The Complete App Store Optimization Guide 2 PDF

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO
APP STORE
OPTIMIZATION
TO INCREASE YOUR APP’S DOWNLOADS
Buy and Sell Ready Made Apps and Games

SUMMARY
AN INTRODUCTION TO ASO, THE SEO

FOR APPS
GETTING YOUR APP FOUND
KEYWORDS
APP DESCRIPTION AND TITLE
REVIEWS
A POWERFUL MARKET RESEARCH PROCESS

IN 5 STEPS
THE ASO APPROACH
WHO IS RANKING?
ARE THOSE APPS ALIVE?
READING USER ENGAGEMENT
CAN YOU COMPETE?
ASO FOR RESKINNERS: EASIER THAN YOU

THINK
THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS TO CHOOSE

YOUR KEYWORDS CORRECTLY
STEP 1 – PREPARE YOUR EXCEL SHEET
STEP 2 – BRAINSTORM KEYWORDS
STEP 3 – ANALYZE YOUR KEYWORDS
STEP 4 – SPY ON YOUR COMPETITORS’ KEY-
WORDS
STEP 5 – SELECTING THE BEST KEYWORDS
THE ROI OF APP STORE OPTIMIZATION

WHY ROI MATTERS
ASSESS THE REAL ROI OF ASO
ASO AND MARKET RESEARCH AS ONE
ASO FOR IOS OR ANDROID: WHERE SHOULD YOU
START?
THE CHICKEN AND THE EGG DILEMMA
WHY TO START WITH GOOGLE PLAY
TRUST GOOGLE BEFORE AN ASO TOOL
THE COMPLETE APP STORE OPTIMIZATION GUIDE
AN INTRODUCTION
TO ASO, THE SEO
FOR APPS
By now, an overwhelming number of you have already heard the term
SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Many of you may have a solid un-
derstanding of what SEO means. While SEO strengthens and optimizes
your ranking in Google and the other search engines, App Store Optimi-
zation does what?? You got it. It optimizes your app’s presence in the
App stores. You could call them not-too-distant cousins.
Similar to the various elements found within SEO such as header, sub-
title, and body, there are elements such as app icon, app description,
and app screenshots that strengthen your app store presence. Both the
Google Play Store and Apple App Store have a few unique best practices
for ASO, but the majority are the same.
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With literally millions of apps in the app store, you really need to make
your app stand out. Sure, if you have a budget you can run a burst cam-
paign or do one of the many forms of paid promotion. But, in addition to
being a key part of app marketing, ASO can help your app generate more
organic installs, making your business more sustainable.
GETTING YOUR APP FOUND

It is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to find your
app. The competition is fierce, but you shouldn’t let that dis-
suade you from putting some time into ASO. If you put some
effort into constantly adjusting and monitoring your success in
the app store, it could yield a massive pay off.
Let’s take a look at a few of the most important elements you should pay
attention to in your ASO efforts.
KEYWORDS
Just like optimizing your content with keywords, you need to choose the
keywords that will push your app to the top of the app store ranks. What’s
more, you should speak in the language of your target audience(s). A
good app store description depends heavily on your research: you need
to know what keywords customers use to find apps like yours. You could
call it App Store SEO. Later, we will later dig deeper into the keyword
search.
APP DESCRIPTION AND TITLE

It is important to have not only your app description contain the stron-
gest keywords (this impacts only for Android ASO) you have found, but
also your title. Writing a message that is catchy, clear, and sticks out in
your visitor’s mind is key. You want users to read your app description,
check your colorful and clear app icon, and browse your captivating app
screenshots. Hopefully, this will inspire them to download your app.
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REVIEWS
You should be encouraging users to submit reviews about your app. This
is a great place for all you app marketers, developers, and appreneurs to
see what others are saying about your app. It will also allow you to take
this information and refine your app as needed.
App Store Optimization takes some effort, but is well worth it. It needs
to be monitored and optimized with determination and enthusiasm. ASO
calls for non-stop monitoring to gauge the effectiveness of keywords
and adjusting those that are not performing well to help your app rank-
ing. Both the Apple Store and the Google Play Store require more than
just a good app description.
Definition: ASO – App Store Optimization – is a fundamental marketing

