You’ve made your own app at last. You love your design, your app icon, and every device you tested it on, it worked perfectly. You found a niche that hasn’t been filled yet and has no competition.
There is only one big problem, which is that no one is downloading your app.
If that’s the case, you’ve run into a problem that many developers face after putting their apps on the market. But don’t let that stop you. If you have an app that you want everyone to use, you can make it happen.
When people start downloading your music, you’ll be able to make real money.
All it takes is a little work and the right knowledge to get people to notice your app. So, if you want to know how to get more people to download your mobile app, you need to know how apps are downloaded in the first place.
How App Store Optimization Works
To get more people to download your app, the first thing you need to understand is how the app stores work. Your plan for marketing a mobile app will be a little different for the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
Let’s go over some basic language for app developers.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is something you may have heard of. But have you heard of ASO, which stands for “App Store Optimization”?
Both have a lot to do with how well your app does, but ASO has a bigger effect on your app’s listing than SEO does on Google search results. ASO is the thing that makes your app more visible in the marketplace. If your app’s rank is high, more people will find it when they search.
ASO also helps you figure out if a user will download your app once they find it. There are a lot of things that can change your ASO:
- • Positive reviews: The higher an app’s rating, the more positive reviews it has. When users give an app a high rating, it will also get a high rating, which will make more people want to download it.
• App downloads: More people will download your work if you already have a lot of them. To rank high, app developers should aim for a steady number of downloads.
• Keyword relevance: If popular words are used in the title and description of an app, it may get more downloads.
• Revenue: Apps that have made money in the past will get more attention from the app store.
• Country: Your ranking in a region can be affected by how well you do in that region. Raising your rank in more than one area can lead to a snowball effect.
• Backlinks: You can improve your app’s ranking if you can add backlinks to many relevant pages.
• Social proof: Your app’s ranking in the app store, especially on Android, can be affected by how popular it is on social media sites. Shares and +1s on Google+ can help users decide whether or not to use your app.
• App starts: How often people actually open your app also has a big effect on how it ranks.
• Retention: The number of people who delete your app compared to the number of people who keep it for more than 30 days also affects its ranking. Focus a lot on your target audience in the app description to keep them using it.
Taking all of these things into account can make a big difference in how people see your app and how the app store algorithm treats it.
Now that you know where your app goes after it’s published, let’s take a closer look at the 10 best ways to get more people to download it.
1. Create an Enticing App Icon
People see your app icon first when they go to the app store, so the design you choose is very important to your success. As people look through the app store, yours should stand out and be easy to find.
Make sure you choose a design that shows what your app is all about. It should tell users as much as possible about what they’ll find when they install it.
So, you should try to keep the app icon as simple as possible and not make it too flashy. The best thing is to keep it simple. You don’t want it to be cluttered and hard to understand.
2. Social Media Outreach
The online presence of app developers needs to grow. Before you decide which social networks to use to build the public image of your app, you have to decide where to start. This means that your voice on social media must match the tone of your app.
Who are you using? What would it sound like and how would it act if it were a person?
Use that voice consistently when you post. If your app is edgy and “cool,” don’t use boring business language to talk about it. But if your app is for young professionals, that business language might be a good fit.
Apps tend to get the most attention on the following social media sites:
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Foursquare
But don’t just use these platforms to share information and ads about your app. Start conversations with your fans and interact with them. Reply to comments in the voice of your app to get more people to use it. This kind of relationship will help users spread the word about how much you care about them, which will lead to more downloads.
Be careful, though, because each social media site has its own rules about contests, giveaways, and advertising. Make sure you never break them as you try to get people to use your app and keep them coming back.
3. Name and Describe Your App Appropriately
People will know your product by name if it has a good name. If it doesn’t, they’ll just say, “This thing on my phone.” Users are more likely to download your app if it has a great name on the app page.
So, if you want people to remember the name of your app, it needs to be unique and make sense. No one can give you the perfect name, but here are some tried-and-true ways to come up with a name for your app:
• Don’t use names that have been taken. Before you choose a name and click “Publish,” do a lot of research, or you might end up in front of a lawyer.
• Keep the name of your app short, easy to spell, and easy to remember.
• Try to pick a name that shows what your app does. When people are looking for something that fits their needs, they shouldn’t scroll past your app.
And even though app stores let you use up to 225 characters, you should only use about 25. Only those characters show up in a search result, so make sure you use them well.
On the other hand, you need to be most strategic about ASO in your description. It works like a website’s meta description tag, but you can’t find it in the app store.
So, you don’t have to fill it with keywords, but you do have to plan it out. You can make a big difference in your ASO by listing important information, benefits and features, social proof, and a call to action.
4. Market Your App Effectively
If you are lucky enough to have a budget for marketing, don’t be too tight with it.
Marketing usually takes place over a few weeks or months. But if you want a big jump in the number of people downloading your app in a short amount of time, put all your marketing money into a small time frame.
It takes courage and hard work to launch an entire marketing campaign at once, but if you do it right, you can get some great results.
Depending on how much money you have, you should spend it in a few days or at most a week. Spread your advertising across the platforms that your target audience uses the most, which could be:
• Social media channels
• Email Marketing
• Sites like Reddit and Digg
• App directory sites
• SMS marketing
• Content Marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Relevant blogs/magazines
Many of your downloads will come from organic searches, but many will also come from your landing page on the web version. So, you should also make a webpage for your app with a clear call to action telling people to download it.
5. Using Eye-Catching Photos and Videos
Your collection of photos, app screenshots, and videos is one of the most important parts of the description of your app. Your app store page needs to look good.
