What is the Importance of ASO in Today’s App Market Place?

Bad ASO will definitely get your boat sunk, but what will good ASO do for you? Keep you afloat.

During the recent years, the impact good ASO has on the overall app marketing and discovery strategy has taken the limelight. Some claim that it is crucial to the success of any app campaign (discovery and conversion) whereas others claim it is important for avoiding a crashing campaign at launch.

I believe we have missed the blurring of lines between ASO, marketing, and app analytics — limiting ASO to titles, descriptions, and keyword researches.

This post will discuss the current standing of the ASO: how it has been limited, its importance for app discovery, and why it is important for developers to rethink ASO and extend its reach so that it cannot exist nor be misused piece meal.

Mesmerizing Claims of Power — ASO is Important and it’s About Keywords

It seems long tailed keywords have taken the world of app marketing by storm, causing new keyword research services to sprout: both new, and from existing SEO agencies. As the rumors of success floated into the domain of serious app developers, I asked myself: a standalone service for researching keywords for ASO? What are they up to?

First I thought, perhaps they were delivering complete ASO services, using keyword research as a rallying cry for their services or as a differentiation tactic. Until I took a closer look, I thought the services encompassed everything that was ASO i.e. starting from keyword research, title, description, and marketing, to analytics and informed and targeted iterations).

The reality was far troubling: it was creating a perception about the power of ASO. The wave of hysteria over keywords may have established the belief that finding keywords with good traffic and low competition could (and can) let mediocre apps acquire a good user base.

ASO is not just about keywords, titles, and descriptions. It definitely is not ONLY about keywords!

The myth has to be busted.

New comers love shortcuts, and extremely simplified ways into stardom.

Its natural, but as senior developers, we need to bust the myth and propagate what is right together.

Then again, it means we have to come on a conclusion on how important ASO is. I believe this can be done by defining ASO in terms of the new realities of the app market, and not treating it as a standalone “check box” on the to-do list of increasing app visibility “ASO? DONE”. We understand that it is an ongoing process, and that various other factors play a critical role in boosting/decreasing ASO’s impact.

We understand that relying solely on ASO is not (and has never been) a prudent choice, nor a sign of mature app developers. Perhaps we should ASO beyond the direct confines of ASO and incorporate other elements into its fore? So people cannot misuse it piece meal.

The New Reality — Discussing ASO’s Role in App Marketing

The keyword opportunities that developers enjoyed a year ago no longer exist. They are being gobbled by newer apps, each of which adds to the existing competition developers will face when in the app store.

I think, we should think of keywords in the ASO as simply categorization tags, ones that inform the App Store algorithms about the categories the app falls into, its purpose, possible features and benefits. Getting the apps ranked on the top charts based on keywords, we must accept, requires heavy budget.

Hence, we can agree that keyword research is not meant for higher ranking (unless incentivized monetarily), but to identify our app to the app stores and users. Keywords become simply an important part of ASO and the overall marketing strategy.

Beyond keywords, we must stress the importance of descriptions, icons, screenshots, and trailer videos. But above all, we must discuss the importance of the app’s story: one that will define how the organic content marketing will work — and how blogs and articles must build on it.

ASO, then also includes how users become engaged enough to share your apps story (by sharing the app), and rate and review it. Finally, we must discuss the harsh reality that organic efforts and ASO has to be supplemented by paid acquisition.

What do you think?

This blog post is based in the advice given by successful app entrepreneurs in the App Entrepreneurs and Marketers Group. Stay tuned for more informative and insightful posts from us!