strategy to maximize the exposure of your app on the Apple Store and
Google Play Store. Through research and analysis, and adapting your
creativity and experience, you will optimize your keywords in order to
improve your positioning in the search results. Without ASO, your pro-
motional app activity is incomplete.
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A POWERFUL MARKET
RESEARCH PROCESS
IN 5 STEPS
We tend to avoid talking about failures. Failures are preliminary steps to
success. Think of NASA. How many rockets have crashed? How many
failed attempts before that memorable day where Neil Armstrong first
stepped on the moon?
It’s basically impossible to succeed on the first try; even mega-corpora-

tions have epic failures. Apple has failed, Sony has failed, Microsoft has
failed. Failure brings us closer to understanding what the market really
wants.
The problem is when we believe we know the market, when we think “we
are the market.”
Complaining about the market is like complaining about the behavior of

marine life, or the migration of birds. It’s out of your control.
As an appreneur, your job is to find the patterns in what the market wants.
This is a difficult process because we are human, so we have egos and
we want to be right all the time!
Our own need to be right makes us blind to new opportunities. If we told

l you a puzzle app that teaches you how to learn Russian would be a hit
with kids from 4 to 9 in the German App store…you might call us crazy,
but that’s the point: you need to find crazy ideas.
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Crazy ideas are the ones that make a killing, and they usually make a kill-
ing because we are all too busy following trends that have a limited life
span. That’s why ASO is so important.
THE ASO APPROACH

When we--appreneurs--do ASO, we usually start with a blank canvas.
We approach the research process as an opportunity to learn. You need
to find keywords, analyze the competition, and try to understand why
some apps do well and why others don’t.
This is when ASO should start: the moment where we look at a blank
canvas and we let go of our feelings, our emotions, our ego, tackling the
research process as a CSI of apps.
We don’t want our “feelings” or our “instincts” to determine if a niche or

a topic is a good one because they are usually wrong.
Instead we want to follow a systematic approach to market research. For

that we want to answer the following five questions:
1. Who is ranking in this topic? What are their download rankings

and how long have they been ranking?
2. If they are ranking, are there more apps in the same niche? How
are the other apps doing?
3. Are the top apps being downloaded? Are they being updated?
How many reviews do they have?
4. How engaged are the users? What do the reviews really tell us
about those apps? And what do the reviews tell us about the
users of those apps?
5. Can we compete? Can we find a code we can use to tackle that
niche? Can we bring something valuable to the niche?
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WHO IS RANKING?
It’s important to know what type of app publishers rank in top positions.
Are they big publishers? Are they reskinners? Are they indie developers?
How are their rankings in the App Store? Can we use App Annie to ana-
lyze how well they have done in past months?
What are similar apps doing?
If there is money in an area, you will find more than one app. So which
are the other ones? Are they new-comers? Are they good? You are try-
ing to understand how strong they really are and, by downloading them
and analyzing their rankings, you can clearly understand what you can
expect if you manage to achieve a similar ranking.
ARE THOSE APPS ALIVE?

Reviews and updates of an app’s critical data help us know if people
are downloading, using, and liking it. More importantly, updates show
whether or not the app publisher is alive. Finding a seemingly great niche
where we see apps with no updates can tell us the publisher quit or lost
hope. Was it not worth it? Was there no revenue?
All these factors are important to understand and analyze.
READING USER ENGAGEMENT
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When you read reviews, you can understand what the users want that
those apps are failing to deliver and therefore start to understand the
market.
Give the users what they want in the fastest and easiest way you can.
You don’t need to create an app with a thousand of different features.
Keep it simple! Make an app that performs one task, but that performs
it right.
CAN YOU COMPETE?

This is an important question and, in many cases, the answer may be no.
If your answer is no, congrats! The best market research is honest. If you
believe you don’t have the resources, or can’t produce an app that can
compete in that niche, it’s better to move on and find a different market.
Market research is not about finding winners all the time; it’s about natu-
ral selection, about choosing fights wisely. Boxers don’t fight for the belt
every weekend; but they do practice daily.
If you want to find those golden markets, you need to study the market
research daily. And for this you need to be curious and ask questions.
and before you laugh about a niche, stop for two seconds, launch an
analytical tool, and really look at those apps with a different perspective:
• Are they successful?

