ASO keyword research is among the most critical aspects of the whole ASO industry. Without ASO keyword research, your target audience won’t be able to find and download your app. We’ve gathered typical myths that prevent our users from growing their app business as fast as they could. These seven tips should be used as a guideline to increase the speed of growth of a newly released mobile app.

1. ASO & keywords - no need for a semantic core?

Myth:

A semantic core is too challenging and time-consuming to construct. Using simple keywords for ASO from popular ASO Tools is faster.

Reality:

The optimal ASO strategy is looking for search requests as opposed to keywords. A well-constructed semantic core offers you an outline of all relevant and favorite topics.

One of the most challenging steps in ASO is gathering search requests for building the semantic core. The best semantic core construction requires the highest number of words and phrases possible. This process is the building block to all of the text content, including the app name, app store description length, and screenshots.

However, creating a well-constructed semantic core is not as tricky as the myth suggests. Here are four tips for creating an efficient semantic core:

1. Brainstorm ideas regarding keywords and keyphrases. You can also check your app’s competitors for their most popular search requests.
2. Compare your choices of keywords and key phrases to search suggest on your ASO tool.
3. Make additions of keywords and key phrases to your list and be sure to monitor these added words in the future.
4. Analyze the relevance of your list of keywords and key phrases compared to your competitors.

Follow these steps, and you should be a step ahead in splitting the requests into groups of the most popular and somewhat popular.

Check out how a mobile game increased their installs by 53% by creating a semantic core.

2. ASO KPIs - making updates

Myth:

After text optimization is complete, a developer can just sit back and wait without the need to track and monitor ASO KPIs. 

Reality:

An ASO expert will monitor changes, trends, and their user’s feelings to catch the best match and improve the outcome. This process usually requires updating ASO monthly.

Various types of metadata can have the same outcome on the same rates. For example, it may not be possible to figure out the cause for a positive or negative change if you make multiple changes in one release. In light of this, developers should not make cross-effects while making any other adjustments.

For example, descriptions and screenshots affect the change between a page view and install. Therefore, simultaneous changes shouldn’t be made to screenshots and descriptions in a single iteration.

Find our guide to make your ASO better from iteration to iteration.

3. ASO best practices for app store titles 

Myth:

The app title must be clean to make it easier for users to recognize the brand.

Reality:

Only the biggest names on the internet need a brand name in the title, like Facebook, Google, and Instagram. If you are not Google, think of adding two to three of the most essential keywords to your app's title.

As an example, check the app titles that food delivery apps use:

Even Uber includes the keywords “food” and “delivery” in its title. What makes you worse?

4. App store short descriptions - best length & density

Myth:

Many developers believe that they must use their main keywords as often as possible to do work more efficiently, like in the app description or App Store subtitle.

Reality:

Repeated keywords don’t do the job, they only take the place of new keywords you could use to increase your app visibility. The most effect is made with the keywords from the app title, the subtitle (for iOS, App Store keywords) and a short description (short description for Google Play), so there’s no sense of this duplication.

Apart from just taking up space, repeated keywords are playing a cruel joke on your app. Did you know that keyword stuffing is against the rules in the app stores? Therefore, an app can be suspended if keyword stuffing is suspected.

Do keyword research like a pro in any language.

5. ASO keyword research & implementation

Myth:

You have to use the most popular keywords to make the app more visible to users.

Reality:

When an app ranks lower than the top-10 for a popular search request (like “food delivery”), it will be quite challenging for users to find, as they mostly don’t scroll any further. When an app ranks at the top of a search request that only few people are looking at per day, the app is much more likely to be viewed and installed by these users.

Let’s get back to our previous example to illustrate it:

“Food delivery” search request is super popular with lots of powerful competitors. It will be very difficult to rank in the top-10 here. However, if you use more specific requests, like “food delivery noodles” in our example, you will have fewer keyword competitors and more chances to be viewed by users.

Deal with popular search request even in Google Play! 

6. App Localization - is it important? 

Myth:

Most users are English speakers, or at least understand English. Therefore, English is the only app localization that needs to be used.

Reality:

By ignoring app localization, you potentially miss thousands of new users. The five most popular countries concerning app downloads are China, India, the United States, Brazil, and Russia. Therefore, by neglecting to localize for anywhere other than the U.S. market, an application can lose around 90% of new users from other markets.

If you have never localized an app, start from translating the app title, app store subtitle, and short description. However, all aspects of the app, including screenshots and UI, should be localized.

Here are four benefits of optimal localization of a new app:

1. Greatly increased visibility for the app
2. Ads allow new apps to be monetized
3. Increased opportunities to be featured in international markets
4. Unexpected bumps in app installs

Check out how Aviasales apps grew their downloads by 54 times by means of localization.

7. App store ratings & reviews

Myth:

User reviews do not affect ASO and the app’s conversion rate. So, there doesn’t need to be much effort given to monitoring user reviews.

Reality:

User reviews have one of the most essential impacts on the conversion rate. Apps with three-star ratings or lower lose 50% of potential downloads. Even the best ASO optimization won’t fix the problems that low reviews create.

User reviews can also be used to figure out the keywords and key phrases that people are using to describe the app.

Here are some additional facts that highlight the importance of reviews and ratings:

• Research indicates that around 80% of users will read reviews before downloading an app. Neglecting poor ratings and reviews can have significant detrimental effects on an application.
• An app with a rating between one and three stars loses approximately 50% of potential downloads.
• In-app requests for ratings dramatically increase the number of ratings and reviews.

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Now you are ready to transform your ASO into an efficient strategy that will lead to an increase in both install rate and in user retention rate. However, don’t forget that to constantly improve on your results, you need to keep  experimenting with your ASO. We hope these tips will be a great help with that.