ASO Guide 2020 - App Store Optimization Manual by PICKASO & thetool

INDEX
Introduction to the ASO Guide 2020
2019 ASO news
ASO On and Oﬀ-Metadata factors on the App Store
and Google Play
ASO On-Metadata factors
Google Play and App Store long description
ASO & Keywords
Traﬃc resources
4
Visual Assets for Google Play Store and Apple App Store
Ratings & Reviews
Conversion Rate
ASO and User Adquisition (UA) campaigns
Android vitals
Visibilty through SEO
Seasonal ASO
ASO checklist
48
57
64
68
76
82
88
92
12
20
25
32
35
44

INTRODUCTION TO THE
ASO GUIDE 2020
1
4

IN 2019, USERS
DOWNLOADED 204 BILLION
APPS WORLDWIDE
The worldwide number of app downloads in 2019 was of 240 billion
(204,000,000,000), meaning a 45% increase in the 3 last years and a 6% one
in the 2 last ones, excluding re-installs and apps updates (data taken from
App Annie’s report State of Mobile 2020).
Most of these downloads are coming from emerging markets such as India,
Brazil, and Indonesia.
App downloads from users from more developed markets such as USA,
Japan, and South Korea have diminished, but users are still looking for new
apps. In 2019, 12,3 billions downloads were reached in the US, 2,5 billions in
Japan and 2 billions in South Korea.
120B
100B
80B
60B
40B
2016 2017 2018 2019
20B
0B
COUNTRY-LEVELDOWNLOADS
WORLDWIDEDOWNLOADS
240B
200B
160B
120B
80B
40B
0B
Data: State of Mobile 2020 by App Annie
GROWTH FROM 2016 TO 2019
45%Worldwide
80%China
190%India
5%United States
40%Brazil
70%Indonesia
5

As for the main stores, in 2019’s last quarter, App Store
had more than 1,5 million apps available while Google
Play reached a total of 2,5 million apps in its store,
according to Statista. With this data, your app is right in
the middle of a ﬁerce competition to get to be
discovered by users. How to make an app visible?
2.570.000
Google Play Store Apple App Store Windows Store Amazon Appstore
1.840.000
669.000
489.000
NUMBEROFAPPS
3.000.000
2.500.000
2.000.000
1.500.000
1.000.000
500.000
0
Image: Number of apps available in leading app stores as of 4th quarter 2019 Statista
IN 2019, USERS DOWNLOADED 204 BILLION APPS WORLDWIDE
WHAT IS ASO?
ASO stands for App Store Optmization and this is the
optimization process of an app (the listing as well as the
product) with 2 main goals: increase visibility in Search
and in Browse / Explore in the app stores, and improve
Conversion Rate to visit and to download.
In PICKASO, we believe ASO is the base of any App
Marketing Strategy as, as well as helping to get more free
organic downloads, it has a direct impact on user
acquisition costs and, in the end, on business.
6

APP DISCOVERY:
SEARCH & KEYWORDS
TRENDS
As we’ve just seen, App Store Optimization (ASO)’s main
objective is to improve visibility in the stores and the
organic downloads volume. However, how do users
discover new apps?
65% of App Store installs are generated by concrete
keywords search (generic or long-tail, as well as
branded with which users demonstrate direct
intention).
A study from ASO Stack reveals that on the App Store, 86%
of the top 100 most searched keywords are branded, and
that non-branded keywords within this top 100 are linked
to mobile games or apps from the categories: “games”,
“vpn”, “free games”, “photo editor”, “music”, “calculator”,
“weather”, among others. This means that users tend to
search for concrete brands that they have known
previously through other channels.
7

HOW MANY
SEARCH KEYWORDS
ARE BRANDED?
100%
92%
90%
86%
80.5%
68.33%
60.75%
58.4%
Top 10 Top 25 Top 50 Top 100 Top 200 Top 300 Top 400 Top 500
BRANDPERCENTAGE
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0
An experiment realized by Sebastian Knopp, Growth and
Product Strategist at appkeywords.net identiﬁed that on
the App Store, suggested keywords in the autocomplete
section in Search are also dominated by brands. The study
shows that within the 260 suggested keywords, only 13 of
them (5%) aren’t branded.
Another data that needs to be highlighted is that 12% of
Daily Active Users (DAU) are looking for apps on a daily
basis, and that 50% of them are looking for apps on a
weekly basis. Within a month, Google processes a total of 6
million unique sentences in search on Google Play Store.
Short and mid-tail keywords are still dominated by brands,
together with very competitive generic keywords. However,
ASO tools can help you to look for keywords for your
project, such as TheTool who also enables you to see
installs per keywords on Google Play Store. By expanding
8

HOW MANY SEARCH KEYWORDS ARE BRANDED?
the total number of keywords you are working within the
On-Metadata fields of your listing, you are expanding the ways
your app can rank in the stores as well as how users can
discover your app and download it.
Voice search on App Store and Google Play are increasing
exponentially and are becoming a new variable that you need
to take into account for the ASO optimization of the listing of
every app. The more natural & semantic the language in the
listing, the better the stores will understand the topic of the app
or mobile game.
The appearance of voice assistants, such as Cortana, Siri, Alexa
or Google Home, made that users’ behavior is changing. These
assistants are offering apps in their web search as a result, apps
which are located on Google Play or on the App Store, and they
are even reaching concrete categories in the stores. For
these reasons, app marketers now face a new challenge:
make the most of voice search.
To learn more about how this tendency is affecting your
app’s visibility and ranking in the stores, we recommend you
to read this post from PICKASO where we explain how to
optimize your ASO strategy to be able to adapt to voice
search.
VOICE SEARCH ON APP STORE AND GOOGLE PLAY
9

MOST DOWNLOADED CATEGORIES ON APP STORE AND GOOGLE PLAY
Downloads Customers' expenses
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Rank Category
Games
Tools
Entertainment
Communications
Photography
Social
Music & Audio
Video Players & Editors
Productivity
Shopping
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
3
-2
-1
Rank change
vs. 2017
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Rank Category
Games
Social
Entertainment
Lifestyle
Music & Audio
Productivity
Communications
Health & Fitness
Dating
Education
-
-
-
1
2
-
-3
1
1
-2
Rank change
vs. 2017
Downloads Customers' expenses
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Rank Category
Games
Photo & Video
Entertainment
Utilities
Social Networking
Shopping
Lifestyle
Finance
Productivity
Education
-
1
-1
-
-
-
1
-1
2
-
Rank change
vs. 2017
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Rank Category
Games
Entertainment
Social Networking
Music
Photo & Video
Lifestyle
Health & Fitness
Productivity
Books
Education
-
-
-
-
2
-1
1
2
-3
-1
Rank change
vs. 2017
Source of the 2 graphs: The State of Mobile 2019, App Annie
10

All this data is showing us how important it is to work on a
well-deﬁned App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy for your
mobile app or game, diﬀerent and adapted to each store, with
the objective of increasing visibility (in Search and in Browse /
Explore) and Conversion Rate to download.
11

2019 ASO NEWS
A few months ago Google announced you can add 'tags' to your list of
applications depending on the category selected, because they vary for games.
The categories and tags will help users to ﬁnd new applications on Google Play,
as well as their ranking.
NEWS DESCRIPTION APP STORE GOOGLE PLAY
Tags
Since mid-2019, it is possible to create up to 5 custom app listings in Google Play
Store, which can be shared for more than one country.
Each country has its own habits, ways of speaking... So it is important to adapt
the texts and visual elements to each of them.
Custom app listings
13