• Why do they exist?
• What was the research the original developer did before launching
the app?
Sometimes, by asking the right questions, we find answers that take us

down the rabbit hole. Those moments are where you can find amazing
topics, wonderful markets, and golden app profit opportunities.
Be foolish, keep reskinning, continue digging, and eventually you will succeed.
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ASO FOR
RESKINNERS:
EASIER THAN YOU
THINK
We at Chupamobile often get the same questions from multiple
app reskinners. The most-asked question is usually the wrong
question: how do I choose the right code for ASO purposes?
This question never has a straight answer because choosing
the code should never be the first step in the process of ASO
for reskinners. Reskinners have many advantages over indie
developers.
The world is their oyster. They can choose any range of codes in differ-
ent platforms to reskin…their only task is to find an angle. Knowing your
niche and then finding an app code that can adapt to your needs is not
difficult. The problem comes when app reskinners over-complicate strat-
egies, saturate their brains with theories, and forget that ASO is like any
normal market research process: simple.
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THE STEP-BY-STEP
PROCESS TO CHOOSE
YOUR KEYWORDS
CORRECTLY
ASO–App Store Optimization–is a fundamental marketing strategy to
maximize the exposure of your app on the Apple Store and Google Play
Store. Through research and analysis, and adapting your creativity and
experience, you can optimize your keywords in order to improve your
positioning in the search results. Without ASO, your promotional app
activity is incomplete.
Before moving on, let’s consider one simple statistic which reinforces the
importance of ASO. As stated at the World Wide Developer Conference
(WWDC) on September 9th, 2014, there are now over 1.3 million apps
on the Apple Store (and approximately the same number on the Google
Play Store). It is getting harder every day to compete in the rankings, es-
pecially considering that, according to VentureBeat.com, roughly 60,000
apps are uploaded exclusively on the Apple App Store every month.
Today, we will focus on how to choose and optimize your keywords.

There are two distinct ways to reference your app with the help of key-
words: (1) app name and (2) keywords (see table below for Apple Store
and Google Play Store characteristics):
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STEP 1 – PREPARE YOUR EXCEL SHEET

Open a blank Excel sheet and name your columns accordingly: Key-
word, ST Traffic, ST Difficulty (iPhone), ST Difficulty (Android), Google
Traffic, Google Difficulty, iPhone Apps, iPad Apps, and Android Apps.
On the right hand side of your Excel sheet, input these three words: App
name, Keywords and Keyword length (add the formula =LEN(x) to sum
the keyword characters).
ST is the abbreviation for Sensor Tower – a App Marketing and Mobile

SEO Keyword platform. This document covers the use of Sensor Tower
to analyze your keywords; however, AppAnnie, Localytics, AppMind and
MobileDevHQ can serve the same purpose.
Using ST, you will monitor the traffic intensity and the difficulty level for
each keyword on the different mobile devices, as well as on Google
Search–since users also search for apps on the internet. The last three
columns express the quantity of apps referenced for each keyword.
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STEP 2 – BRAINSTORM KEYWORDS

Your second task is to make a list of about 30 keywords that are relevant
to your app. Your focus for now is quantitative.
We have suggested tools we encourage you to use. We do not have a
preference for one or another as they all contribute positively to your re-
search to find a diverse range of keywords. The list is below:
• Google.com Autocomplete – Visit google.com and start typing

a word. You will notice Google proposes a series of suggested
words. The suggestions are linked to the most common words
searched. Select which ones are most relevant to your app and
add them to your Excel sheet.
• App Store Search Bar – Open the App Store on your iOS or An-
droid device. As above, the search engine will suggest words
which indicate words and phrases that are most popular. You
might want to consider analyzing these further. Write them down
on your Excel sheet.
• Synonyms.net – Find alternatives to a word you have in mind.
There are a lot of great suggestions here.
• Thesaurus.com –A similar website as above, with a nice diversity
of suggested synonyms.
• Onelook Reverse Dictionary – Another great resource with count-
less suggestions.
• Amazon.com – Visit amazon.com, type in the category of your
app, and filter by bestsellers. You will see which products sell the
most, and therefore will be able to select the most relevant key-
words that describe your app. There is a high chance that this
word is well ranked on ST.
• Searchman.com – A similar service to the one offered by ST (called
‘Keyword Spy’), Searchman.com allows you to enter a competi-
tor’s app and monitor the keywords used. Write down the ones
you believe best fit your app.
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Remember when using these resources, relevance is the most important

