According to Statistica, the total count of the app downloads worldwide was a whopping 204 bn last year! This figure speaks volumes about the inevitability of mobile apps in today’s world. Right from booking a cab to ordering food to even buying groceries, you can do it all with a mobile app.

However, the higher the count of apps, the tougher the competition gets! Whatever be your industry, you need to ensure people notice, download, use and like your app.

So, below are several mobile app optimization tips that you need to follow to make a good profit out of it. But before you proceed, you need to understand that your app store optimization is not just about optimization strategies after you publish your app. Rather, it encompasses both pre-launch and post-launch strategies.

Pre-Launch App Optimization Tips

1. Analyze Your Customers and Competition Thoroughly

As the saying goes, ‘Well-begun is half-done’, you should kick-start your app optimization journey the moment you consider building one. The first and foremost thing is researching your customers and competition.

To analyze your customers, try to put yourself in their shoes. And for that, you need to thoroughly research your competitors. Note down the pain points, queries or concerns competitors’ app users have had. Besides, you also need to analyze your competitors’ keywords and search volumes.

When you have eventually collected all this information, put it together and start building your mobile application. Apart from this, you will also have to choose an e-commerce platform for your mobile app. Going for a Magento Mobile Application can prove to be a smart choice.

2. Choose the App Name Right

The famous Shakespeare quote from Romeo and Juliet ‘What’s in the name?’ doesn’t fit here.

The irony is the world knows the name of the person who wrote the quote! Your app name plays a major role in app optimization. It forms your brand’s first impression on your customers.

Hence, when naming an app, you should consider two factors: uniqueness and keyword.

Both of these factors won’t suffice alone. Think of a name that is short and sweet and makes your app easily identifiable. But don’t sacrifice your keyword targeting for conciseness. Keep at least one relevant keyword for your app to rank higher in search results.

Moreover, you should also use URL-friendly characters for your title, especially in the App Store. The use of special characters or symbols will detract iTunes and it will start scanning for relevant keywords by referring to your app’s numeric ID instead of its name. This will dampen your overall App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy.

3. Create a Standout Icon

Mobile users scroll through several apps, click only on a few, and download a few. When such is the scenario, you need to think of something that makes users click on your app. For that, your app icon is also a valuable consideration in addition to the app name.

Keep your icon simple and avoid stuffing it with too many elements. Don’t try to include words (unless very necessary) as your icon is an identifier to help people recognize your brand. It only represents your brand and doesn’t describe it.

You can include your company logo if your app is a service or utility app or go for your main game character if your app is a game app.

4. Make Your App Description Action-Driven

After your app name and icon comes the app description. Once a mobile user clicks on your app and enters the app page, they get to see the app description.

Ensure that your app description is compelling and action-driven. Try to encapsulate what your app does, enlist its value points (or USPs), or benefits in minimum words and in a simple and concise language.

Avoid using technical jargon as it may put off novice users. Remember, your app description to your app is just the same as what a CTA button is to your site. So, don’t just use it, utilize it!

5. Include Engaging Screenshots and Videos

Just like icons, screenshots and videos don’t directly affect your ASO. But they help increase the count of downloads. They help the audience to visualize how your app would look and function before they actually download it. This helps them connect more with your app.

Therefore, you should include images that represent pivotal features, benefits, latest updates and pages your customers are going to be on mostly. You can also use text overlay by blending graphic design with your screenshots to highlight various attractive features.

6. Test It Before You Launch It

Before you finally launch your mobile app, run it through different performance and quality analysis tests. The general issues you may end up facing while testing, are UI navigability issues, loading issues, cross-platform compatibility issues, etc.

If you find any such glitches or issues, make a list of all of them and fix them. Also, consider making your user interface design appealing. Make sure that your app is fully compatible across all platforms and devices to ensure maximum outreach.

Post-Launch App Optimization Tips

1. Localize Your App Listing

After your app sales take off, there may come a time when you need to consider expanding your business beyond your domestic market. For that, your app needs to be ready.

To localize your app for a particular country, adopt their native language. There are various extensions available in the market that can help you with app localization. You can use them and translate your app title, description, keywords or screenshot text to make it easily discoverable and readable.

This won’t only help expand your business globally but also strengthen your brand position in the global market.

2. Promote Your App

While on-page optimization is a crucial pre-launch strategy, off-page optimization handles the major part of post-launch strategies. Promote your app on social media and your website through SEO strategies. One important promotion strategy trending nowadays is app indexing.

App indexing is a feature that lets Google crawl your app content in the same way it crawls your site content. This way, the audience gets to view the in-app content via Google search and drive higher app downloads. Further, it helps increase conversions as the users can get redirected to a CTA page within an app (if the app is pre-installed) straight from Google search results. Thus, it helps acquire both new customers and retain old and loyal ones.

3. Keep Track of App Crashes

App crash forms one of the major reasons for app uninstalls. And you surely wouldn’t want app uninstallation from your customer’s device.

Thus, crash monitoring is a highly valuable and staple post-launch optimization strategy.

While social promotion, PPC or other strategies like app indexing may bring users up to your site, crash monitoring helps retain them in the long run.

Various profiling tools available in the market may help you with tracking crashes and finding fatal errors in your Magento mobile application and fix them to keep user interaction consistently smooth.

4. Release Frequent Updates

Only as long as your app fits users’ requirements, it is valuable. If your app fails to cater to your customers’ ever-changing demands and requirements over time, it won’t be able to catch up and the cut-throat competition in the world of apps. Eventually, your customers may abandon using your app and choose your competitors’ over yours.

That’s where frequent app updates can jump in to help you retain and regain your customers and acquire new ones as well.

Keep researching your competitors’ features, reviewing your existing users’ reviews and pain points and work on them to improve your app. Once you release an update, you also need to ensure that your customers download it. For that, you can:

• Notify your customers – Use various strategies to let customers know of the latest update. You can use in-app notifications or push notifications for that. You can also replace your ‘Download’ button with the ‘Update’ button for existing app users to notice. Several app publishers like WhatsApp use force notifications also that don’t let users proceed with using the app unless they download the latest update. However, WhatsApp is already a popular app.

Force notifications may backfire at times, especially when your app is not as popular as an app like WhatsApp. Users may find them too intrusive and decide to uninstall your app.

So, it is totally up to your discretion to use them after considering pros and cons.

• Add the ‘What’s New’ section in your app description- Enlist the new features on your product store page. This section is vital as it provides information to users about how the latest upgrade is better than the version that they might be using. Include a compelling CTA button at the end to drive update downloads.

5. Encourage Ratings and Reviews

Reviews play a major game-changer in app downloads. If your audience sees a good amount of positive reviews of your product, they may help drive more installs. Encourage your existing app users to rate you through in-app notifications or SMSs. Work on pain points (if any) to fix them.

So that when you ask your app user to rate your app, you stay confident that they will rate you 5 on 5!

Are You Ready to Optimize Your Magento 2 Mobile App?

So, you see that app store optimization requires a judicious combo of pre-launch and post-launch optimization strategies. If you stay on top of your app optimization, you are sure to stay on top of your customers’ satisfaction and app sales.

Good luck with your ASO!

Author Bio:

Maulik Shah is the founder and CEO of AppJetty, a fast-growing app and extension store for various technologies. He writes about multiple aspects of eCommerce technology like Magento 2 Mobile App and is enthusiastic about making online business management easy.