Presentation from AnDevCon 2013

1. App Discovery
Optimization
• Nathan Mellor
• CritterMap Software LLC
• Follow up at http://eepurl.com/d9tZj

2. Agenda
• About search
• Keyword Research
• Optimizing for app searches
• Use that optimization in:
• Paid promotion
• Organic promotion

3. My Background
•
•
Formerly software engineer at Hewlett-Packard
•
•
Author of Top grossing Android App
Independent App Developer since 2009 as an apprenuer,
not a contractor or consultant
Trained in Internet Marketing at University of San
Francisco online program

4. Book Signing
•
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GJHIGY0

5. The Internet Marketing Funnel
Target Audience
Target Audience
(potentially interested)
(potentially interested)
Prospect
Prospect
(aware product exists)
(aware product exists)
Lead
Lead
(has tried product)
(has tried product)
Customer
Customer
(paid for something)
(paid for something)
Loyal Customer
Loyal Customer
(repeat sales)
(repeat sales)
Advocate
Advocate
(recommends product)
(recommends product)

6. App Market Funnel + Numbers
Target Audience = Outdoor Navigation users
Target Audience = Outdoor Navigation users
1% of 1.3 million activations per day = 13,000 per day
1% of 1.3 million activations per day = 13,000 per day
Prospect = see my app listing
Prospect = see my app listing
????? -- figures not available
????? figures not available
Lead = installs demo product
Lead = installs demo product
500 per day
500 per day
Customer- bought paid app
Customer- bought paid app
20% =>100 per day
20% =>100 per day
Loyal Customer= bought an addon
Loyal Customer= bought an addon
22 per day
22 per day
Advocate= 5 star
Advocate= 5 star
2 per day
2 per day

7. App Discovery
(knowing a product exists)
(knowing a product exists)
Target Audience
Target Audience
(potentially interested)
(potentially interested)
Prospect
Prospect
(aware product exists)
(aware product exists)
Lead
Lead
(has tried product)
(has tried product)

8. App Discovery
Search
Search
Market
Market
List of
List of
Apps Google Play
Apps Google Play
App
App
Listing
Listing
Browse
Browse
Market
Market
Search
Search
Internet
Internet
Your
Your
Website
Website
Browse
Browse
Internet
Internet
Some
Some
Other
Other
Website
Website
Ad
Ad
Campaign
Campaign
Install
Install

9. The State of App
Discoveryabout paid
• For some, App Discovery is
campaigns.
• Burst Advertising
• Spend all your advertising budget at once
• Spend your way into a top ten chart
• Hope you stay there.

10. Is Burst Advertising
dead?
• What does that mean?
• Have people stop spending their way to the
top?
• No, most of the apps in the top ten charts
on the appstore have bought their way
there.
• That includes Candy Crush and many
other well known apps.

11. Is Burst Advertising
dead?
• What has changed
• Estimates are upwards of $96,000 per day
to reach the top ten in the appstore
• Not as much money is spent in Android
yet, but it is coming
• It requires continuous spending to stay
there.

12. What does that mean
to you?
• Most small to medium developers don’t
have $96,000 per day.
• You are better off focusing on search
queries, which drive over 60% of installs.

13. Are New Apps Special?
•
•
•
Mostly Not.
Top complaint of IOS Developers that port
to Android
•
No human review process like Apple
Top New Paid/Top New Free
•
•
Last 30 days (globally)
Ordered by downloads

14. Searches in Google Play
• 12% search for apps daily
• 50% search weekly
• 6 million unique search phrases are used
each week.
• (Source: Google I/O 2013).

15. Differences from iOS
iPhone
Google Play
Apps per page
1
7-8
Reaching app #25
25 flicks
1 Flick
App Title
Very Important
(approved by Apple)
Very Important
30 characters (25
seen)
Tags (secret keywords)
Very Important (approved
by Apple)
100 characters
Not used.
Unclear if used in search
Important in search
4000 characters
Unclear
Installs and
Uninstalls
Ratings
Links from outside
Google Play
Description keywords
Other factors in search

16. Success story
•
•
Fall 2010
•
•
Description was 250 characters
•
Made it to the top of my category
Managed to track keywords from
Android Market (even Google
said that was impossible)
But I knew exactly which
keywords were making me
money

17. Keyword Research
• A keyword is generally a multi word search
phrase
• You want to evaluate
• RELEVANCE
• TRAFFIC
• COMPETITION

18. Relevance
• How likely someone using a particular
phrase is looking for your app
• Determined by your knowledge of the
target market of your app.

19. Traffic
• How many people are using a particular
search phrase
• Can generally only be estimated with tools

20. Competition
• How likely you can actually attain a top
position for a particular search phrase
• Is context dependent
• Can be evaluated with tools

21. Rookie Mistakes
•
Thinking that there are only six or so phrases
for your app
•
Thinking that you already know the two most
important ones.
•
•
There are always more phrases than you think
•
Try for 500, then narrow it down to 50
The ones that you think are most important
may not be

22. Broadening your scope
• Come up with a number of seed words
• Think of synonyms and variations
• Think of related products or services that
your target customer would search for
• Think of how they would search for your
competitor’s app
• Consider common brand names in the field.