criteria when choosing your keywords. Put yourself in the shoes of your
potential user and start thinking about the technical terms, abbreviations
and phrases they might use. Once you have completed your list of key-
words, you are ready to move on to the next step.
STEP 3 – ANALYZE YOUR KEYWORDS

It is time to select the keywords that you are going to use for your app
name and for your keywords. Your focus will shift to a qualitative analy-
sis. Similar to the keywords used for SEO, the keywords used for ASO
are evaluated using the following criteria:
1. Traffic–the number of users who search an app using that key-

word.
2. Difficulty–the number of apps that are referenced using that key-
word.
At this point, two other criteria have to be taken into consideration: traffic
and difficulty. The more a keyword generates traffic, the more reason to
include that keyword in your list. However, the more apps referenced for
that keyword, the harder it will be climb the rankings.
Therefore, it is important to consider both variables when choosing your

keywords. To remain competitive, you should select the keywords that
have a high traffic and a low difficulty. As specified earlier, the quality is
nevertheless important so stick to keywords that are relevant to your
app. The tool we will use today to evaluate your keywords is called Sen-
sor Tower.
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Follow these simple steps:
1. Create yourself an account on Sensor Tower if you haven’t yet

done so;
2. Once logged in, move your mouse on the left hand side and a
slide menu will appear–click on ‘Keyword rankings’;
3. You will be prompt to insert an app. Since this step cannot be
avoided, simply search an app you know well (perhaps in the
same category of your current app) and select it–we will consider
this app later on;
4. Now you are asked to input your keywords. Import the ones in
your Excel sheet with a comma to separate each keyword;
5. Scroll down. You will see your list of keywords with all the data
relevant to it;
6. Simply copy & paste the data in your Excel sheet.
Now, analyze how your keywords are referenced on Google using Google
Keyword Planner. Visit the website and sign into your Google Account.
Then simply import your keywords all at once, separated by commas,
and input the relevant data into your Excel sheet.
Once you have input all the data in your Excel sheet for all the keywords,
you are ready to carry your qualitative analysis one step further.
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Start by highlighting in green all the keywords you believe are worth
keeping. To help you evaluate this, select all keywords which have a traf-
fic level above 5.5 and a difficulty level which doesn’t exceed the traffic
indicator.
When this is done, you need to refine your list further by taking into con-
sideration the last three columns: iPhone Apps, iPad Apps, and Android
Apps. As specified earlier, these columns express the quantity of apps
on the app store listed for each keyword. Here, the objective is to aim
for keywords that have a low competition, hence, a low quantity of apps
listed for the keyword. An acceptable number defining low competition is
1,000 and below. However, do not limit yourself to this. Exceptions exist
when comparing the figures with the other columns. Imagine you have
a keyword which has a traffic indicator of 8.5 (out of 10). Since this indi-
cates a high traffic, you can base yourself on a higher competition level
of 3,000 apps for example.
Your job now is to clean your list of keywords which you highlighted in
green. You can use the numbers mentioned above as a guideline to se-
lecting your keywords. When this is done, perform one last task before
moving on. Choose a few competitor apps which we will track now.
To do this, go to ST and click on “Keyword rankings” on the left hand

side of the web page. Then, look on the right hand side–you will notice
a column of apps. These apps are the top ranking apps that are listed
for the keyword you selected below. Scroll down and click on another
keyword to see which apps rank highest for the new keyword selected. If
you want to add more keywords, simply scroll all the way down and click
on the green button “Add New Keyword.”
Use this process to discover which apps are ranked the highest for each
of your chosen keywords. Copy and paste 5 apps onto your note pad.
You are now ready to move on to the next step.
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Tip: While researching for long tail keywords as reskinners, you will
stumble with keywords that may bring potential NEW topics and po-
tential new reskins. Don’t forget to keep a mental note of keywords that
have large traffic and low competition. Those are the opportunities to
explore in the future.
STEP 4 – SPY ON YOUR COMPETITORS’ KEYWORDS

