How to increase the rating of the application in Google Play?
I admit, I have one bad habit. When at work I need to plan the promotion of a mobile application, I always forget about optimizing the description for Google Play. Probably something in my subconscious does not consider Google Play as a full-fledged app store, like the App Store. In addition, according to various estimates, applications on Android bring less profit (in everyday life they often call the difference twice, the latest data from App Annie makes a difference of 70%), and many self-respecting developers of excellent games and applications do not make Android version at all or release it some time after the iOS version , when it is already clear that it is guaranteed to rise to the top due to the heated desire of the "androids" to enjoy all the benefits enjoyed by the "apples". (However, there are exceptions .)
Nevertheless, some desperate people are constantly turning to us and asking us to make them ASO for Google Play. Below is a list of measures that can help. As they say, the rescue of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves.
First, let's take a look at the main factors ranking an application in search on Google Play.
Some assumptions in this article were formed not on the basis of reading the Internet, but on the basis of informal communication with real developers or representatives of various companies, and even personal (nondisclosure) cases. Therefore, not every statement here will be confirmed by references. I apologize in advance for this and will try to discuss such controversial statements in the comments.
')
1. User Reviews
In 2012, Google Play was integrated with Google Plus, putting an end to anonymous reviews. Now all the reviews left on Google Play, supposedly belong to real people, perhaps even really installed the application of their own free will and not living in India. For some time, it became more difficult and more expensive to buy such reviews than anonymous ones, but now the farms of paid reviews are again in full swing .
To use such services or not is completely on your conscience. In contrast to Apple , Google does not explicitly state anywhere that if they notice that you are paying people for reviews, they will delete your application. It makes sense to turn to such services only when your application is not good enough to rise at the expense of organic matter, but you still want to go to the top (and it happens, we will not deny).
A more civilized way to get more reviews will be the message “Do you like the game? Rate us! ” . There are a couple more tricks, about them - another time.
Also talk about the importance of the number of g + - how many times the application "pushed" in Google Plus. This is spoken by the representatives of Google themselves, but no one knows how important this really is. Just in case, the “pluses” are grown and sold on the same farms as the reviews - and the trade is quite smart.
2. Number of installations per day and per month
For beginners, a small handicap is given here: if you persuaded a hundred of your friends to install the application on the first day after launch, you have the chance to loom all over the next day in the “Gaining Popularity” top in your small but proud country. If you are lucky and if your game is good enough, there is a chance to consolidate your success. More installations - higher rating. Higher rating - more installations ... And now the application rises in the top by itself! This is exactly what you should strive for, bearing in mind, though, having in mind that the top “Gaining Popularity” is not shown in every Google Play interface.
It is also known that the data in Google Play is collected and evaluated for the month. Applications with good dynamics of installations are raised in the rating (and they are lowered from the bad, we do not forget about it). Thus, it is necessary to maintain acceleration for a month (or at least not to sag), and it will be easier to hold on next month. Here you can even get your hands dirty with paid advertising, the main thing is not to pour money into Hindu grids or such difficult-to-control systems as Chartboost. Perhaps the best choice for marketing newbies will now be Google AdWords - still a native Google Play tool. In July 2015, they were just updated , they introduced advertising directly on Google Play (this is also worth talking about separately) and made a more friendly tool for the purchase of advertising, understandable to a simple mobile developer.
Despite the fact that AdMob is part of the same system, I don’t dare to recommend it: we haven’t yet met quality users, although perhaps we’ve been looking badly. In my personal perception, he is still not far from the “Hindu grid”.
3. Grades
More is better. Good grades are better than bad ones. Many average ratings are better than few good ones. At one of the mobile conferences, LinguaLeo shared a successful, experienced enhancement of metrics on mobile devices and came to interesting conclusions that the average rating is higher than four stars does not affect anything. This roughly corresponds to the perception of a typical user: five stars — a miracle, four stars — OK, three stars — sucks, two stars — failure, one star — it did not start.
4. Release Date and Update
The best results are for applications that were published less than a month and more than two years ago. Why, Captain Obvious will explain: if in two years you have not risen, then “ it was not a matter of a reel .” Applications that were updated less than a month ago, go to a higher position. From this you can make a very sensible and correct conclusion that you need to update at least once a month, especially since no one will keep you waiting for two weeks and finding fault with each screen, as during the review process in the App Store.
