There’s STILL something wrong with the App Store…
… and as a Marketer, I’m pissed.
When the App Store launched in 2008, it changed the way we find and distribute products online. Consumers got quick access to millions of apps doing many things while creators got an easy, effective user acquisition channel. Since then, the App Store has continued to improve on all fronts, making it simple for anyone with an idea to get recognition. Under Phil Schiller’s stewardship, Apple has made major improvements to the once-neglected App Store, be it the 85–15 revenue split or replying to reviews.
Okay, that was the rosy part. Behind the scenes, there are still so many things that the App Store can improve on from analytics to discovery to user experience. My colleague Karthik touched upon some of these here (these are for the Mac App Store). As a Marketer at Newton, I’ve had to deal with some rather unpleasant ones as well, here they are:
Broken ASO
Case — 1
Everybody knows that the App Title plays an important role in determining how well you rank on the App Store for your target keywords. At Newton, we optimize our title regularly in an effort to put the app in front of more people. Now, logic dictates that if you add a keyword to your title, it should improve the app’s visibility for that keyword, all other things remaining constant.
Right?
Wrong. Imagine our horror when we found that we actually went down for the keyword ‘yahoo mail’ when we added it to our title. Yes, we slid from #4 to #5 (also being #6 briefly).
Now you might think “Hold on. Probably, there was some other relevant app who usurped your position for Yahoo Mail”. Well, no.
I’m pretty sure users who search for ‘yahoo mail’ are looking for an email client that works with Yahoo or something similar and not a weather app. Pretty sure.
Case — 2
As an email service, ranking well for the keyword ‘email’ is imperative for ensuring a steady stream of downloads because A) it’s a high-volume keyword meaning many people all over the world search for it; and B) it’s highly competitive meaning every rank you lose can lead to a significant loss in downloads.
Currently, we are #15 for ‘email’. Again, you might think that other email apps are doing a much better ASO job than us, but wait…
As you can see, an emoji app, a couple of keyboard apps, a voice recorder and some other apps that have little or no relation to email (at least they are less relevant than us, I’m sure) sit above us currently. Now, I’m convinced they might be using some shady, back-handed tactics such as keyword-stuffing to manipulate the search rankings. But shouldn’t the App Store see through that? Shouldn’t they penalize apps that do this or at least give a warning so that they get a chance to mend their ways?
I wrote to App Store Support trying to explain these irregularities and what I got back was the robotic “we checked our algorithm and it’s working as expected” canned response we’ve all come to hate. The App Store should stop beating round the bush and employ a manual check for search ambiguities like this.
Although I’ve mostly talked about search here, there are many other issues I’ve faced while dealing with the App Store. And even if they annoy me, I’m happy to see the App Store headed in the right direction. I guess we’ll just have to wait and watch.
How has your experience been with the App Store? Did you face these or any other issues with your app listing? Let me know in the comments below.
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