Since August 2019, a new way of calculating the average rating of Google Play
apps has been implemented. Now, recent valuations are granted more
importance while the oldest ones have less impact (still, it does not mean that
they do not matter).
Therefore, it is very important to constantly analyze the ratings and reviews that
our app receives, and always answer them.
NEWS DESCRIPTION APP STORE GOOGLE PLAY
New average rating
calculation
The 160 characters (30 in the App Name, 30 in the Subtitle and 100 in the
Keywords Field) that are available in the App Store to optimize an app listing with
keywords usually fall short.
Since 2019, the keywords used in app listings in other languages are ranking for
the main language. However, not all languages are ranking in the one for which
we want to improve the positioning of our app. Have a look at this article to know
which language are ranking for which locale.
Therefore, for Spain, Spanish (Spain), English (United Kingdom) and Catalan can
be used, which means that you would have up to 480 characters available to
optimize your app.
Interactions between
app listing elements of
diﬀerent languages
2019 ASO NEWS
14

Since September 2019, promotional videos play automatically in the stores
listings of Google Play Store.
It is also the case for some brand search results for some speciﬁc brands (not all
of them).
APP STORE GOOGLE PLAY
Google Play autoplay
2019 ASO NEWS
NEWS DESCRIPTION
15

ASO TRENDS AND NEWS 2020
In App Store and Google Play, more and more apps and highlights are shown to
users in a personalized way, leaving behind a unique interface in which they
showed all users the same recommendations when browsing the stores.
This customization depends on the user’s searches and activity, as well as the
apps / games he has installed on his device.
Content customization
Like for iOS apps, Google is working on a native prompt to request ratings and
reviews directly from the app without having to go to the store. Everything
indicates that by the middle of this year 2020, it will be available for Android
developers.
Native prompt for ratings
NEWS DESCRIPTION
16

Google made it clear recently that a high error rate signiﬁcantly reduces Browse /
Explore visibility in Google Play Store. In addition, it also impacts the project’s
keyword rankings since after a decrease of the error rate, you can see an
increase in keyword rankings.
So avoiding errors / blocks / crashes in apps have a direct correlation with the
possibility of being recommended / featured on Google Play Store.
Avoid errors and blocks
to get more visibility
It is not only very important to have a strategy on when to request user reviews,
you also have to deﬁne and apply a strategy to answer to these reviews.
Answering all the reviews (especially the most recent ones) will give you a better
image near the users, in addition to improving feedbacks and your engagement
with them, causing them to occasionally re-enter the store to improve the rating
they left in their previous assessment.
This is especially important in the Google Play Store as, since the end of 2019’s
summer, the most recent ratings have the more impact.
Ratings & Reviews
strategy
NEWS DESCRIPTION
17

The trend in dark mode use in mobiles is constantly growing, so app listings
screenshots need to be adapted both in App Store and in Google Play so that
they keep on being properly visible both on “dark mode” and on “clear mode".
Dark Mode
Currently, 70% of users with mobile devices use voice searches. But everything
indicates that in 2020, 50% of the searches will be made through voice searches.
Voice searches
Increase in Explore / Browse traﬃc: Top Charts, Featured, Similar Apps,
recommended apps...
More Explore / Browse
traﬃc
NEWS DESCRIPTION
18

Two new categories were added (“Developer tools” and “Graphics & Design”)
New categories
NEWS DESCRIPTION
19

ASO ON AND OFF-METADATA
FACTORS ON THE
APP STORE AND GOOGLE PLAY
3
20

ASO ON AND
OFF-METADATA FACTORS
ON THE APP STORE
AND GOOGLE PLAY
The ASO factors are the elements of the apps that have a direct
impact on the ASO strategy, both in visibility (Search and
Browse / Explore) and in Conversion Rate (to visit and to
download).
DEFINITION
These factors are the elements that can be edited / modi-
fied by developers or marketers directly from App Store
Connect and Google Play Console.
ASO ON-METADATA FACTORS
They ASO Off-Metadata factors that we cannot be controled
directly from developers, although you can have some
influence on them. They almost entirely depend on the
available marketing budget, the market response to your
product and the marketers' expertise.
ASO OFF-METADATA FACTORS
21

ASO ON Y OFF-METADATA FACTORS ON THE APP STORE AND GOOGLE PLAY
App Name: 30 characters
Title: 50 characters
Subtitle: 30 characters
Short description: 80 characters
Keywords Field: 100 characters
Promotional Text: 170 characters
Long Description: 4.000 characters
Description: 4.000 characters
Category
Developer name
Icon
Screenshots
Feature graphic
Video Preview
URL, Package Name or Market ID
In-App Purchase
Android Vitals
Downloads volume
Downloads speed
Ratings volume
Average Rating
Ratings
Reviews
Backlinks
User Engagement
ON-METADATAFACTORS
OFF-METADATAFACTORS 22

VISIBLE ASO FACTORS IN
THE STORE LISTING
FEATURED
IMAGE
APP NAME
TITLE
DEVELOPER
ICON
VIDEO PREVIEW
ICON
TOP
CHARTS
SUBTITLE
SCREENSHOTS
DOWNLOADS
TOP CHARTS
LONG
DESCRIPTION
AVERAGE RATING
RECOMMENDED AGE
23

4,3
DEVELOPER
PROMOTIONAL TEXT / WHAT`S NEW
SHORT DESCRIPTION
DESCRIPTION
RATINGS
REVIEWS
VISIBLE ASO FACTORS IN THE STORE LISTING
24

ASO ON-METADATA
FACTORS ON
GOOGLE PLAY STORE
In an Android app on Google Play, the Title is one of the ASO On-Metadata
factors that has the most impact. It is important that this field contains the
main keywords of the project, together with the app name or the brand.
There are 50 characters available in this field.
It is the second most important and
impactful field within Google Play’s
product page. It can be filled with up
to 80 characters. It mainly affects ASO
search and conversion.TITLE
SHORT DESCRIPTION
/50
/80
26

ASO ON-METADATA FACTORS ON GOOGLE PLAY STORE
This is the largest On-Metadata ﬁeld of a
Google Play app, with a total of 4.000
characters available, and it has a direct
impact on ASO visibility both in Search and in
Explore. It is important that the text looks
natural and that its content does not only
include keywords for which you which to rank
but also synonyms, antonyms and related
words to enrich semantic. This way, Google
Play will be able to identify what the app is
about. Nowadays, over-optimization (the
excessive repetition of keywords) is,
according to us, counterproductive.
Long Description has a direct impact on ASO
Search, but not that much on Conversion
Rate as, according to some studies, less than
2% of the users that visit an app listing unfold
the Long Description to read its full content.
LONG DESCRIPTION
/4.000
27