5. Application name
The keywords used in the name of the application have the greatest weight. Here you have two ways: on the side of good and on the side of evil. Real Jedi give their application a unique name, make a brand out of it and promote it with the help of PR, and also due to the quality and usefulness of their application, to then become leaders by the so-called “branded requests”. If you are still on the way to a Jedi dedication or you have many competitors, you can add two or three relevant keywords to the second part of the application name, separating it with a dash or a hyphen. It is advisable to make a meaningful phrase out of these words so that your ASO-efforts are not too striking to ordinary users. It is this part of the ASO that is well lit in RuNet by some famous personalities.
What is happening on the evil side, you most likely have already seen more than once. For the sake of decency, you should say that the name on Google Play should not exceed 30 characters, that the real advantage of the excess keywords in the title is not proven, and the real harm is likely if your application is noticed by the guys from Google (yes, Google is unequivocally against it ) .
6. SEO descriptions
At this point, your internal marketer may wander - the Google Play application description page is optimized according to the same SEO laws that apply to regular search. So, refer and force friends to refer, stuff with keywords, seoshte! .. Another thing is that the effectiveness of such optimization has not yet been confirmed by itself, apart from other measures. Personally, it seems to me that this does not work with products that have many analogs (alas, 99% of mobile games and applications are exactly like that). Indeed, judging by Google Keyword Planner , users search on Google Play and search on mobile phones for very simple, monosyllabic things, usually those that they already know about (for example, King’s games or the popular social network messenger) - this is those same branded requests that we have already mentioned. For the most part, this is a limited set of keywords, the top issue for which has long been occupied by stronger and more successful players. Following them in the top are those who used these keywords in the title. It may happen that you “fucked up” by the sweat of your brow, and then it turned out that the maximum you can count on is the third echelon after the two mentioned above. On the other hand, there is such a thing as “long tail” of keywords that are rarely searched for, but aptly found. Thus, you can try to increase the "organic" by a couple of percent in the long term.
There is a suspicion that SEO descriptions will bring even more benefit if you simultaneously optimize the content of the application and add deep links from the landing page. This functionality was launched in the public domain not so long ago, more about it - on the official page of Google . For this to work, you must have a sufficiently informative application, the screens of which somehow correspond (Google uses the word 'mirrored') to the landing pages on the web. Such promotion is suitable for a directory application or magazine, but it will be difficult to implement for a game with three screens and a leaderboard.
7. Reception
They say that Google considers it, but no one knows how. There are vague rumors that Google is tracking the frequency of launches of the application. When launching their own “deep links”, Apple made a reservation that yes, Apple considers all this, and that when searching for Apple Search, it takes into account how often users open an application, how long they stay on certain screens. It is possible that in some way it will pop up in Google Search. It is also said that mass deletions omit the application in search results, and it is for this reason that services that attract motivated traffic are often asked not to delete the application for three days.
Perhaps, this has already been mentioned somewhere, but: if you have a quality application that you want to use and want to return to, then your chances of getting to the top in any store are much higher.
8. Integration with Google Plus
Here you can add the "deep links", which have already been mentioned. Representatives of the company promise mountains of gold to those who have integrated Google Plus, up to the special selection of the editors of Google Play. There are no real cases of the “golden mountains”, if there are any, it will be interesting to discuss them.
9. Availability of demo video
This factor is positive anyway, especially if this video is good (or you can, in principle, watch it without pain). On the other hand, if you have the opportunity to record a decent video, then, most likely, you have a good enough application, and you have already taken into account other issuing factors.
10. The eye-catching icon, attractive screenshots
for all specified types of devices. This is an indirect factor, which in itself is not related to ranking, but rather strongly affects the number of organic plants. Despite the large number of tools for previewing and A / B testing, this part of optimization still remains an art rather than a science. By the way, you do not need external services for A / V testing anymore - now Google has “Optimization of the application page using experiments” .
