectual property while writing a description.
Your app description should be pertinent to your brand and business.
c. Promo text
This promo text on the store should only be one line long.
d. Keywords
These play an important role in the title as well as the description of your app. Play with them carefully. Like we said, abusing this facility can lead to app deletion.
2. User interface
High-quality graphic designs can boost your mobile app ranking on the Google Play Store. These graphics include:
a. App Icon
b. Images
c. Screenshots
These designs will help your app stand out from the rest in search results.
a. App Icon
Your app icon should be bright, compelling, and inviting to easily entice users to install it.
It is ideal that you don’t just go with a specific color scheme. Instead, find something unusual that will get the user’s attention. This will help you get more app downloads, which simply impacts your ranking on the Play Store.
b. App Screenshots
Screenshots are a reflection of your mobile app, a good potrayal of what your app will look like to the users.
The screenshots of your app should be designed to display the top features and key benefits of the app. You can highlight the uniqueness of your app and how it makes life easier for prospective users.
c. Images
Incorporating high-defination images as a part of your mobile app gives a reflection of a professionalism. Regardless of building your app with a mobile app builder or custom development, it is important that you include only high-quality images.
Your prospective users may be viewing your app from a 7-inch tablet or even a 10-inch tablet, for example. If, however, the images of the app get distorted on a big screen, it will negatively impact your download rate, which in turn, adversely affects your ranking.
3. Expand your audience
A diverse target audience should be ultimate goal to get higher app downloads on the Play Store. Diversity simply means you are expecting audience from all around the world and language can be a barrier in that case.
Google has machine translations of all the listings in the Play Store. You can also use a professional service that translates the features and description of your app in the language you want.
Computer translations, at times, are inaccurate because they do not translate exactly the way the phrasing is meant to be conveyed.
If your app description is accurately translated by a professional translator, it will increase your chances of getting more hits globally. You can either go to Google Play Developer Console or can hire your own language expert to transcribe the text manually. This will help improve your ranking by divulging the app to a more diverse audience.
If your language sounds metaphorical, your words will literally be lost in translation. In simple words, your language should be the same when someone is searching for their native language.
4. Focus on the download rate
Launching your app on the Google Play Store is a smart move. There is nothing to stop your mobile app from becoming successful if it performs well too.
If the download rate gets reduced, it will impact your search ranking in the Play Store.
According to a survey, the Google Play Store has 135% more downloads as opposed to the Apple App Store. These stats should be encouraging, but also says that it is a competitive space.
You need to use best marketing skills to promote your app and to get more downloads.
When it comes to your app promotion, you already have an advantage if you are running an existing business. You have marketing channels and customers in place.
This simply means that you can easily reach your email subscriber list, promote your app on social media channels, talk about it on your blog and the website to promote the app.
The more downloads you get at a fast rate, the more you will boost your search ranking. However, a high ranking involves much more than just downloads.
You cannot make money if nobody is downloading the app. You will need users who actually use your app.
If, however, your app is not adding any value to their life or providing any entertainment, they will have no reason to use it.
If your app users have complaints or suggestions for the app’s performance, take those in your consideration. Fix bugs or glitches, and then come up with new versions of the app.
User experience contributes to numerous factors including your app’s performance, its appearance, your product offering and a seamless navigation.
Wrapping up
The lifecycle of your app will not be complete until you are past the development phase.
Once you have created an Android app, encourage users to download it from the Play Store to achieve success. If your app gets ranked high on the store, it will be easier for Android users to find your app.
Start with a strong title that should be short, memorable, and speak to the functionality of your app. Include keywords in the app’s description to boost its search optimization. Focus on the images of the app that display exactly how your app works to prospective users.
Design a professional and creative app icon for your app that stays within all of the guidelines set in place by Google.
Cumulatively, this is a recipe for success to direct your app toward the top of the Google Play Store rankings.
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