An extended strategy to optimize your keywords is discovering the key-
words of your competitors.
You are able to search the competitor app using Searchman.com as well
as the ‘Keyword Spy’ tool on ST. Here, you will discover the keywords
used for the selected app. This is a great way to find new keywords.
Search the name of your competitor app and immediately see which
keywords the app is using. If you discover some new interesting key-
words, add them to your Excel sheet and fill in the data.
When you believe you have a complete list of keywords, it is time to se-
lect the best ones. Read on to discover how you do this.
Keep in mind: Apple may reject those “golden” keywords that every
single reskinner on the planet is targeting, making you lose time and en-
ergy during your research. And if that weren’t enough, those keywords
can eventually be copyrighted and Apple may simply delete them quietly
without any rejection or notification.
Tip: Target the smart competitor; in other words, the app that enjoys a
very healthy ranking and traffic in silence. We are not talking about
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Flappy Bird or the latest number 1 trend. We are talking about those
quiet achievers in top 50 to 100 that have been there for years making a
profit month after month. Those apps have fans, a reputation and popu-
lar search terms. Using those keywords can be smarter than going for
the ultra-mega popular keyword.
STEP 5 – SELECTING THE BEST KEYWORDS

It is now the moment to decide which keywords will build your app name
and which ones will be your keywords.
Scroll up again to check what the character limit is so you avoid selecting
too many words and having your app rejected during submission.
Regarding the app name, I suggest you use the main keywords that best
describe your app. After your icon, your potential user will look at your
app name so it is vital for it to be relevant. You do not want to mislead
your potential user in an app that does not meet his/her expectations.
You are simply losing potential users and therefore downloads. You need
to be descriptive in your app name. Avoid using undescriptive words, for
example: “a”, “the” and “is.”
Tip: If you have selected some keywords that score high in difficulty,
place one or two in your app name. Why? Because the keywords in the
app name are given more importance and weight in the keyword search
algorithm. This will increase your chances to compete and succeed in
the ‘ASO battle.’ Use another color to highlight the keywords that you
will include in your app name.
Regarding the keywords you highlighted in green, make sure you take
advantage of the maximum characters allowed and fill up the character
19
limit. Select the words that you believe are most relevant and start com-
posing your selection by adding them next to the cell called “Keywords”
on the right hand side of your Excel sheet. Separate every word by a
comma without any space in between. Refer to the cell below to count
the number of characters you are using.
Tip: Coming up with 100 characters for Apple is not easy, especially
when you could have come up with 500. Choose wisely and keep a re-
cord of those that you decided against. And don’t forget, a “no” can
potentially become a “yes” in the future, either as a second app or in the
next update--or in this specific case, for another app or reskin.
Congratulations! You finally have a quality App Name and Keywords. You
are ready to submit your metadata on the app store.
STEP 6 – POST SUBMISSION: TRACK YOUR APP ON

SENSOR TOWER
When your app is published on the Store, find your app on ST and start
monitoring your keywords. The last two columns in the “keyword rank-
ings” section are the most interesting to analyze. Scroll down. You will
see where your app is ranking compared to the total number of apps
listed for each keyword. This indicates whether or not your app has a
chance of being seen. Your aim is to have your app within the top 10
apps listed for each keyword. Obviously, this is not an easy task so even
if you are in the Top 50, you should be satisfied. If not, your app has very
little chance of being seen and therefore downloaded.
It is important you keep an eye on this information in order to keep opti-