The app Category in Google Play is a factor that does not directly impact ASO in Search, but
that does Explore. Google Play uses this field, among other things, to know what an app is
about and this has an impact on Similar & Recommended Apps. It is possible to experiment
with the Category to discover which brings out the best benefits in terms of visibility, traffic
and Browse organic downloads.
CATEGORY
In Google Play’s case, developers can edit and customize the Developer Name that appears
publically on the listings. With a 50 characters limit, it is recommended to use keywords there
to improve their ranking. Also, the use of emojis is allowed to help increase Conversion Rate to
download. It is possible to change the Developer Name (that need to be approved by Google)
so you can try and test it to see what are the impacts of these changes.
DEVELOPER NAME
ASO ON-METADATA FACTORS ON GOOGLE PLAY STORE
28

ASO ON-METADATA FACTORS ON
APPLE APP STORE
The Subtitle, that can include up to 30 characters and was introduced together with the launch
of iOS 11, is the second most important field of ASO for Apple App Store.
It and its main role is to briefly describe the app. It is important that is includes keywords and,
besides having a direct impact on Search ASO, it also does on Conversion Rate to download.
SUBTITLE
The App Name is the most important and impactful On-Metadata field on the App Store. This
field needs to contain the most important keywords of the project, together with the name of
the app or of the brand. 30 characters are available in this field.
APP NAME
30
30
29

Apple App Store’s Description does not impact Search ASO as Apple does not take into account
what appears in this field. However, it does have an impact on Conversion Rate to download,
and most of all the first lines. The most important things from the app needs to be featured
there, such as awards, and you should use a CTA (call to action) there to invite users to down-
loads the app. Up to 4.000 characters can be written in this field.
DESCRIPTION
The Keywords field of a mobile app or game on the Apple App Store needs to include keywords,
as its name indicates. It has a maximum length of 100 characters and should not contain
keywords that were already used in the App Name or in the Subtitle. It is important not to use
spaces between the keywords, but only comas “,”. For example:
“keyword1,keyword2,keyword3…”
KEYWORDS FIELD
100
4.000
NOT VISIBLE
TO THE USER
ASO ON-METADATA FACTORS ON APPLE APP STORE
30

The Promotional text, limited to 170 characters, was introduced together with the launch of
iOS 11 and does not have any direct impact on Search visibility. This means that the
keywords used in this field will not help the app rank. However, it does have a direct impact
on Conversion Rate to download. For this reason, you need to use this field as a marketing
tool (with CTA, offers, news, etc.) to convince users to downloads the app. Contrary to other
fields of the App Store Connect, the Promotional text can be edited anytime, without
needing to release an update of the product.
Just like on the Google Play Store, the app Category is a factor that does not directly impact
Search ASO on the Apple App Store. However, it does have an impact on Browse visibility.
App Store Connect enables developers to choose 2 categories for apps (Primary and
Secondary) and 2 categories and up to 4 subcategories for mobile games.
CATEGORY
PROMOTIONAL TEXT
ASO ON-METADATA FACTORS ON APPLE APP STORE
31

GOOGLE PLAY AND APP STORE
LONG DESCRIPTION
5
32

GOOGLE PLAY
LONG DESCRIPTION
As commented earlier, and unlike what happens on the Apple
App Store, the content of the field has a direct impact on Search
ASO on Google Play Store. As a result, the Long Description
needs to include keywords all along its content.
This Long Description on Google Play Store offers great freedom
to write, create a visual structure and use different elements
such as emojis, colors & HTML tags (H1, H2, H3, B, I). This will
enable you to give more ASO weight to some keywords as well
as make its content stand out for users to unfold the Long
Description to read it.
Nowadays, it is not recommended to proceed to keywords
over-optimization, i.e. to excessively repeat keywords we want
to rank. This technique did work a few years
ago, but this is not the case anymore. Google
Play Store is evolving with time and thanks to
artificial intelligence advanced techniques and
NLP (Natural Language Processing), Google
Play Store “understands” the topic of an app,
which means that the more natural the content
and the more synonyms, antonyms and related
terms, the best.
This field can be edited without needing to
send an update in Google Play Console and is
limited to 4.000 characters. Also, thanks to
Google Play Store Experiments, it is possible to
carry out A / B tests.
33

APP STORE
DESCRIPTION
Apple App Store’s Description does not allow neither emojis nor HTML tags use.
However, some visual elements can be used to help organizing the content better
and thus, help its reading: , - , · , > , < , * , • .
Unlike what happens with Google Play Store’s Long Description, Apple App Store’s
Description ﬁeld can only be edited when submitting an update of the app and, in
case you use visual elements that are not allowed, the update won’t be accepted.
34

ASO &
KEYWORDS
According to Apple, 65% of the downloads on the Apple App
Store are generated by searches, and on the Google Play Store
this is very similar. For this reason, the app listing needs to be
optimized to appear in the best rankings possible for the
keywords defined for the project.
Keywords optimization in App Store Optimization is a process
that should be continuous:
Create a list of all the possible keywords and combinations of
keywords related to the project. To do so, you need to run a
market and competition research.
INVESTIGATE
STEP 1
Analyze and prioritize keywords according to their
relevance, level of competition and search volume / traffic.
For new apps, it is recommended to work with high-traffic
and low-difficulty keywords.
PRIORITIZE
Optimization of the listing with the selected keywords. The
optimization depends on the store for which you will work on
ASO.
OPTIMIZE
Search rankings monitoring and analysis of improvement
possibilities.
MONITOR / MEASURE
REPEAT THE PROCESS
STEP 2
STEP 3
STEP 4
STEP 5
36

STEP 1: KEYWORD
RESEARCH
As a first step for your research, try to write down many
keywords that may be related to your application or game,
based on the type of app, its category, its features and the
functionality of the app or the problems it solves.
Keywords research in one of the principal foundations of
Search ASO and one of the first steps that needs to be taken
when preparing the listing of a new mobile app or game. A right
keyword research will help defining the keywords that you will
need to optimize in the listing.
BRAINSTORMING
The perfect place to get inspired in terms of keywords for your
app or game are the listings of your direct ASO competitors. To
get a list of keywords used by your competitors (or any other
application), you can use the Keyword Density feature in The-
Tool that allows you to analyze the density of the keywords of
any store listing on Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Grant special attention to the keywords used in the most im-
portant fields in terms of rankings according to each Store:
“App Name”, “Subtitle” and “Keywords field” in the App Store,
and “Title”, “Short Description” and “Long Description” for
Google Play. To study the Keywords field of any app, you need
to use an ASO tool as it is a private field that is not visible in the
listing.
LOOK AT YOUR COMPETITOR’S
KEYWORDS
37

The Keyword Suggest tool by TheTool also enables you to
get ALL the suggestions in any language and for any
keyword.
At this point you should already have a long list of keywords
and keyword combinations related with your app, at least 60 /
80 words. You can make this list grow looking at the suggested
keywords in the Apple App Store and in the Google Play Store.
You can do it manually of thanks to an ASO tool such as
TheTool:
Monitor all the keywords that you consider relevant to your lis-
ting in order to analyze and prioritize them during the next
steps of the implementation and to follow-up the next months
after the ﬁrst optimization.
SEARCH FOR SUGGESTED KEYWORDS
IN THE STORES
1.
2.
You can use the autocomplete suggestion in the list of
monitorized keywords in TheTool.
STEP 1: KEYWORD RESEARCH
38