Finally, three tips on how to improve icons and what works almost always:
1. Use simple geometric shapes.
2. Use no more than three colors, select them by color circle.
3. Do not try to be original - choose the simplest solution.
Optimization of the description of applications is a cunning and long process in which success ultimately depends on the application itself. The main thing in this business is an adequate perception of your product, and also - the willingness to cooperate and listen to others, be it the opinion of a despicable marketer, the assessment of the majority of users (preferably excluded from a sample of friends and relatives) or, finally, Google analytics. It is for her to have the last word in all matters related to the optimization of the description on Google Play.
Nevertheless, some desperate people are constantly turning to us and asking us to make them ASO for Google Play. Below is a list of measures that can help. As they say, the rescue of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves.
First, let's take a look at the main factors ranking an application in search on Google Play.
Some assumptions in this article were formed not on the basis of reading the Internet, but on the basis of informal communication with real developers or representatives of various companies, and even personal (nondisclosure) cases. Therefore, not every statement here will be confirmed by references. I apologize in advance for this and will try to discuss such controversial statements in the comments.
')
1. User Reviews
In 2012, Google Play was integrated with Google Plus, putting an end to anonymous reviews. Now all the reviews left on Google Play, supposedly belong to real people, perhaps even really installed the application of their own free will and not living in India. For some time, it became more difficult and more expensive to buy such reviews than anonymous ones, but now the farms of paid reviews are again in full swing .
To use such services or not is completely on your conscience. In contrast to Apple , Google does not explicitly state anywhere that if they notice that you are paying people for reviews, they will delete your application. It makes sense to turn to such services only when your application is not good enough to rise at the expense of organic matter, but you still want to go to the top (and it happens, we will not deny).
A more civilized way to get more reviews will be the message “Do you like the game? Rate us! ” . There are a couple more tricks, about them - another time.
Also talk about the importance of the number of g + - how many times the application "pushed" in Google Plus. This is spoken by the representatives of Google themselves, but no one knows how important this really is. Just in case, the “pluses” are grown and sold on the same farms as the reviews - and the trade is quite smart.
2. Number of installations per day and per month
For beginners, a small handicap is given here: if you persuaded a hundred of your friends to install the application on the first day after launch, you have the chance to loom all over the next day in the “Gaining Popularity” top in your small but proud country. If you are lucky and if your game is good enough, there is a chance to consolidate your success. More installations - higher rating. Higher rating - more installations ... And now the application rises in the top by itself! This is exactly what you should strive for, bearing in mind, though, having in mind that the top “Gaining Popularity” is not shown in every Google Play interface.
It is also known that the data in Google Play is collected and evaluated for the month. Applications with good dynamics of installations are raised in the rating (and they are lowered from the bad, we do not forget about it). Thus, it is necessary to maintain acceleration for a month (or at least not to sag), and it will be easier to hold on next month. Here you can even get your hands dirty with paid advertising, the main thing is not to pour money into Hindu grids or such difficult-to-control systems as Chartboost. Perhaps the best choice for marketing newbies will now be Google AdWords - still a native Google Play tool. In July 2015, they were just updated , they introduced advertising directly on Google Play (this is also worth talking about separately) and made a more friendly tool for the purchase of advertising, understandable to a simple mobile developer.
Despite the fact that AdMob is part of the same system, I don’t dare to recommend it: we haven’t yet met quality users, although perhaps we’ve been looking badly. In my personal perception, he is still not far from the “Hindu grid”.
3. Grades
More is better. Good grades are better than bad ones. Many average ratings are better than few good ones. At one of the mobile conferences, LinguaLeo shared a successful, experienced enhancement of metrics on mobile devices and came to interesting conclusions that the average rating is higher than four stars does not affect anything. This roughly corresponds to the perception of a typical user: five stars — a miracle, four stars — OK, three stars — sucks, two stars — failure, one star — it did not start.
4. Release Date and Update
The best results are for applications that were published less than a month and more than two years ago. Why, Captain Obvious will explain: if in two years you have not risen, then “ it was not a matter of a reel .” Applications that were updated less than a month ago, go to a higher position. From this you can make a very sensible and correct conclusion that you need to update at least once a month, especially since no one will keep you waiting for two weeks and finding fault with each screen, as during the review process in the App Store.
