Many people out there emphasize the importance of app store optimization, but how exactly do you do it?

In this post, we will look at one way you can get the most optimization for your mobile app (Android or iOS).

What is app store optimization (ASO) exactly?

Basically, it is about ranking as high as possible on the app store’s search results whenever a user searches for keywords related to your app. By ranking higher, your mobile app’s visibility is improved, attracting more organic traffic.

These ‘keywords’ alert the search engine as to what type of content the user is looking for; consequently, the engine places apps that it thinks will match the user’s search request closer to the top.

One of the ways of increasing your mobile app’s ranking is to make your store listings as keyword dense as possible (though not by randomly spamming keywords everywhere!). However, in order to place keywords in your posting, you need to first know what they are.

Overview of the method

This is where the following tool comes into place: SEO Book .

When you first get to their website, it may feel a bit bloated and old, but, if you look at all the free SEO tools they offer, you will understand the website’s value.

Now, let me explain how we are going to be using one of their tools.

What we are going to be doing is looking at the mobile apps that rank the highest in your app’s category on your chosen platform. For example, if I have a PDF reader app for Android, I am going to search for “PDF reader” on the Google Play Store and look at all the apps that pop up.

Right away, you will notice that most of the top apps have “PDF reader” in their title. An important thing to note.

However, we are not going to stop there. Although the title plays an important role in indicating the content of your app, it is not the only thing that matters.

Hence, through using SEO BOOK, we are not only going to look at the top keywords the authors of these apps used, but also their frequency. By researching what keywords they used, you can cleverly incorporate the same keywords into your own store listing to increase its rankings on the mobile app store.

Note: This method will work with Apple’s App Store as well. Not only that, but the site’s main purpose is to help webmasters do SEO for their websites, but as app store listings are inherently just websites, this tool fits our needs here as well.

Feel free to use any keyword density tool out there; as long as it is reliable, the results will more or less be the same.

Here are some of the alternatives (don’t require registration or downloads):

How to implement it

If your going to be using SEO Book, follow the instructions below. Otherwise, just skip to the next section.

Due to the value of the website’s tools, the company had faced an abnormally large number of requests which caused them to enforce users to log in before they could use the tools.

What we are interested in is a toolbar they provide that allows you to see the keywords and the keyword density of any URL. However, in order to access it, you must create an account.

Once you have done so, they email you your password to the email address as well as instructions on how to set up the toolbar. As I personally do not like a toolbar cluttering up my main web browser, I installed their recommended browser, Comodo IceDragon, to have a dedicated browser for all my SEO work.

Once you follow along and have the toolbar installed, you will find that the tool we are interested in is located here in the toolbar for our mobile app store optimization purposes:

After hitting go, you will get a comprehensive list of all they keywords used along with their frequencies.

While for a simple app like this you could have guessed the keywords way before hand, for more complex mobile apps like “health” apps they are not so easy to identify:

Just ignore those keywords related to the specifics of the app store format— such as “amp” and “screenshot image” — and you will find a nice list of all the words to include for a keyword rich mobile store listing.

Conclusion

One crucial thing to note is that you should do this for a variety of top ranked store listings similar to your own app. By having a diverse keyword set aimed specifically at the audience you are targeting, you are sure to see a significant increase in your organic traffic.

Moreover, make sure to masterfully integrate the keywords into the title and the short description. For the large description space, try to introduce the keywords within the first 250 characters of your description; furthermore, do not just randomly insert them everywhere but make sure the sentences flow coherently.

Thanks for staying with me so far! If you want some tips to maximize your app’s success before you even start making it, check out my post here.

See you guys in the next release!