How We Got Into The App Store Top List
[Jump to the bottom of the post to see what our app has to say about Superbowl 46 Trend Analysis!]
I woke up yesterday morning to a nice surprise in my inbox. As I do every morning, I was checking to see if our Football Team Trends iPad app increased in ranking and how downloads were trending. Conveniently, all of this gets emailed to me automatically every morning thanks to the folks at Mobile Dev HQ- a Seattle-based startup building new and amazing “organic” App Store ranking tools all app developers should be using. I was anticipating a “NR” , or not ranked, status similar to those I had been getting as we gradually ramped up our promotion tactics. I was pretty stoked when the email opened and the status of 65th position in the Top Free Sports iPad App list was staring back at me!
Getting into a top list in the sports category has been a goal of ours since we launched the iPad app live a few weeks ago. Getting into a top list greatly increases the exposure of apps in the App Store and comes with a nice correlation in app downloads (or sales, if it’s a paid app). For us, ranking in the top free sports iPad list meant an increase in downloads of 10x over our average daily rate! While it’s never guaranteed that you will make it onto a top list, I thought it would be nice to share a few of the things we did to help nudge our app along:
- Categories: When submitting an app, you have the option to select a couple categories your app should be placed under in the app store. We obviously picked sports for our app. Make sure the category you select is relevant to your app’s theme. Don’t pick categories just because they see larger amounts of eyeballs than others.
- App Store Search: Additionally, in the app submission process you have the opportunity to identify some keywords for your app and write the app description. These matter. Similar to Google, Apple’s App Store search utilizes key words and their own “SEO” algorithms to determine which apps show up when customers search. Again, the tools at Mobile Dev HQ were indispensable for recommending appropriate keywords. Plurals matter, 1 word VS 3 word keywords matter. Pay attention to this.
- Downloads: Similar to Google’s “Quality Score”, Apple considers app downloads a key metric in determining an app’s ranking. Obviously, the more downloads, the more popular, and the app will rise in ranking.
- Exposure: To generate downloads we actually focused most of our effort outside the App Store. We submitted our app to countless app review websites in order to get the app in front of as many people as possible out on the web. In addition to app review websites, we partnered with key companies who already have large audiences interested in our app’s content. We asked them promote the app via their social media accounts. Through A/B testing, we found social media actually worked best to drive app downloads over traditional banners and link ads. Apps are very much a “social discovery” kind of content whereby people rely on recommendations of friends in order to check them out.
- Topical Themes: There are many strategies for building out an app portfolio. Companies can try and build enduring titles, like Angry Birds, or companies can “snipe” on emerging topical themes. Our app is NFL Football related, and with Superbowl coming up this weekend, I’m sure we benefited from the increase in awareness and interest in the event. Depending on budget, it can be better to create smaller, narrow apps, that snipe an upcoming holiday, or event. A new entrant into the App Store can quickly ride a rise in ranking boosted by a targeted event. Development budget and functional scope does need reflect the short-lived nature of these apps though as there is a much shorter window for ROI.
- Building A Great App!: Last (but not least!), the app has to behave as advertised. Of course I’m biased, but I think we made a beautiful UI and extremely high value user experience. (Check out Bob’s post on the making of our app’s navigation system over on our tech blog). Building a great app and delivering an amazing experience encourages people to rate the app and leave comments. Similar to downloads, positive reviews and ratings improve the apps “quality score” and the app’s ranking increases in the App Store. For this piece we relied on the kindness of strangers. Well, strangers and a polite request out to friends and family to get the ball rolling ;)
