Attract more users to your app, and earn more money from them
Your app is better than your competitors’ apps, and there’s definitely demand for what it offers. Yet people aren’t downloading it as much as others, or don’t find it at all … So what can you do to bring more users, and earn more money?
Ranking highly in app store searches
Let’s assume potential users know what they are looking for and will search either the App Store (on iOS) or the Play Store (on Android). We’ll deal with other scenarios, such as how to attract people who don’t know what they’re looking for, elsewhere. For now though, how do you get to the top of the search results in the app stores?
It boils down to good experience
The stores each have their own nuances and require slightly different approaches to improving optimisation of your app. Below we explore those differences in more detail.
What makes the Google Play Store recommend an app?
Google is smart. The Play Store is a wonderful resource, containing by far the most apps of any store. It has brilliant AIs and algorithms which ensure that the genuinely great apps get pushed to the top. There’s no cheating the system: you have to work with it.
What’s important to Google is engagement. The key metric here is:
What percentage of people are still using your app after 30 days?
To Google, high user retention matters above all else. Optimisation techniques on Android are therefore focused on giving good experiences early on, ensuring there is something to come back to, and re-engaging dormant users.
What makes the Apple App Store recommend an app?
The Apple App Store is a the only source of apps on iOS, and contains arguably the highest quality apps of any store. The driving force behind it is its relatively in-depth review process. Compared to Google, it recommends apps in a more traditional fashion, being heavily influenced by user reviews and number of downloads as well as staff picks and curated sections. Optimisation techniques on iOS are therefore centred on quickly establishing yourself and gathering good reviews.
What the app stores have in common is that they cannot be bluffed. In both cases it boils down to genuinely giving your users a good experience.
So how do you provide a good experience?
This simple question hides many complexities of the fascinating and dynamic world of app optimisation, which so often pulls the rug from under you. But there is a set of principles which, in my experience, give you a very effective chance of growing your app.
Solicit feedback and reviews, and learn to read what people really mean. What’s the biggest complaint? Make regular tweaks to your app to see how feedback changes. Find out which features are used and which go unnoticed. It’ll surprise you.
Be a new user. Really stop and consider what expectations you’re setting in your app store listing. How easy is it to produce results like those shown in your screenshots? Think of the one major thing your app does and make sure you do it well. Your store listing should show people what that is, and your app should ensure users can get the same result.
Earn more for each user, and ensure your audience is as wide as possible
Successful monetisation is always a balance between earning as much as you can, and putting people off (e.g. by high prices or intrusive ads). Track where you lose customers, and try out different pricing or strategies. And ensure that your app flow directs people to what earns you the most.
Finally, consider technical limitations which may prevent people from using your app. Is it too big to download, does it require too much data, does it work on the most common versions of iOS and Android? Is it too slow on older hardware and do you diligently test on the very newest?
And finally…
This was a brief overview of the multitude of techniques available to improve your app ranking. The devil, though, is in the details. I will expand further on all of the above in future articles, and link them above when I publish.
In the meantime, please do let me know your thoughts!
