A rather recent concept in the world of digital marketing is developing apps for your business. Well, while it depends on the nature of the business, mostly banks and e-commerce sites resort to this option. Other businesses do fine with social media presence and an attention-grabbing website. However, what businesses fail to realize is that developing an app is an expensive thing, to begin with. Therefore, you must be sure that designing an app would add profit to your business. Because the app market out there is pretty competitive. And the decision-making process takes time. It’s not like you going out in the market on a hunt for an Cox Internet Deals and service provider.
Keep the following in mind before deciding whether your business is app ready or not. But before that let’s see what is App Store Optimization.
What is App Store Optimization?
To understand ASO, take the example of Google search engine. When you type a query or a keyword in the search bar, you see a list of articles or links before your eyes. Some appear on number one while others take slot numbers three or four. This is called ranking and websites have to optimize themselves to get a good ranking on the search engine result page. Similarly, apps have to fight to get a good ranking on the app store’s search results. To do so, the apps need to be optimized. Businesses do this to their app is more visible to the viewers that means people are more likely to download their app against a particular search they made. In other words, the traffic to the app page will increase if it is ranked well by the app store. It should not surprise you that keywords play as an important a part in this as they do in ranking articles on a search engine. So, you must thoroughly research the keywords that your competitors are using or the ones that are relevant to your business.
Having said this, now let’s have a look at some of the factors to be considered before developing an app:
Steps to Take Before Developing the App
While it is important to consider a couple of things when developing an app, it is equally crucial to follow the below-mentioned steps before developing the app:
- Thoroughly research your target market
- Decide your pitch
- Choose between native, hybrid and web app
- Know the monetization options
- Design a carefully planned marketing strategy
- Plan ideas for app store optimization
- Be well aware of your resources
- Design a privacy policy
Having worked on the above features, the next step would be to put all the research into practice. And one of the most important aspects would be to optimize your app for the app store. Here are the things you would need to work on for ASO:
App Title and Keywords
For those of you who think that you can get away with a below average title, think again. A title is something that will appear on the app store, your app’s website and under your app’s icon when people download it. Coming up with a descriptive yet catchy title is an art in itself. However, make sure the title of your app addresses these two things:
- Relevant keywords should be there
- The brand or product name should not be compromised on
Remember that the viewers will only be able to see the app icon and title when they search for it on the app store. So make it attractive enough to catch their attention.
Secondly, search the keywords you think your target audience relates to your brand or product. Use tools like long-tail keyword generator to help you through the process.
App Description
Before users download your app, they need to get a sneak peek into what it is all about. For this, the app store provides you with a limited (keep this in mind) space to add a description about your app and what it has to offer to the potential downloaders. You would want to utilize this space smartly. Remember that within 252 characters you need to convince the viewer to do download your app. This leaves you with no room for fluffs at all!
Apart from the above-mentioned things, you would also need to work on the following:
- Screenshots
- Preview video
- Ratings and reviews
- Visuals
You should also make sure that the app is compatible with PC, tablets and mobile phones. Because these days service providers come up with deals like Cox Triple Play which makes it easy for people to access the internet on their smartphones as well as laptops easily.