Before starting your competitor analysis, it is important to consider some factors that determine the competitors you select for your benchmark. This step is very important because there is a big field in this marketplace and you should be aware of what is around you for your success.
You also need to set an ASO strategy to increase search and browse visibility, before launching and publishing to stores, and for that, researching your competition is essential. Now you may be wondering what you need to consider when choosing your competitors?
Define your marketplace: Google Play, Apple Appstore or Both
You need to choose your store depending on your competitors are which marketplace. It can be the App Store, Google Play store, or both of them at the same time. You should track your competitor’s availability in the above stores.
Determine your product clearly
It is the main thing to know your product deeply and express every little detail clearly. Remember, if you know your product better it will be easier to determine your competitors. What does your product do? What benefit will people get from your product? You can write down questions and clarify your product for the first step.
Check your targeted markets
You should be aware that the market helps you to reach a volume of several users who will be good for your benefit. Your competitors will vary depending on which countries your app is available in. It's pointless to pick an app as a competitor if it's only available in England and yours is only available in Italy because they don't compete for downloads.
This isn't to say you can't use how your vertical works in other nations as a guide. It's always beneficial to be aware of what's being done in other areas to gain a better understanding of how they handle keywords, graphic designs, and other facets of ASO. You need to understand the market and users very clearly to reach success.
Know your level of growth
Understand the importance of avoiding comparing your work to that of others. we all made the mistake of comparing our brand new app to those companies that have consistently ranked at the top over time. Know that you will have to compare yourself to a competition that is on the same level as you. Analyze what they're doing better than you, and then take action by putting your findings into action.
Once you've reached your goal of a large number of visitors in a specific category, strive to take a step further by switching your opponent. This can improve your application's productivity and earnings.
After completing these above steps we can continue choosing our ASO competitors.
How to choose ASO competitors?
a) Start with Keywords research
Begin by selecting 5 to 10 main keywords that you believe define the business of your product. Take into account that app store users' search behavior differs from that of the web – keywords are typically shorter/mid-tail than long tail.
Once you have them, search for them on Google Play, the App Store, or both (depending on the field of your app) and identify the first competitors for each keyword you searched.
Identifying potential competitors in the category you wish to rank in on the stores is another way. There are many solutions on the market to do so, and if you don't know where to start, App Annie is a good place to start: create a free account and obtain insights into the Top Charts area by category and nation.
b) Analyze your competitors’ ASO
If you made it this far, you must already be aware of certain apps that could be competitors. Now is the time to begin screening.
Enter the complete list of competitors. What you need to consider now is if the on-metadata textual elements, particularly the Title and Short Description, are optimized for keywords (on Google Play, on the App Store the equivalents are the App Name and the Subtitle). Check to see if they utilize relevant keywords in these categories and if they use near to the maximum number of characters in each - if they don't, they either didn't consider ASO or they place a high value on the brand.
It's much better if you have access to an ASO tool like App Radar because you can track the keywords in these fields and measure their search traffic. It will not only check whether or not your competitors have updated their listings, but it will also assist you in identifying new keywords for which your app could rank. Two for the price of one!
c) Analyze app installs, ratings & reviews
After you've narrowed down the competitors who work in your category and have good ASO optimization, the final (and most important) step is to look at their downloads and growth, average rating, accumulated rating volume, reviews (to see what strengths and weaknesses users have mentioned), app weight, and update frequency.
We previously stated that it was critical to consider your app's ability to compete against major market players. This is where you can be certain of it by looking at the overall number of downloads and the cumulative ratings of possible competitors. These metrics are approximated in the store listings on Google Play and the App Store.