mizing your ASO–we suggest you update your keywords every 30 days.
This gives the time for your app to stabilize for the keyword used so you
can properly measure if the keyword is worth keeping or not.
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Keep in mind: A big advantage you have is that you can select what
code to reskin based on the keywords you want to target. This is what
makes reskinning and ASO so interesting; you have the option to choose
the code based on your keyword research, while normal developers
don’t have that luxury.
It is important you spend time on your ASO. Finding keywords that score
well in traffic and difficulty ratings is not easy. You will be surprised about
how some words that are barely used have a high traffic! When you find
one of these, you definitely want to consider including it in your app
name or keywords. Use an Excel sheet to organize your keywords and
input the data to draw your conclusions on which keywords you are go-
ing to use. Differentiate your app name and your keywords with two dif-
ferent colors. You need to track your keyword performance, using Sen-
sor Tower or another platform, and update your keywords every 30 days
by resubmitting a new binary to the Store. This is vital to keep your ASO
updated and optimized.
Keep in mind: Reskinning gives you a big advantage. The more apps,
the more data you accumulate, and that means the more opportunities
you have to find those golden keywords that the one-time app developer
has no idea they even existed.
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THE ROI OF APP

STORE OPTIMIZATION
WHY ROI MATTERS
ROI is one of the most important concepts for any company in the world.
McDonald’s, insurance companies, Ferrari, and Nike all consider ROI
when developing products.
It’s an easy concept to understand, but appreneurs seem to ignore it

when building apps.
App development is not easy, (although strategies like reskinning have

decreased the costs dramatically), but we believe a huge percentage of
developers and app publishers fail to measure the exact return of invest-
ment of their efforts.
What kind of return on investment do you obtain from coding? Design?

Market research? Testing? Debugging? Marketing?
Clearly this is not an easy question to answer. Appreneurs tend to con-

sider many of these tasks as “the app process,” but what exactly brings
you the best return on investment of your time?
Did you guess the app development? Good answer! Without devel-
opment there is no app, but if nobody downloads your app then what
happens to your business? Won’t your investment in development be
at risk? If you want to decrease risks without compromising your apps
quality, think outside the box: customize ready-made app templates.
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ASSESS THE REAL ROI OF ASO

ASO is the ugly duckling of App marketing and appreneurs haven’t given
it the respect it deserves. ASO is one of the smartest strategies for a
positive ROI on app development.
ASO is a strategy that guarantees that the app you are developing will
have a place in the target market.
Developing an App without marketing research makes no sense. But

any professional market research, that seriously considers variables like
competition levels, market difficulty, keyword popularity and category
trends, needs to use ASO as a way to come up with professional find-
ings. Imagine that you develop an app blindly. An app that you “think”
might work. Sounds familiar?
Many of us had those “feelings” and many of those “feelings” lead us to

develop apps that fail dramatically. These failed apps may have random
names or strange topics. We believe these apps are cool but we don’t
know if the world will think they are cool.
These are the apps that end up in sad blog posts where indie developers
write about their failure: How I spend thousands of hours developing an
app and I just made $40 in the first week.
These are sad stories of poor indie developers who are frustrated with
the evil rules of the app store.
But before we claim the app store is broken we should ask ourselves: Is
the app store broken or is our approach to app development and produc-
tion broken?
If we open a Russian restaurant in the middle of Tanzania expecting to
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become the next McDonald’s, the world will call us crazy.
Who will go to your restaurant? Who wants Russian food in the middle
of Tanzania?
If we are willing to criticize an “offline” business for their lack of market

research, why not do the same with the app industry?
ASO AND MARKET RESEARCH AS ONE

A more complex app store brings more challenging barriers for appre-
neurs. And discoverability is a HUGE ONE.
App publishers are happy to spend weeks testing and debugging; but
the idea of market research, app store optimization, and metadata test-
ing and tracking are considered “one of those things” marketers do.
Real developers only develop games they love, right? Maybe that’s why
so many developers are not finding success.
A lack of research in any business is an expensive mistake. How many

