App Store search optimization

[Eric Shapiro]

A client has an app in the App Store and wants to optimize searches so we come up on the first set of results.

They think that putting the category name in the app name will help. I think it makes the name sound silly, but if it helps I don't mind.

For example, if it were a photography app, they would change the name from Snapshot to Snapshot Photography.

Anyone know if that will help?

(We do have the category name as our first keyword already)

Thanks,
Eric

------------------
Eric Shapiro
er...@relium.com

[Tom Crawford]

From what I understand, for app store optimization, the title is very important.  Selecting the right primary category is also important, but apparently the secondary category is not as important. Including the category in the title is not necessarily important unless that category word is something people would use to search to find the app.  Keywords also play a role. Including any terms that people would use to search will increase the rankings.  Keywords should be singular (they finally handle most plurals) and you don't need spaces in between keywords.  In my case, keywords might be: liquor,beer,wine,drink,food

However, my recent experience with Happy Hour strongly implies that Title, Category & Keyword mostly impact search results.  If that still results in a large number of apps, the ranking inside that list seems to depend most on the total number of downloads and "velocity" of downloads, where velocity is the number of downloads in a period of time.  So, it seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but the way to appear at the top of the list is to get more downloads, and to get them in a shorter period of time.  I would suppose that also implies that traditional marketing or a strong burst of a social networking campaign to drive traffic and volume could be an effective tool to increase the ranking.

Cheers!

--tom

Download Happy Hour for iPhone now!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happy-hour-deals/id600017744?mt=8

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[Keith Bourne]

Yes, title is very important, as is the keywords and categories (like Tom said).  Descriptions do not get indexed for the app store searches, so don't bother optimizing that (beyond just providing a well written description with a good hook, etc.).  If they are in a very competitive category, they may want to consider optimizing for something else that is searched a lot.  (i.e. you may not be able to get to the top for Sports, but maybe for Soccer, so you optimize for that)  You can also take a lot of queues from the app names for the apps that are at the top of the list.  They are probably doing the same thing and you can see what they are using to get that higher listing.  

To Tom's point about rankings being a big factor.  If it is a paid app, you can use price deals to help get an early bump to the top of the listings.

Keith Bourne

Arbormoon Software, Inc.

Mobile Strategist
734.926.8208

Find me @:

Arbormoon: http://arbormoon.com 
Web: http://keithbourne.com
Twitter: @keithbourne