5. Application name
The keywords used in the name of the application have the greatest weight. Here you have two ways: on the side of good and on the side of evil. Real Jedi give their application a unique name, make a brand out of it and promote it with the help of PR, and also due to the quality and usefulness of their application, to then become leaders by the so-called “branded requests”. If you are still on the way to a Jedi dedication or you have many competitors, you can add two or three relevant keywords to the second part of the application name, separating it with a dash or a hyphen. It is advisable to make a meaningful phrase out of these words so that your ASO-efforts are not too striking to ordinary users. It is this part of the ASO that is well lit in RuNet by some famous personalities.
What is happening on the evil side, you most likely have already seen more than once. For the sake of decency, you should say that the name on Google Play should not exceed 30 characters, that the real advantage of the excess keywords in the title is not proven, and the real harm is likely if your application is noticed by the guys from Google (yes, Google is unequivocally against it ) .
6. SEO descriptions
At this point, your internal marketer may wander - the Google Play application description page is optimized according to the same SEO laws that apply to regular search. So, refer and force friends to refer, stuff with keywords, seoshte! .. Another thing is that the effectiveness of such optimization has not yet been confirmed by itself, apart from other measures. Personally, it seems to me that this does not work with products that have many analogs (alas, 99% of mobile games and applications are exactly like that). Indeed, judging by Google Keyword Planner , users search on Google Play and search on mobile phones for very simple, monosyllabic things, usually those that they already know about (for example, King’s games or the popular social network messenger) - this is those same branded requests that we have already mentioned. For the most part, this is a limited set of keywords, the top issue for which has long been occupied by stronger and more successful players. Following them in the top are those who used these keywords in the title. It may happen that you “fucked up” by the sweat of your brow, and then it turned out that the maximum you can count on is the third echelon after the two mentioned above. On the other hand, there is such a thing as “long tail” of keywords that are rarely searched for, but aptly found. Thus, you can try to increase the "organic" by a couple of percent in the long term.
There is a suspicion that SEO descriptions will bring even more benefit if you simultaneously optimize the content of the application and add deep links from the landing page. This functionality was launched in the public domain not so long ago, more about it - on the official page of Google . For this to work, you must have a sufficiently informative application, the screens of which somehow correspond (Google uses the word 'mirrored') to the landing pages on the web. Such promotion is suitable for a directory application or magazine, but it will be difficult to implement for a game with three screens and a leaderboard.
7. Reception
They say that Google considers it, but no one knows how. There are vague rumors that Google is tracking the frequency of launches of the application. When launching their own “deep links”, Apple made a reservation that yes, Apple considers all this, and that when searching for Apple Search, it takes into account how often users open an application, how long they stay on certain screens. It is possible that in some way it will pop up in Google Search. It is also said that mass deletions omit the application in search results, and it is for this reason that services that attract motivated traffic are often asked not to delete the application for three days.
Perhaps, this has already been mentioned somewhere, but: if you have a quality application that you want to use and want to return to, then your chances of getting to the top in any store are much higher.
8. Integration with Google Plus
Here you can add the "deep links", which have already been mentioned. Representatives of the company promise mountains of gold to those who have integrated Google Plus, up to the special selection of the editors of Google Play. There are no real cases of the “golden mountains”, if there are any, it will be interesting to discuss them.
9. Availability of demo video
This factor is positive anyway, especially if this video is good (or you can, in principle, watch it without pain). On the other hand, if you have the opportunity to record a decent video, then, most likely, you have a good enough application, and you have already taken into account other issuing factors.
10. The eye-catching icon, attractive screenshots
for all specified types of devices. This is an indirect factor, which in itself is not related to ranking, but rather strongly affects the number of organic plants. Despite the large number of tools for previewing and A / B testing, this part of optimization still remains an art rather than a science. By the way, you do not need external services for A / V testing anymore - now Google has “Optimization of the application page using experiments” .
Finally, three tips on how to improve icons and what works almost always:
1. Use simple geometric shapes.
2. Use no more than three colors, select them by color circle.
3. Do not try to be original - choose the simplest solution.
Optimization of the description of applications is a cunning and long process in which success ultimately depends on the application itself. The main thing in this business is an adequate perception of your product, and also - the willingness to cooperate and listen to others, be it the opinion of a despicable marketer, the assessment of the majority of users (preferably excluded from a sample of friends and relatives) or, finally, Google analytics. It is for her to have the last word in all matters related to the optimization of the description on Google Play.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/293494/
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