STEP 2: SELECT AND PRIORITIZE
KEYWORDS FOR THE OPTIMIZATION
Once you have the potential keywords for your app or game,
you must analyze and prioritize the ones that will be easy to
rank for first, and then to get downloads from. Once prioritized,
it is time to optimize the listing.
The difficulty indicates the level of competition for a specific
keyword (the higher the difficulty, the harder to rank for the
keyword). Traffic provides an estimated volume of search for
that specific keyword. Currently, the popularity score in Apple
TRAFFIC ESTIMATION AND DIFFICULTY
Search Ads is the only “traffic” data that can be used for the
App Store (only for the countries where ASA is available).
For Google Play, right now, there is no official data given
from Google about search volume.
Try to find the perfect balance between low or medium
difficulty and high traffic. If you don’t have a very high
marketing budget, don’t work on branded or generic
keywords with high difficulty.
39

STEP 2: SELECT AND PRIORITIZE KEYWORDS FOR THE OPTIMIZATION
The Installs Per Keyword feature in TheTool enables you to see
exact data (taken thanks to the Google Play Console
integration) to know which keywords or keywords combinations
are bringing your mobile app or game the more installs on
Google Play. Based on this data you can prioritize the keywords
to implement in your listing optimization.
INSTALLS PER KEYWORDS IN
GOOGLE PLAY STORE
Not using enough combinations. More than 75% of
visits to an app listing are coming from combinations of
long keywords (also known as “long-tail”).
Work just a few keywords. We recommend to work
with 60-110 keywords for both stores. Still there is no
problem with working with hundreds of keywords.
Not being patient enough. The time you will have to
wait to start seeing results will depend on the difficulty
of each keyword, on the On-Metadata optimization and
on the Off-Metadata efforts.
Using very generic keywords with high search & traffic
volume. In terms of visibility in the stores, it’s better to rank
in first positions for low traffic keywords than to rank in Top
100-150 for high traffic keywords.
AVOID COMMON MISTAKES
40

STEP 3: OPTIMIZATION
Use the most important keywords in the App Name / Title, in
the Subtitle / Short Description and in the Keywords Field and
make sure you include the rest of the search terms and
keywords combinations in Google Play’s Long Description (this
ﬁeld is not ranking in the App Store).
Monitoring keywords ranking, their evolution and comparing
this data to your competitors’ one can help you to understand if
there is room for improvement, to deﬁne your UA strategy and
to know the impact of your app’s visibility on downloads.
41

STEP 4: MONITOR
KEYWORDS
Once you have identiﬁed, analyzed, prioritized and optimized
the keywords in the store listing, it’s time to monitor and get in-
formation sobre their rankings, both for our project and for the
competition. You can do this thanks to TheTool in 93 countries.
STEP 5: REPEAT THE
PROCESS
ASO is very dynamic: new trends, new competitors,
changes in the stores… Also, it is always possible to do a
new Keyword Research, optimize the store listing, carry
out experiment, etc. ASO is a marathon, not a sprint.
42

CHECKLIST FOR KEYWORD
RESEARCH AND ASO OPTIMIZATION
Keyword Research:
Brainstorm to identify an initial list of keywords.
Find inspiration and study your competitors’ keywords.
Find suggested keywords and keywords combinations.
Optimize the textual elements of your store listing
and check keywords density to see if there is room for
more optimization. Don’t forget the visual assets as well.
Analyze and prioritize keywords based on their traﬃc
and diﬃculty, relevance and performance in terms of
number of installs and Conversion Rate.
01
03
Track your keywords and compare your rankings with
your competitors ones to get valuable information.04
Repeat the process!
05
02
To sum up, this is the list of actions you should follow during
the investigation, selection and optimization process for
keywords on the App Store and Google Play:
43

TRAFFIC SOURCES
The ASO formula is based on getting (more) organic downloads. To do
so, together with a good On-Metadata optimization, you will need to get
non-organic and organic downloads. Downloads are a very important
Off-Metadata ASO factor and without them, it will be hard to get more
visibility, traffic and organic downloads.
The ASO formula is:
Your mobile app or game needs to have a certain
level of engagement / retention for users.
However, ASO is not only about downloads.
Together with them, you need to be able to get
positive ratings and reviews from the users.
Having said that, where can downloads come from?
What are the main sources of traffic of mobile apps
and games? Let’s study this in details, knowing that
downloads can be organic (generated by the proper
stores without any external influence) or
non-organic (generated by external influences such
as ads or campaigns in the developer’s own
channels).
Traffic Conversion Engagement
*Conversion is the relation between traffic and downloads.
45

ORGANIC DOWNLOADS
Organic downloads are, as we commented earlier, the ones
that are made from the app stores without any type of
external inﬂuence, through Search (keywords) or Browse /
Explore (Featured, Top Charts, Similar Apps, etc.)
NOTE: All of the mobile app or game downloads (or almost all of them)
are made from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, expect
from the download of APK ﬁles for Android devices (normally, these are
apps that Google do not allow in its store), the pre-installed apps and the
downloads that are external to Google Play in the case of some Android
apps (for example, from search results on Google web).
46

NON-ORGANIC DOWNLOADS
Non-organic downloads are the ones that, even if they were
generated from the app stores, were previously externally in-
fluenced. This occurs in the case of user acquisition paid cam-
paigns (Facebook Ads, Apple Search Adsm Google Ads, TikTok
Ads, etc.) or campaigns in your own channels (Member Get
Member, newsletter / email, SmartBanner, etc.)
Apple Search Ads and Google Ads UAC downloads are
generated from the app stores, but after a click on a paid
promotion campaign (external influence), which is why they
are registered as non-organic downloads.
The same way, downloads generated from web search (SEO)
are also registered as non-organic, as they are not 100%
generated from the store and there was an external
influence, in this case the web search.
47

VISUAL ASSETS
FOR GOOGLE PLAY STORE
AND APPLE APP STORE
8
48

VISUAL ASSETS FOR GOOGLE PLAY STORE
ICON
Final size
Format
Color proﬁle
Max size ﬁle
Shape
Shadow
512 px × 512 px
PNG of 32 bits
sRGB
1024 KB
Full square (Google Play performs the
masking dynamically; the radius will be
equivalent to 20% of the icon size)
None (Google Play processes shadows
dynamically; see the "Shadows" section
below for how to include shadows in
artwork)
1
SPECIFICATIONSNUMBER
49

SCREENSHOTS
Format
Minimum size
Maximum size
Aspect ratio
JPEG or PNG 24 bits (no alfa)
320 pixels
3840 pixels
16:9 (horizontal) 2:1 (vertical)
8 per
compatible
device
50

FEATURE GRAPHIC
Format
Size
JPEG or PNG 24 bits (no alfa)
1024 px × 500 px
1
51

VIDEO
Duration 30 seconds to 2 minutes1
52

VISUAL ASSETS FOR APPLE APP STORE
ICON
1 1024 px × 1024 px
PNG
sRGB or P3
No transparency
Square without round corners
Size
Format
Color proﬁle
Transparency
Shape
53

VISUAL ASSETS FOR APPLE APP STORE
SCREENSHOTS
10 per
compatible
device
6.5"
(iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR)
1242 px × 2688 px 2688 px × 1242 px
5.8"
(iPhone X, iPhone XS)
1125 px × 2436 px 2436 px × 1125 px
5.5"
(iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 Plus,
iPhone 8 Plus)
1242 px × 2208 px 2208 px × 1242 px
4.7"
(iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7,
iPhone 8)
750 px × 1334 px 1334 px × 750 px
54

