App Store Optimization is a key factor in getting organic traffic for apps today. It requires effort to execute perfectly and gain valuable results on rankings. The other important thing is ASO will not be enough to have impactful results. It’s needed to be supported by other marketing channels as well.

App Store Optimization is a cycle that requires improvement consistently. A regular check on apps, their performances, rankings, keywords, and competitors are important parts of the job. Otherwise, when it’s just left alone, it will not give you the best result.

So we know there are key strategies to apply when it comes to a good ASO, but also there are some common mistakes that every brand or app publisher does at least once. To prevent those mistakes, we gathered a few of them together. Let’s check!

1. Leaving ASO to developers

There are still a few companies make their developers do the ASO but that’s not really efficient. First things first, the developers' job is to write the code not marketing the app. As ASO is a part of marketing, it should be defined as a growth channel for the app. Randomly placed keywords are inefficient and also may cause a decrease in the rankings. Give the job to the experts and make everyone do their own professions.

2. Putting only branded keywords to the keyword field

App Store traffic mostly comes from the most relevant keywords with your app. If you only use branded keywords you’ll miss out on the ones that didn’t meet you before. For big brands, it’s inevitable to include branded keywords. On the other hand, generic ones should be in the keyword field for the best optimization and results. As a result, it's critical to monitor search queries on a frequent basis and utilize both branded and non-branded keywords, especially in highly competitive sectors.

3. Considering that ASO is a one time job

Another common mistake is seeing ASO as a one-time job. But it’s obviously not. As we mentioned at the beginning of our article, ASO requires continuous improvement and always keeping an eye on the competitors. You may need months of testing to gain visibility and improve your conversion rates. To make the best ASO, define long-term goals but realistic and work on them. Make the ASO process part of the app’s pre-launch strategy. Because ranking, visibility, and organic growth take time, so planning it will save your time.

4. Assuming that App Store and Google play are working the same

Considering that the same strategies you apply on App Store will work on Google Play is a huge mistake. As they are two different marketplaces with different algorithms, there are lots of things that you need to do differently. Each market’s rules, ranking factors, and even users profiles are different from each other. Not just ASO but also app marketing activities should be determined specifically for each of them. Just to give you a simple example, in the App Store keywords are important to get a good ranking, however, in Google Play there is no keyword field. That’s a simple fact to not apply the same strategies for two different places.

5. Being okay with the poor ratings and reviews

Ratings and reviews are the strongest factors of a user’s decision-making process to download an app. Leaving the product page with bad reviews is giving people a reason not to install your app. Poor ratings and reviews affect badly ranking since people will leave after seeing that your app is not worth downloading. It’s not only causing to lose users but also lowering conversion rates and decrease your app’s visibility. To prevent that, hear what users say, improve your product and find a way to increase your reviews especially good ones.

Tips to improve ASO:

  • Plan: Create monthly - yearly ASO plans that include testing and regular updates. Set realistic goals and follow your plan according to them. Your goals and KPIs should be connected to each other so when you complete one step, you can head it to another one.
  • Research: As research gets extensive, new ways will be discovered. Benchmarking with competitors, following up the trends and charts, exploring new markets, and tracking the keywords changes bring more value to the product and ease its marketing effort.
  • Learn: Not every app performs the same, so regularly reviewing the app analytics will give you hints for how to move forward. Check every step and define your next move according to it. Don’t apply the same rules for every app.

Avoid these mistakes to be able to identify and correct faults in your existing ASO technique, as well as maybe build a new approach that can enhance your app store ranking and increase installations.