app failures can any app publisher afford? If we take in consideration the
financial expense of failing in our app business, and we quantify our time
and resources spent in apps that never take the ground, we will come to
an interesting conclusion. It’s cheaper to invest in strategies to help us
avoid failure rather than trying to develop another app.
The answer: Slow down. Re-consider ASO.
We know many of you do ASO daily, but what if we are looking at ASO
as a solution to fix our broken apps, and not as the tool to guarantee our
app success?
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With the huge number of apps being published, the user, the everyday
gamer, and the app consumer are becoming smarter, faster, and more
aware of what they want.
So why we don’t try to understand the user behavior, why not spend
more time going deeper into how niches behave and how to really ap-
proach our app development?
ASO is not about being number 1. In fact, asking ASO to bring you in the
top position is like asking SEO to make you number 1 on Google.
ASO and SEO, or any other process that has the word “optimization” in
it, is a process to hopefully bring a brighter financial future to your apps.
Using ASO tools allows you to understand your audience. Gathering data
about traffic volume, competition, and difficulty increases your probabili-
ties of making smarter decisions and wiser investments before starting
your app development.
Remember: It’s easier to prevent a problem than to fix one. It’s easier to
do market research than to understand why the market is not responding
to your app.
Marketing is never guaranteed, and ASO will never take you to the top
by itself, but if you apply it, invest in your own education, and realize it
takes time to understand your audience, you will find out why ASO is
the smartest financial decision your app business can take.
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ASO FOR IOS OR

ANDROID: WHERE
SHOULD YOU START?
THE CHICKEN AND THE EGG DILEMMA
Let’s move on to why it’s important to consider which platform you should
do ASO for first.
Before we start with the considerations, we need to refresh our under-

standing of the differences between the two app stores regarding how
their algorithms work.
To make things easier to understand, let’s highlight that Google Play only
works on keywords inside the description of the app page whereas Ap-
ple only considers title and keywords in the meta section.
In other words, Apple will look at your keywords in the meta section of
iTunes connect. With those keywords, you can rank for a series of po-
tential combinations.
The ranking for Google Play is more complex, the keywords are “part of
the content” and therefore there are a series of factors that make a dif-
ference in the ranking:
• Keyword density
• Context of the keyword vs. the content
• Content length
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Our purpose is not to explore Google Play in depth, but to consider why
you may want to start your ASO process with Google Play vs. Apple.
The first point to understand is that ASO tools are not very good at pro-
viding data for Google Play. Despite this, it seems nobody is willing to
point out this huge hole that ASO tools fail to patch.
The reason why ASO tools are not brave enough to dive into the Google
arena is because they can’t really tell us anything “amazing” “or “ex-
tremely unique” about Google Play that we can’t witness ourselves.
Under Apple, ASO tools can tell us amazing data that we can’t prove.
Can you prove how popular one keyword is in the Apple App Store?
No, you can’t.
Therefore, the relationship between developers and ASO tools have re-
garding Apple data can be strained.
Google is so honest that doing ASO is a pleasure, but at the same time
makes it pretty confusing initially. Google gives us everything we need.
We can see the number of downloads of each app in the top positions
so developers can see if a keyword delivers downloads or not. If you be-
lieve a keyword is “the next big thing” and you see that the top position
in Google Play has from 50 to 100 downloads after 6 months… it’s time
to think again.
The most obvious factor with Google Play is that the keywords are right
there. There is no need for mega amazing keyword spy systems! Your
only requirement is some brain cells to find what keywords they are tar-
geting in the content. Easy.
27
WHY TO START WITH GOOGLE PLAY
No UI (user interface) of any ASO tool is going to highlight anomalies or

unusual results as easily as you can identify them using the App Store.
Second, you can use Google Play flawlessly from your browser, making
it easy to move from app to app and gather data.
Finally, the auto-suggest feature of Google Play will provide you with
the first batch of potential keywords you can start using to build your
spreadsheet of potential long tail keywords. In a very fast and efficient
way you can test how popular the top ranking apps are.
TRUST GOOGLE BEFORE AN ASO TOOL

If the ASO tool has correct data, a popular keyword on Google play
should be popular on iOS.
And the reason is not a technical one. It’s a human one.
App Store Optimization is more about humans, emotion, and weird be-
haviors. For example, looking for something in the app store at 2am or
when our kids are screaming at the airport, “I want the iPad!”
The typical search in the App Store is quick and emotional rather than
analytical; it keeps the same constant variables, so behavior doesn’t
change much from one store to another.
You may think that this statement is wrong, but when a user changes
from iOS to Android, for instance, their search patterns are still the same.
28
A device doesn’t change our search behavior. Therefore, it’s important to

find patterns when we start our ASO process.
Our suggestion is to always start any ASO research directly