VISUAL ASSETS DE APPLE APP STORE - SCREENSHOTS
4"
(iPhone SE)
640 px × 1096 px
640 px × 1136 px
1136 px × 600 px
1136 px × 640 px
640 px × 920 px
640 px × 960 px
960 px × 600 px
960 px × 640 px
3.5"
(iPhone 4s)
12.9"
(iPad Pro (2nd generation &
3rd generation))
2048 px × 2732 px 2732 px × 2048 px
11"
(iPad Pro)
1668 px × 2388 px 3288 px × 1668 px
10 per
compatible
device
55

VISUAL ASSETS DE APPLE APP STORE - SCREENSHOTS
10 per
compatible
device
10.5"
(iPad Pro, iPad Air)
1668 px × 2224 px 2224 px × 2224 px
1536 px × 2008 px
1536 px × 2048 px
2048 px × 1496 px
2048 px × 1536 px
768 px × 1004 px
768 px × 1024 px
1024 px × 748 px
1024 px × 768 px
9.7" High resolution
(iPad, iPad mini)
9.7" Standard resolution
(iPad, iPad mini)
56

RATINGS & REVIEWS
The ratings and reviews that users leave in an app's listing are
one of the most important ASO oﬀ-metadata factors,
because they directly impact store visibility (Search and
Explore) and Conversion Rate to download. Not only is it
important that the application has good reviews and a high
average rating, but the algorithms also take into account the
keywords that users include within their reviews (especially
in the Google Play Store).
What impacts users opinion the most is the product, at every
level: quality, features, errors, etc. This is why, together with
asking for ratings and reviews to users as a strategy, you also
need to take GREAT care of the product as it is the base of the
whole business.
Google Play average rating is global and calculated for all
the countries in which the app is present; in the App Store,
on the contrary, each country has its own average rating.
It is important to design a good strategy when asking
the users for ratings, because both volume and
appreciation can change dramatically if we do not detect
which are the ideal moments to request it. For example, it
is not recommended to request reviews very early in the
user experience, when he has not yet had a minimum use
of the app or game. It would be a good time after the user
made an in-app purchase, logged in several times,
conﬁrmed a reservation, got to complete several levels of a
game, etc.
58

The most important thing is to ask for the rating during a
"happy moment" in the app use. This is when users are the
most inclined to leave positive ratings or reviews. In addition,
we can try to “divert” negative ratings of 3 or less stars to a
private channel of communication with the app so that they
are not effective in the store. This way, we can try to solve the
problem the user is facing directly and personally, and prevent
the average rating from decreasing.
By analyzing and answering one and two stars ratings, not only
can we find and understand why users are not satisfied, but we
can also ask for a change in their rating to make it becomes
positive. Likewise, it is important to answer all comments,
positive and negative, as much as possible.
The ideal is to get natural ratings above four stars and for
this, it is recommended, in addition to having a good
product, to have the minimum amount of ANRs and errors.
We recommend enhancing the reception of ratings and
reviews with the use of the iOS 10.3 User Feedback
Prompt, with which the user can leave a rating without
leaving the app (his homonym for Google Play is expected to
arrive during the year 2020). We can also use the
development of an in-home SDK or third-party SDKs.
RATINGS & REVIEWS
59

Reviews are a very interesting information channel for app
developers. They help to detect if the application suffers from a
bug, users provides them with ideas of product innovation,
which can be taken into account for future updates and provide
you with new keywords that you are not working on yet.
rating received after a “Do you like the app?” and a “We know
you love our app, please rate us!”, with which you can induce
a positive feeling assessment and increase the total ratings
volume. As always, test until you find the way that gives
you a better and more effective result.
Another successful move in your ratings strategy is to make
the most of the pre-launch of your app in a beta-testers
environment. In addition to enabling to avoid negative
ratings related to bugs and crashes, it also enables
developers to get very valuable and honest feedback on how
to improve the app / game before launching it.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Answers to user reviews must be personalized and you
should avoid any template, although you can have a series of
generic answers for thanks comments or bugs / errors to speed
up the process.
The way and language that we use when asking for ratings
is very important. You can see a big difference between the
RATINGS & REVIEWS
60

It is important to focus on negative feedback that includes pos-
sible improvements or that detects bugs, and the ones that are
featured with the most “likes”. The first reviews that appear
as featured on your Product Page are crucial and have the
greatest impact on your app’s conversion rate. Be sure to
answer featured reviews, even if users only say they are satis-
fied.
Finally, we also recommend reporting offensive reviews and
spam that can damage the reputation of your game / app wi-
thout any reason.
RATINGS & REVIEWS
61

HOW TO GET POSITIVE
RATINGS & REVIEWS?
Having a good product that covers an existing need on the market.
Avoid publishing an app full of bugs not to lose potential users.
Manage users’ unsatisfaction by offering a direct and private answer channel.
Make use of “Review Prompts” inviting users to give their feedback to improve their experience
through an in-app message.
62

RATINGS AND REVIEWS:
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN APPLE APP STORE
AND GOOGLE PLAY STORE
The user can leave its rating directly without having to visit
the store and leave the app thanks to the native prompt.
The ratings and cumulated average score can be reset.
A highlighted review is shown (and you have to swipe right
to see the rest).
A new rating can be requested 3 times a year or after each
update of the app software version.
APPLE APP STORE
With the change of algorithm in August 2019, most recent
valuations have a greater impact than historical ones.
Up to four featured reviews are shown in the mobile app
or game listing.
A new rating can be requested with each new update.
GOOGLE PLAY STORE
63

CONVERSION RATE
Conversion Rate is the ratio that measures the number of
installs that an app receives among the total number of
visitors that gets to the store listing. In the case of App Store
Connect, it also allows you to measure the ratio between
installs and impressions, although this data for Search and
Browse traffic sources can be distorted by the fact that the user
can install an app without the need to pass by the store listing,
the volume of installs being greater than that of visits to the
listing.
This ratio allows you to know the effectiveness of the listing of
an app when it comes to convincing a user to download it. The
higher the Conversion Rate (CvR), the greater the effectiveness
of the listing when converting visitors into installers.
Conversion Rate depends largely on the total traffic that
reaches the app listing and the quality of this traffic. For
this reason it is important to differentiate Conversion
Rate by traffic source, to know from which source
the best traffic is coming and the one that converts
best to download, so that we can quickly detect if any
particular traffic source is bringing us traffic from worse
quality to act accordingly.
It is common that the traffic that comes from Paid
Marketing campaigns is of better quality since the
user, when getting to the listing, has already shown
an initial interest in the app. If the traffic of these
campaigns is not generating a good Conversion Rate, it
When we analyze the Conversion Rate, some factors
come into play in which we can influence to a greater
or lesser extent:
65