23. Example: Video Chat
App

24. Video Chat example
•
•
•
describe it in a few ways
•
Video chat,Video conferencing, video call, video
conference
Add popular brand names
•
skype,google talk,google hangout, facetime,
Add related apps
•
•
oovoo, tango, and camfrog
Put in Adwords Google Keyword planner

27. Where can we use
these keywords
• Title
• Description
• Outside Links
• Paid Promotions
• Organic Promotions

28. Title
• Most important keyword
• More influential than description
• Only 30 characters (no paragraphs like iOS
titles).

29. Branded Title vs Keyword
Title
Branded
Keyword
Examples
Pandora
Amazon
BackCountry Navigator
Music Player
Online Book Store
GPS and Maps
Recognizable Trademark
Yes
Often not
Word of Mouth and
reputation
Helpful
Less helpful
Functional conveyance
Maybe
Probably
Search term?
Only if already familiar
Valuable
Can you do both in 20-30 characters?

30. Description
• Your primary and secondary keywords
• Keep it short if you have a small number of
very important keywords
• Longer if you need to target more
keywords.
• Mentioning a keyword about five times
might be about
• Use the full phrase if possible.

31. •
•
•
•
•
Targetting keywords
Do’s and don’ts
Do’s and don’ts
Do: use in a grammatically correct way
Don’t - violate other trademarks in title
Don’t keyword stuff - against Market terms
•
ie “keywords: angry birds,fun app,games,fun,temple run,
candy crush”
Do: understand limitations and tradeoffs
Do: review if you are winning

32. Other factors
• Google Play knows your installs and
uninstalls.
• They can track whether a keyword triggers
an install that stays active.
• They’ve said you can include helpful anchor
text in links outside Google Play

33. Other phenomenon
• Google will make app suggestions for
people in Google search.
• These are starting to show up in Google
Analytics.

34. Sources in analytics

36. Tracking Keyword
Victories
• Gets a bit hairy if you are targeting 50
keyword phrases
• You want to target more keywords
without losing ground on the ones you
have.
• Time to use tools

37. ASO tools
• App Store Optimization
• Searchman.com
• mobiledevhq.com
• appnique.com
• sensortower.com
• appcodes.com

38. What you can do
• Track 50 keywords over time
• Find more by adding competitors or doing
searches
• See what keywords may be valuable.

42. Using keywords in Paid
advertising
• Test keyword phrases
• Test Calls to Action
• Find the perfect message for your first line
• Test out images and icons

43. Paid advertisement
• You want to track it all the way through
user conversions
• You can define an app install as a
conversion in Adwords
• But track it past the install
• Do this by monitoring Goals and
Ecommerce in Analytics

44. Adwords
keyword
targetting

45. Defining install as a
conversion

46. Paid Advertising - ROI
Text
Drop the losers and keep the winners

47. Results from paid
experiments
• Find the high converting keywords
• Target them more aggressively in Google
Play
• Use them in internet marketing promotion
and links

48. Using keywords in
Internet marketing

50. Traffic from Your
website
•
•
Can come from search engine
•
•
Do NOT keep this traffic at your site
•
•
Do not use a wimpy little hyperlink
Can be tracked much easier (can measure the
prospects better)
Have a BIG OBVIOUS BUTTON that will go
directly to the market listing
Do not say “Search the market for . . . “

51. Your button
•
•
•
Create link at
•
You can set campaign, source, to whatever you
want.
•
This will track in Google Analytics.
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?
id=com.crittermap.backcountrynavigator.license&ref
errer=utm_source%3DWebsite%26utm_medium
%3DLink%26utm_term%3Dtopo%2520maps
%26utm_campaign%3DAnDevCon

52. Web page marketing
• From your list of Keywords
• Choose one keyword phrase
• Make one web page optimized for that
keyword phrase
• Get links to that page

53. Example: Traffic

54. Attainable: The Top
Ten
"To rank on the first page of Google, you
must replace a page that’s currently there."
Market Samurai

55. An Optimized Page ..
•
•
•
Mentions the phrase (ie Android Topo Maps)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
In the url
In the <title> tag
In the <meta Description> tag
In an <h1> tag
In the first sentence
In the first sentence of the last paragraph
2-3 times in between the first and last parag
Has about 250-750 words (ave 500).
That’s all!

56. Getting links
•
•
•
The most creative part of internet marketing
The best links:
•
•
•
•
Have keywords in the link (anchor text)
Are from “important” websites
Are from relevant websites
Have traffic
Should link to you own site OR to Google Play
listing.

57. Getting Links
• Optimized Press releases
• Article Marketing
• Directories
• Review sites

58. Check Results (Google
webmaster tools)

59. Rinse and Repeat
• Establish a blog with wordpress
• Add a post every day
• Get some links
• At the end of a year, you will have 200+
keywords in the first page of Google.

60. Keywords in the
world’s second biggest
Search Engine

61. What is the world’s
second biggest Search
Engine?

62. Use keywords in title,
description and tags
URL
URL

63. Benefits include:
• Blended search
• Embedding in other websites.

64. Get views and traffic
• YouTube is a social network.
• Get your newsletter subscribers to watch
and comment
• Find friends
• Find subscribers
• Consider tools like TubeToolbox or Tube
Assist.

65. Tube ToolBox
Find similar videos and
interested users by
keyword
Collect them into lists
Send them a video you
made
Invite them to
comment or friend.

66. Questions