in Google Play. And before you protest, “But hey! I don’t have
apps in Google Play!”, let us ask you a question: who cares?
Who cares that you use a different app store to find ideas that has the
same type of users, demographics, behavior, age, and irrational pat-
terns?
Google Play is a wealth of information, full of opportunities to browse its

pages and spy on its competitors. Google Play lets you analyze catego-
ries, provides you all the data you need, and the best part (the best part!)
is that this awesome tool for market research is FREE.
Instead of wondering about the mysteries of Apple, embrace the open-

ness of Google.
Good luck!
29
BUILD THE APP OF
YOUR DREAMS
Chupamobile gives you everything you need to make a stunning App
or a Game, right at your fingertips. We make it fun to create and launch
your own App, it’s hassle-free, and you don’t need any coding or de-
sign skills.
Make your App and start building your own App portfolio today, get dis-
covered in the App-Marketplaces and make money in no-time!
BROWSE OUR APP AND GAME TEMPLATES

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THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO

Buy and Sell Ready Made Apps and Games

AN INTRODUCTION TO ASO, THE SEO

A POWERFUL MARKET RESEARCH PROCESS

ASO FOR RESKINNERS: EASIER THAN YOU

THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS TO CHOOSE

THE ROI OF APP STORE OPTIMIZATION

GETTING YOUR APP FOUND

APP DESCRIPTION AND TITLE

Definition: ASO – App Store Optimization – is a fundamental marketing

It’s basically impossible to succeed on the first try; even mega-corpora-

Complaining about the market is like complaining about the behavior of

Our own need to be right makes us blind to new opportunities. If we told

THE ASO APPROACH

We don’t want our “feelings” or our “instincts” to determine if a niche or

Instead we want to follow a systematic approach to market research. For

1. Who is ranking in this topic? What are their download rankings

What are similar apps doing?

ARE THOSE APPS ALIVE?

All these factors are important to understand and analyze.

READING USER ENGAGEMENT

CAN YOU COMPETE?

• Are they successful?

Sometimes, by asking the right questions, we find answers that take us

Today, we will focus on how to choose and optimize your keywords.

STEP 1 – PREPARE YOUR EXCEL SHEET

ST is the abbreviation for Sensor Tower – a App Marketing and Mobile

STEP 2 – BRAINSTORM KEYWORDS

• Google.com Autocomplete – Visit google.com and start typing

Remember when using these resources, relevance is the most important

STEP 3 – ANALYZE YOUR KEYWORDS

1. Traffic–the number of users who search an app using that key-

Therefore, it is important to consider both variables when choosing your

Follow these simple steps:

1. Create yourself an account on Sensor Tower if you haven’t yet

To do this, go to ST and click on “Keyword rankings” on the left hand

STEP 4 – SPY ON YOUR COMPETITORS’ KEYWORDS

STEP 5 – SELECTING THE BEST KEYWORDS

STEP 6 – POST SUBMISSION: TRACK YOUR APP ON

It is important you keep an eye on this information in order to keep opti-

THE ROI OF APP

It’s an easy concept to understand, but appreneurs seem to ignore it

App development is not easy, (although strategies like reskinning have

What kind of return on investment do you obtain from coding? Design?

Clearly this is not an easy question to answer. Appreneurs tend to con-

ASSESS THE REAL ROI OF ASO

Developing an App without marketing research makes no sense. But

Many of us had those “feelings” and many of those “feelings” lead us to

If we open a Russian restaurant in the middle of Tanzania expecting to

become the next McDonald’s, the world will call us crazy.

If we are willing to criticize an “offline” business for their lack of market

ASO AND MARKET RESEARCH AS ONE

A lack of research in any business is an expensive mistake. How many

The answer: Slow down. Re-consider ASO.

ASO FOR IOS OR

Before we start with the considerations, we need to refresh our under-

No, you can’t.

WHY TO START WITH GOOGLE PLAY

No UI (user interface) of any ASO tool is going to highlight anomalies or

TRUST GOOGLE BEFORE AN ASO TOOL

And the reason is not a technical one. It’s a human one.

A device doesn’t change our search behavior. Therefore, it’s important to

Our suggestion is to always start any ASO research directly