may mean that the targets of these campaigns are not the
most appropriate, or that the listing is not optimized.
A very good way to try to improve the Conversion Rate,
especially as far as visual elements are concerned, are
the experiments (A / B test) that Google Play Console
allows you to carry out. Try diﬀerent creatives, both in
terms of messages / CTA / copy as well as colors and
visual composition, which will allow you to discover what
users like the most and to adapt your app listing to their
preferences to increase Conversion Rate and thus,
achieve a greater number of installs.
In the case of the App Store, in order to perform
experiments or A / B tests of the visual assets of the
listing, you will have to use external tools such as
SplitMetrics, StoreMaven or TestNest, among others.
You can also use the “Creative Assets” of Apple Search
Ads campaigns.
CONVERSION RATE
Once a user reaches the store listing, visual elements are of
great importance to convince him to install the app.
According to a market study, less than 40% of the visitors of
the product page of an app remain there for more than
three seconds, so it is crucial to get their attention in this
short period of time. To get the user interested in your
product and make them click on the listing or download
button, the icon, the screenshots and the video (in you
having one) and the feature graphic (only on Google Play)
play a very important role. These are the elements that have
more relevance, since the texts do not have as much weight
in the ﬁrst impact.
66

rating for a better one can generate great confidence in
the other users, in addition of an improvement of the
average rating of the app.
(*) It is common that the greater the amount of traffic, the lower the CR, but
this is not necessarily bad, since you will be getting more traffic to the app
listing and therefore more installs.
CONVERSION RATE
The third key factor for the Conversion Rate is the average
rating the app has in the stores, as well as user reviews. App
stores are still a marketplace in which a user interested in a
product (in this case an app) will take into account what
other users think about it. An average score lower than a 4*
is usually a problem when it comes to achieving an
adequate Conversion Rate, as well as if there is a high
number of bad reviews by other users.
An adequate customer support strategy, in which interest is
shown to help the users to solve their doubts or complaints,
and once resolved the user is encouraged to change its
67

ASO AND USER ACQUISITION (UA)
CAMPAIGNS
11
68

ASO AND USER ACQUISITION
(UA) CAMPAIGNS
Going deeper into the relation between ASO & UA, a
synergy can be reached between the two strategies (even if
it depends on a lot of factors) to manage a sustainable and
long-term organic growth for your app of mobile game.
One thing is clear:
ASO & UA share the same objective: strengthen business.
Successful app developers share one same thing: they
understand that in the world of apps, there is a direct link
between paid campaigns (UA) and the results that can be
obtained with ASO (the organic funnel).
For example, the lower the UA campaigns cost, the better the
visibility of the app within category rankings and overall (Top
Charts) as well as keywords ranking. This way, the lower it costs
to get a user / an install from paid campaigns and the most
downloads you can generate, the more organic visibility your
app will get.
69

The increase in paid installs also increases your organic
traffic:
ASO AND USER ACQUISITION (UA) CAMPAIGNS
To reach an effective balance between ASO & UA, it is necessary
to understand how paid campaigns can impact the global
organic visibility of your app or game.
NOTE: Paid UA downloads are not the only ones impacting visibility in the
stores. It always happens with organic downloads and the ones generated
through your own channels. This means that all the downloads have an
impact on ASO.
Organic traffic includes an audience that comes from keywords
search and users browsing the stores (Explore).
With an average of 60% of installs coming from organic traffic, it
is crucial to study how this valuable source of traffic can impact
your UA strategy.
The total installs volume impacts the category ranking of
your app or game, which can positively impact your
explore traffic as well. The higher is an app ranked in Top
Charts (category or overall), the more Browse / Explore
downloads it will receive.
Paid traffic (UA) is also related to search results. The more
total downloads, the better the keywords ranking and the
visibility in rankings, which favors the best opportunity for
the app to be discovered through users search for
keywords related to the product.
PAID USER ACQUISITION (PAID UA) IS STRONGLY RELATED TO
ORGANIC TRAFFIC
70

acquisition channel that is used (Facebook Ads, Google
Ads, Apple Search Ads or display networks, among others).
For each generated paid installs, there is a gain in organic
installs. The key is to find the perfect balance of how
much you need to invest in acquisition to improve the
volume of organic and non-organic downloads, without
investing more than optimal numbers for conversion. To
reach this, you need to monitor competition (for example,
in which category are they and their ranking in Top Charts)
and the factors that impact this correlation:
This relation can vary according to some factors, such as the
quality of the sources of traffic, if it is an app or a game, its
category and the relative ranking in each of the Top Charts.
Let’s start by looking only at the first point: the total volume of
daily installs from paid traffic determines the app ranking in
Top Charts (in its category and in overall). As a consequence,
the users have more opportunities to find your app when
browsing the store, which is a big step to get more organic
downloads.
However, the number of necessary downloads to reach a
certain ranking changes according to the app or game, its
operative system, the market and the current
circumstances. It depends on the competition and the
HOW CAN YOU PERFECT THIS BALANCE IN YOUR FAVOR?
UA investment.
Downloads distribution per channel.
Category ranking of the app.
Total installs, paid installs, search installs, browse
installs.
71

Another important consequence of this relation is that the
effective cost per install (eCPI) and how it decrease thanks to
organic traffic. For example, if 1.000€ was invested in Facebook
Ads and 1,000 installs came, the cost per install (CPI) = 1€.
However, thanks to the organic traffic that came as a result of
these acquisition campaigns, the effective CPI (eCPI) is calculated
dividing the total investment per the total of installs (organic and
non-organic).
Thus, coming back to our example, if 1.000 organic installs were
also generated, eCPI = 0,50€, ie. half of the CPI. The relation
between the increase in investment and organic installs isn’t
linear either. Every mobile app or game is different…
The optimization of the store listing, and especially of the visual
assets, is even more important as it allows to get more installs
without increasing traffic (Conversion Rate) and thus make the
most out of the investment in paid UA.
One important thing to take into account is that the quantity of
organic installs received from Top Charts does not increase in
a linear & proportional way. An increase in UA investment
does not directly imply an increase in rankings, keywords
visibility or total organic downloads. And it’s even quite the
opposite: the higher the app in Top Charts, the hardest to reach
a higher ranking because of the exponential relation between
rankings and installs. This means that it is necessary to analyze
the combined impact of ASO & paid strategies to get a perfect
balance between investment in acquisition and organic uplift.
72

APPLE SEARCH ADS & ITS RELATION TO
KEYWORDS OPTIMIZATION
In 2016, Apple introduced Apple Search Ads to improve the
discoverability of the apps for potential users segmented by
keywords, localization, gender and if they installed or not a
concrete app previously. This tool is quite effective to increase
the volume of installs and to control the reach of specific
keywords.
However, it can happen that organic installs cannibalize
themselves and that we end up paying for users that already
had the intention to install a specific app himself through
search in the store.
Cannibalization is a risk for the keywords that the app is already
ranking high and for branded keywords (when users look for an
app or game with the specific brand name). This especially
happens when the app appears in position 1, 2 or 3 for
these keywords.
Nevertheless, if you use this tool well, you can definitely
73

APPLE SEARCH ADS & ITS RELATION TO KEYWORDS OPTIMIZATION
increase organic traﬃc and your results. We recommend that
you increase the bidding of the keywords for which the app
ranks in lower positions as well as generic keywords (which
would be mid or long-tail keywords).
To achieve this, you will need to experiment. Make changes in
your ASA campaigns and analyze the organic installs that the
app / game receives. If you notice a negative correlation, it
could be because of cannibalization. On the contrary, if organic
traﬃc increases, the strategy is working.
74

