Some Tips on How to Succeed in the App Business

Succeeding With Apps – Making Millions and Having a Blast

With so many popular social gaming and entertainment apps that jack up the mobile advertising price and lording over the top leader-boards in App Store, how can somebody like you with a new app gain the attention—and hopefully the adulation—of the millions of smartphone consumers?
Well, one thing should offer you some level of comfort: Many of the world’s smartphone users search and find new apps by entering certain search keywords in the App Store’s search box. This means that a small improvement in the search ranking of your app may spell wonders for a starting app developer.
In the old days, people can just select from the gallery of mobile apps available in the App Store and determine what suits them best. Those days are gone. Budding app developers like you need to evaluate your app marketing strategy. This includes improving the chances that your app gets higher in the search ranking results.

Beginner Tips On App Success

Here are some tips for beginners who have just started doing mobile SEO (search engine optimization).

• Some people think doing App Store SEO is hard. If you are a company that has a lot of money to spend on advertising, then it is okay if you do not want to do SEO. However, if you are just a newbie in the app business and you do not have enough money for advertising, then three minutes of your time to track and tweak SEO will bring immense gains to your app business.
• Some developers will tell you that when you improve your app’s search results visibility in the App Store, app downloads may range from 100 to 1000 a day.
• Your app name, iTunes Keywords, and description have an effect in your search results visibility. For example, your app name should be between 3 and 255 characters, but Apple suggests that the name should be less than 35 characters to optimally boost your SEO Impact. There are a maximum of 100 characters for iTunes Keywords; the lesser the characters used, the better.
• It also seems that reviews coming from external sites now have an impact on your app’s App Store SEO.
• Ask your loved ones and friends to rate the app you have created. These ratings matter.
• It is therefore important that you create a good App Store SEO strategy. For example, have you listed down all the keywords related to your app? You may want to put the keywords into the description of your app understandable enough to potential customers. Select the keywords you deem are the most important in your App Name. Put many of these keywords as possible in the iTunes Keywords.
• There are three basic steps for App Store SEO: Track keywords, research if your tracked keywords target your audience, and if they do not, then change or fix the keywords. The tracking can be done on a daily basis, while you can research keywords weekly.
• You should be able to prepare and create two lists: A Keyword list that contains all the keywords to your app, and a Competitor App List that contains all the apps you think compete against yours. Both lists should grow as much as possible.
• On your daily track, you should track the search rankings of your keywords as well as your competition. If in case you find new competitors, add them in your “competitors” list.
• Every week, during your research, check extensively the ranking tends of the app you have for all of the keywords you listed. Then, check the ranking trends of your competition extensively as well. If you see some keywords showing your competition at a higher ranking, include these in your “keywords” list.
• By now, you have a clearer idea how to fix your SEO strategy. At this time, you should have listed all the keywords for your app. Arrange them according to importance. And now write your new app direction, name, and iTunes Keywords based on the revised SEO.
• There are third-party SEO tools such as SearchMan which can do the daily tracking and weekly research for you in a jiffy. More importantly, it also submits a revised SEO strategy for you after the daily tracking and weekly research results. The tool is “freemium”, meaning you can sign up free and pay if you want. After the free trial, SearchMan only costs $20 per app per month in order for you to use its full functions. You can, of course, cancel anytime you want. Some functions are limited but are free.
• What is good with SearchMan is that tracks 650 thousand apps and one million keywords every day for iPhone and iPad. Why is it good? Because it already has an immense tracking database, you do not need to wait for a long time to access the data you want. The service has a large, useful data and can make keyword as well as competitor recommendations on a daily basis.

Additional Tips

Here are additional tips for you to generate more popularity to your app, which hopefully would lead to more sales.

• To create additional buzz for your app, you may also want run a special discount sale or even make it free to a certain period. Users are always on the lookout for discounts and freebies. The discussion you will generate from the buzz can help you get more people getting interested about your app.
• You may also want to encourage the app users to post reviews. User reviews should be part of your visibility strategy in the App Store.
• Some developers also make available a lite version of their paid app. In the App Store, among the most popular are “lite” and “free” versions. By offering this lite version, users will be able to use some of the functions of your app before they commit to purchasing it. Users will then get exposed to your app and why they possibly need to purchase the full—and paid—version of it. If in case you have a lite version of your app, you may want to include the words “lite” and “free” in the app’s name and description, allowing for more exposure to your app.