Photos of your app that show off its most popular and needed features will get people to download it right away. Users will usually look at screenshots of your app when they first find you in search results.
To get people to click that download button, you need a good mix of these two things.
Photos can make users more interested in your content in a few ways:
• Don’t use splash screens. Instead, show users what your app looks like.
• Make sure that your screenshots show how the app works in different ways.
• Include explanations, captions, and arrows that show users what they can do in your app.
• Focus more on the most popular and important parts of your app.
• Persuade people that your app looks better than those of your competitors.
You can even make a video for your app if you have the right tools. If you don’t have the tools to make a video, you can hire a professional company or find video editors that work on mobile devices.
And if you can, have your app translated and subtitled in as many languages as you can. After all, the best way to get more people to download your file is to reach out to as many people as possible.
6. Encourage User Reviews
If you can elicit positive user reviews from your app’s supporters, your app’s downloads will increase exponentially.
Existing users’ opinions that your app is a worthwhile download or that it offers an exceptional user experience are “testimonials” that inform other potential users that your app is worth downloading. This can also increase your app’s visibility in the app store.
You might be tempted to purchase fake reviews in order to boost the overall attention your app receives. However, if the app store discovers that you employed this strategy, your app may be suspended indefinitely.
Because you, as the developer, can also learn from genuine user reviews, they are significantly more beneficial to your app. Not only will the feedback help other users understand your product, but it can also inform you of any issues that need to be addressed.
Therefore, send requests to a variety of influential individuals. Popular YouTubers and prominent tech website reviewers with a large readership are excellent targets for your requests.
Mention in your press releases that you are looking for feedback. If your apps have been sent to media outlets with app reviewers on staff, they may already have one.
Because you took the time to inform them of something relevant to your product, they may return the favor by leaving a positive review. And once a publication has written about you, reach out to every smaller outlet you’ve previously contacted. Refer them to the new article, and they may be inspired to write their own based on the initial reviews.
Incentives can also be offered to users who leave reviews. This is an excellent method for increasing the number of users who choose to do so. Positive feedback can be rewarded with coupons, tangible prizes, and redeemable points inside the app.
7. Devise Clever Promotions
If your app is monetized via a pay-per-download model, you can experiment with temporary price reductions to increase downloads.
A Distimo analysis compared downloads and revenue estimates for 12 games during the week of their price-drop promotion to the week prior, when the promotions did not occur.
The games were able to increase their global revenue by an average of 437 percent during the price-drop promotion’s seven-day duration.
Certainly, this may not work with every app or game. But if you have devoted users and strong word-of-mouth, people may jump at the chance to download your app for free.
8. Hacking the Press
According to an article on Entrepreneur.com, one app developer “hacked” the press in order to significantly increase downloads and revenue.
The creator of the personal finance app MoneyWiz, Iliya Yordanov, initially sought publicity by contacting US media and app review sites. To his dismay, none of the media sites responded to his inquiry.
Then, he realised that by sending the same press releases to specific foreign markets – Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France – he could obtain reviews and articles about his app. The response from the media in these nations propelled his app to the top of the App Store’s finance section.
As a result, his app became popular in the United States, and Apple featured it. The U.S. media quickly took note afterward.
You can use a similar strategy to increase app downloads. Include many media outlets in Europe, Asia, Australia, and any other substantial market when compiling a list of media outlets to send your press releases to. If you believe users there would enjoy your app, let them know!
9. Sharpen Your Keywords
Remember when we discussed the distinction between SEO and ASO?
So far, we’ve learned a great deal about ASO; now, we’ll discuss how to optimize your app for search engines.
Suppose you have an app titled “Modern Finance.” You should include the word “finance” as frequently as possible in any relevant copy or descriptions found by search engines when selecting your keywords.
What additional terms do you believe users search for when seeking the need that your app satisfies? Perform keyword research to determine which phrases generate the most traffic.
You can also use the standard AdWords Keyword Tool to search for additional keywords. Lateral keywords are those suggested by Google once your app has been located.
However, keep in mind that you shouldn’t choose any keyword simply because it has a high search volume. Any keyword you employ should be relevant to your app and target audience. If you stuff your app’s descriptions with irrelevant keywords, your app’s credibility could suffer and your downloads could decrease.
10. Focus on the User
It’s not all about how many downloads you receive. Additionally, it is essential to understand how, when, where, and by whom your app is used.
Analytics are crucial for determining what your users want most from your application and how to deliver it. In addition, they are essential for generating continuous downloads.
Your analytics should inform you of your users’ actions from download to deletion (if they delete your app!). They should also facilitate A/B testing to determine what works best based on the app’s trigger points.
Google’s Universal Analytics is unquestionably the most popular analytics tool on the planet.
You can connect multiple devices to Universal Analytics and associate multiple sessions with a unique ID. When you send this ID to Universal Analytics, you can obtain an accurate user count, analyze the logged-in user experience, and gain access to a vast amount of additional useful data.
Final Thoughts
Increasing the number of app downloads for your app is not always simple.
However, if you utilize these tips and best practices for app promotion, you will see a significant increase in app store rankings and downloads.
Always keep in mind the preferences of your target audience when implementing these strategies. What works best for general consumers may not work as well for your audience, so keep their best interests in mind when applying these tips.
A final piece of advice is that the iTunes App Store and Google Play occasionally alter what they deem to be the most essential app features. Therefore, always stay abreast of industry trends and update your app’s components as necessary to deliver precisely what your users require. Thus, you will always rank highly in app stores.
If you execute all of these steps successfully, you can rest assured that you will generate substantial app sales.
Which of these strategies for increasing mobile app downloads are you most eager to implement? Share in the comments section below!