ASO & UA: THE POWER OF
CREATIVE CONSISTENCY
The third aspect of the relation between ASO & UA are the
benefits of creating a cohesion through the whole
acquisition funnel, which has an impact on the whole effort of
the marketing strategy.
The acquisition plan starts when a determined value
proposition is made in a campaign so that users click on an ad.
From this moment, App Store Optimization is essential, as well
as creative consistency: the value proposition that has been
promoted in the acquisition campaigns must be reflected in the
store listing, especially in the visual assets. A unique message
all along the funnel increases conversion rate and thus reduces
acquisition costs.
A user attracted to an specific sale offer can fall out of the
funnel if, when getting into the store, he does not find this
sale offer reflected in the listing. On the contrary, if the
expectations that were created correspond to the store
presence, conversion rate to download will increase.
An endless optimization loop can be created and
conversion rate can increase by working on improving the
different fields of the store listing and maintaining a
creative consistency with acquisition campaigns.
To conclude, we can say that when ASO & UA work hand
in hand, the final result is better than the sum of their
individual results.
75

ANDROID VITALS
Android Vitals is a Google Play initiative to improve the
stability and performance of Android devices. When a
user runs an app, its Android device records several
metrics: the stability of the app, the starting time of the
app, the battery usage, the processing time and the
denials of permissions. Google Play Console adds this
data and displays it in the Android Vitals control panel:
SEE DETAILS
ANR error rate
0,47%
Last 30 days Previous 30 days Inappropriate
behavior limit
SEE DETAILS
Failure rate
1,09%
Last 30 days Previous 30 days Inappropriate
behavior limit
Batery
Metrics
Excessive background Wi-Fi network
searches
0,12 % 0,12 %0,13 %
Last 30 days Previous 30 days
compared to
other applications
Stability
Metrics
ANR error rate 0,02 % -0,01 %0,03 %
Last 30 days Previous 30 days
compared to
other applications
Failure rate 0,03 % -0,03 %0,03 %
SEE DETAILS
SEE DETAILS
SEE DETAILS
77

ANDROID VITALS
The data panel mainly highlights the "Crash Rate" and the "ANR
Rate", which are the fundamental aspects to which developers
should pay the most attention and to which Google give the
most importance. The other data that we can see in this panel
should also be monitored to ensure that it does not have a
negative effect on the app, as well as on the visibility in Google
Play Store.
An above-average crash rate negatively affects user experience,
which can end up generating bad ratings in the store listing.
In addition, during the last months we have been able to obser-
ve that Google is penalizing apps that exceed what they have
called the “bad behaviour threshold” when it comes to maintai-
ning their visibility within the store. In terms of Explore traffic,
Google penalizes them by decreasing their presence in similar
apps and featurings, and in terms of Search traffic lowering
keywords ranking in search results.
Below, you will see the results of some customers of
PICKASO for which we have been able to observe this type of
behavior.
78

INCREASE OF VISIBILITY IN SIMILAR APPS
AFTER REDUCTION OF CRASH RATE
The SVRank is a metric available in TheTool, the ASO tool that
shows, for any country, the position of an app in the Google
Play Store, classified by the “strength” of their referring apps’
profile. It means that the better SVRank, the greater the
visibility in Similar Apps and therefore the higher the explore
traffic that will go to the listing of the app.
In the following example, we can see how an app that did not
have any visibility due to a crash rate superior to 4% begins
to appear in Similar Apps and its SVRank increases
considerably by reducing this crash rate to reach a
percentage below the bad behaviour threshold limit set by
Google.
27.M
ay
3.Jun
10.Jun
17.Jun
24.Jun
1.Jul
8.Jul
15.Jul
22.Jul
29.Jul
0
50
100
1501
10k
20k
30k
40k
50k
60k
70k
80k
90k
100k
SVRank
REFERRINGAPPSDISTIBUTION
SVRank
Referring apps
Top 1
Top 2
Top 3
Top 4
Top 5
79

PENALTY FOR AN INCREASING
ANR RATE
In this second example we can see how at the end of September, due to an error in the app where the content did not load
correctly, the errors were increasing drastically, and this increased the ANR rate as well. The eﬀect of this rise in ANRs was a
Google Play penalty for the position of the keywords that the app was ranking for. Once the error was solved, on October 20th, the
keywords began to recover their positions and we can see how, over time, they even improved the positions they had before the
increase in errors.
9.Sep
16.Sep
27.Sep
30.Sep
7.O
ct
14.O
ct
21.O
ct
26.O
ct
4.N
ov
11.N
ov
600
400
200
0
RANKEDKEYWORDS
Ranked keywordsTop 1
Top 5
Top 10
Top 50
Top 100
Top 250
80

PENALTY FOR AN INCREASING ANR RATE
In the App Store, we have not been able to see such a direct
correlation between the increments of crashes and the visibility
of an app. But, although App Store does not seem to take into
account the crash rates as a ranking factor for now, the frequent
blocks and errors in an app will also aﬀect the ratings and
reviews, so it is equally important to keep them as low as
possible, also because negative ratings and reviews do have an
impact on ASO.
Google penalizes apps that exceed what they call "bad
behaviour threshold". Therefore, if you have experienced
that the organic installs of your app have fallen dramatically
or that Explore and / or Search traﬃc have reduced and you
do not know exactly why, check your Crash Rate and the ANR
Rate, and make sure that they are below the limit set by
Google, since if they are above this, Google has most likely
penalized your app.
CONCLUSION
81

VISIBILITY
THROUGH SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and ASO (App Store Optimi-
zation) can be distinguished as 2 diﬀerent disciplines, but they
both have a lot in common. It’s more, SEO has a great relevance
in your ASO strategy, since that all users may ﬁnd your app
through web searches made from a mobile device.
Web searches from mobile devices have increased so
quickly in the last years that they already surpassed all the
searches made from any other device. According to
“Ditendria”, 52% of the total of internet searches comes
from mobile devices.
One of the most relevant things to consider is that all the
apps available on Apple App Store and on Google Play
Store have a public URL which Google tracks, indexes and
positions in web search results for some searches made by
iOS and Android devices. These results can show up
depending on the intentionality of that search from the
user and simple apps results or “App Packs” are displayed.
SEO ASO
83

TYPES OF ORGANIC
SEARCHES RESULTS IN
WHICH APPS ARE
DISPLAYED these are the most common ones in searches concerning a
speciﬁc app. These “snippets” contain the name of the app,
the total number of ratings, the accumulated average rate
and a snippet which describes the app, together with a
download button.
This type of results usually appears after making searches
related to the brand of a concrete app (like for example the
proper branded name of the app).
SIMPLE RESULTS
84

TYPES OF ORGANIC SEARCHES RESULTS IN WHICH APPS ARE DISPLAYED
Los App Packs are groups of apps suggested in Google search
results in mobile searches.
Usually, 3 relevant apps are displayed for the keyword that was
searched (query sent by the user to the browser), but there is
also an option to drop down the results to see more relevant
apps. These results take great importance when dropped down
to see more apps as they then take all the screen space of the
device.
Each app result that appears in this packages contain its app
name / title, its icon, its accumulated average rating and the
total number of ratings.
APP PACKS
All these results are delivered based on the type of device
the user is using, meaning that iOS devices will display App
Store apps results; while Android devices will display
results from Google Play.
85

LINK BUILDING: THE IMPORTANCE
OF BACKLINKS IN SEO AND ASO
Besides, as the URL of the store listings are indexing, you need
to take into account one of the most important strategies in
SEO for ASO: link building.
Link building are all the actions carried out to get links
(backlinks), preferably in a natural way, to the app URL in App
Store or Google Play (Google Play more more importantly),
which come from third party webs. This way, you can improve
SEO for iOS and Android apps and ASO for Android apps.
It’s important to know that for all link building strategies,
there’s a couple of things you need to take into account:
It’s very important to get links from webs that are related
to your app and that are have an important presence in
the sector.
WHO LINKS YOU?
86

LINK BUILDING: THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKLINKS IN SEO AND ASO
Having a lot of links to the store listing does not imply a direct
increase in its positioning. They must be quality links - if else,
they won’t have any positive impact. Also, the increase in links
to the store listing must be logical, as it is not very natural that
in very little time, the number of links increases drastically.
HOW MANY LINKS DO YOU HAVE? The anchor text is the visible text of a link. This visible text
provides information to the user who is reading the text to
give him more value information but also to place a
keyword to strengthen. For instance, this text about “SEO
for apps” links to an article of our blog. A link is not always
put on a text but it can be linked to a picture. In this case,
ATL will be the attribute with the “Anchor Text” function.
ANCHOR TEXT
The more and better links a store listing gets, the more
visibility it will get in Google web both for iOS and Android
apps, and the better the ASO positioning in Google Play
Store.
CONCLUSIONS
20
Ahrefs Rank
31K +483
Backlinks
Live 16.2K
Historical 79.9K
4.38K
Referring domains
Live 3.74K
Historical 5.64K
-9
82
UR
88
DR
*Data taken from Ahrefs for the app Super Marion Run on Google Play
87

SEASONAL ASO
In the app stores, just like on other markets (both online or
offline), demand fluctuates by category depending on the time
of the year. It seems obvious that the search popularity of
certain keywords is influenced by the period of the year, so
taking advantage of these opportunities by applying some
changes to your app listing can help you generate extra
downloads in some types of mobile apps.
Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, seasonal sales or
sports events (the World Cup, Champions League…), among
others, represent great opportunities in terms of optimization
for thousands of e-commerce app published on the stores.
Thus, you can work ASO as part of your marketing strategy
for each season, in 2 ways:
Adding seasonality to your ASO keywords strategy can help
you benefit from higher search popularity for certain
seasonal terms and even show your app to audiences you
cannot reach during the rest of the year. During certain
periods of the year, users change the way they interact
with app stores. In fact, there are seasonal trends for
search terms: some of them are obvious and linked to
holidays such as “Christmas”, but also others less obvious
terms, linked to a longer period, like “tax return”.
KEYWORDS OPTIMIZATION
(SEARCH)
89

SEASONAL ASO
Once you find relevant keywords for your product, you can also
use them in Google Ads or Apple Search Ads search campaigns.
However, keep in mind their cost will be higher in seasonality
periods because a lot of advertisers will be bidding on these
specific keywords.
Same happens to the visual assets of your listing: creating them
with seasonality in mind can have a positive impact on
Conversion Rate to download. If, for example, you want your
app to rank for the Black Friday campaign, you can accompany
your keywords strategy with a screenshots update, with visual
elements such as discount percentages, or even with an app
icon update with some graphic elements that allows users to
understand that if they download the app, they will find
VISUAL ASSETS OPTIMIZATION
- CONVERSION RATE
discounts related to this campaign.
(*) Did you know that in Mexico, Black Friday is not celebrated but “Buen Fin”
(Good End) is?
90

SEASONAL ASO
In the following graph extracted from Google Trends we can view how relative search popularity from “buen fin” (in red) in
Mexico is indefinitely superior to that of “black friday” (in blue), and the periods for both searches do not match 100%.
5 may. 2019 8 sept. 2019
75
100
50
25
0
buen finblack friday
91

ASO CHECKLIST
Identify your keywords list and broaden it with keyword
suggestions to get mid and long-tail keywords to rank for.
Add one or two Top Keywords to your App Name / Title
together with the brand name. This will help your app to
start being visible on the stores (Search).
Use an ASO tool, such as TheTool, to track keywords in
Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Select the ones
with the highest traﬃc and the lowest degree of
competition.
Analyze your competitors’ apps and take a look at their
user reviews to ﬁnd more keywords and ideas to
implement to improve user experience.
01 04
Use Short and Long Description (Google Play), Subtitle
and Keywords Field (App Store) to add keywords to reach
the most common terms searched by user.
0502
03
93

Spend time to create the perfect icon: try with different
background colors, apply unique identifying elements
within your category and make it different from those of
your competitors. It is really important to work with a
strong brand identity within your app’s visual assets.
Create an engaging video and add it to your listing, the
first seconds are crucial!
Make the most out of all the available screenshots and
use short and direct sentences as well as Call To Action
(CTA) to catch the attention of the users that arrive to the
store listing.
06 09
07
Show your app’s best features in the 2 first screenshots
and in the first autoplay video.08
Use real images of your app’s interface and encourage
users to download it with a Call To Action highlighting
your product’s benefits.
10
Do A / B Testing in all the visual elements to identify the
best option to get the best CvR (Conversion Rate) to
download and / or visibility.
11
ASO CHECKLIST
94

Encourage users to post positive feedback (ratings and
reviews), identify loyal users and motivate them to rate
your app at the right moment (“sweet moments”).
Listen to users and use their feedback to improve your
product and / or identify bugs that your app might be
experiencing in some mobile devices or software
versions.
12
Provide your users with a Customer Service page or a
Support chat to avoid negative feedbacks in your app
listing and oﬀer them individualized and customized
assistance.
13
Reply to negative reviews quickly so that users can change
their feedback and increase your store public average
rating.
14
15
Update your app frequently, at least once a month.
16
Get backlinks from webs to your store listing in Google
Play Store and Apple App Store to increase its visibility in
web search rankings and in ASO ranking in Google Play.
17
ASO CHECKLIST
95

Localize your app listing, and if the conversion works,
think about localizing all the content of your app as long
as the product allows it. For example, a content app or a
game with lots of texts.
18
The main ASO KPIs are the organic downloads and the
revenue.19
ASO is a process that needs to be monitored and
optimized steadily!20
ASO CHECKLIST
96

OUR TEAM
DANIEL PERIS
CEO
MIRIAM PELÁEZ
CMO & Co-founder
FRAN LÓPEZ
COO
RUBÉN BAQUERO
CTO
JUANMA CANO
Head of Growth & UA
DIDAC ESTEBAN
Front-End web developer
ALEJANDRO MELERO
ASO Specialist
FRANCESCA JOELE
Mobile Account Manager
GABI BAELLA
ASO Senior
JUAN SÁNCHEZ
Back-End Developer & IT
ANTONIO RABANERA
Mobile Account Manager
DANIEL FLORES
Growth & UA Specialist
MAURICIO AWAK
Art Director
CRIKY PÉREZ
Creative Marketing Manager
JORDI BERTRÁN
Graphic Designer
MAUD PANIER
Comms & Events Manager
BORJA GARCÍA-PEÑA
ASO Specialist
CARLOS PÉREZ
ASO Specialist
ALEX HOSTALET
Motion Designer
XAVI PASCUAL
UX/UI Designer &
Front-End Developer
97

ASO Guide 2020 - App Store Optimization Manual by PICKASO & thetool

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ASO Guide 2020 - App Store Optimization Manual by PICKASO & thetool