Some possible improvements in the Google play store

[Éric Piel]

Hello,
Today I've tried to install OsmAnd on a phone, from the play store. I've realised that if you don't know the name of the application, it's really hard to find it. In particular, it's often much more down in the search results than other (sometimes much worse) similar applications.

I think a little bit of time spent to improve the ranking of OsmAnd could help to find many more users :-) I'm not knowledgeable at all on ranking optimisation in the app stores, but here are a few remarks. Hopefully some other people can propose further advices on improving the ranking.

• "GPS" keyword: The description doesn't contain "GPS". This means that any search request containing "GPS" will never show OsmAnd. It's really a lack, because one of the main way to describe such an app is "GPS navigation". You should really ensure that this word is in the description.
• Other keywords: It might be useful to check that all relevant keywords are present in the description. Either inside the text (best), or at the end, as a line starting with "Keywords:....". Apparently combinations of words is more powerful (e.g, "GPS navigation" is better than "GPS" somewhere and "navigation somewhere else). Here are some keywords that I'd recommend to ensure they are present: "sat nav, satnav, satellite navigation, GPS navigator, GPS navigation, navigation system, openstreetmap, OSM, offline routing, world map, ".
• List the countries. As OSM has the map of the entire world, it might sounds stupid to list every country of the world, but without it, any search which will countain a specific country name (e.g "navigation system USA") will discard OsmAnd. Continents names should also be included.
• What could be useful, for the potential user, is to give some idea of the coverage of each region. It's pretty hard to define it, as it depends on the expectations of the user and it varies a lot in space and time. Still, I believe it's possible to summarize maybe with 5-10 regions the quality of the road data (something like: "Western Europe: 90+% to "East Asia: ~30%").
• Update the features points. OsmAnd now has so many advantages now, it's a important to let know the potential user :-) Make sure all the feature points are mentioned in the description. Maybe organise them in groups (e.g, Navigation, Offline map management, Safety features, Bike and pedestrian features, OSM contribution...), . I've noted that "Offline routing" is said to be experimental and only for short distance. So outdated, I've seen it working great on complex 300km itineraries! How about mentioning that it's possible to add POIs to OSM and upload them directly, that GPX tracks can also be directly uploaded to OSM, that it will remind you if you're driving over the speed limit, that it can display (Bing) satellite imagery too, that you can get free updates of the maps monthly? So many features missed!
• Get inspired by other descriptions. Have a look at the descriptions of Sygic, Navfree, Locus map, and pick every good idea :-)

That was my two cents, hoping it can help in increasing the popularity of OsmAnd :-)
Éric

[David White]

All good points, though I think listing all countries on this planet may overload the description a bit...

David

[rodolfo]

Great post, very useful!

@David: perhaps Éric meant keywords, not the description (???)

[Victor Shcherb]

Hi, thank you for remark!

I think you are right especially for GPS. I'm not sure how we can proceed with it but all descriptions are available for crowdsource on translate.osmand.net. I think it is worth to prepare updated version, once we think it is good we could update for some languages (most important of course English).

Let me also invite Hardy to that discussion because descriptions need to be consolidated in many places.

Victor

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[Hardy]

Hello Eric, Yes, I agree! It has been many months since I last updated Osmand's description, and I had once started a systematic list of key search tags, but lacking time had never systemnatically implemented it.

 

The following are examples on my list of what is definitely missing, some of which you already mentioned: GPS navigator, GPS navigation, GPS tracker, GPS tracking, GPS map(s),  offline maps, mapping, map viewer, osm viewer.

 

The list is not complete, neither have I gotten to researching which of these are already tagged correctly. And finally, the play store description (as well as OsmAnd's descripton elsewhere) needs to be brought up to seed with the lates features and re-published.

 

You are right that more dilgent work here would genrate benefit for Osmand. I would very much appreciate if you could look at the current play store description text, align it with missing search tags, and shoot me a strawman we could both work on!  If you canot find the time, I will definitely get to it, but it will take a little time, too busy with some other stuff here ... :-)

 

Best regards,

Hardy

[Éric Piel]

Hello Hardy,

Op woensdag 20 maart 2013 00:28:29 UTC+1 schreef Hardy het volgende:

You are right that more dilgent work here would genrate benefit for Osmand. I would very much appreciate if you could look at the current play store description text, align it with missing search tags, and shoot me a strawman we could both work on!  If you canot find the time, I will definitely get to it, but it will take a little time, too busy with some other stuff here ... :-)

Fair enough ;-) I'll come back in a few days with a first draft for an updated play store description :-)

Éric

 

[Éric Piel]

On 20-03-13 00:28, Hardy wrote:
:

> I would very much appreciate if you could look at the current
> play store description text, align it with missing search tags, and
> shoot me a strawman we could both work on! If you canot find the time,
> I will definitely get to it, but it will take a little time, too
> busy with some other stuff here ... :-)

Hi Hardy,

As promised, I've took the current play store description and tried to
update it to make it more attractive and searchable :-) You can find
below the first draft (there are special == parts == for the text that
would go only for the free/paid versions). I believe it's already an
improvement to the current version, but I'm sure you'll find some tweaks
that can make it even better :-)

Cheers,
Éric

Osmand (OSM Automated Navigation Directions)

Osmand is a map and navigation application with access to the worldwide
and high-quality open street map data. All map data can be stored on the
memory card of your phone or tablet for offline usage. With the GPS of
your device, Osmand offers routing, with voice guidance, for car, bike
and pedestrian. All the main functionalities work both online and
offline (no internet needed).

== Paid version ==
Osmand+ is the paid application version, by buying it you support the
project, fund the development of new features, and receive the latest
updates. You can test the application before buying by installing the
free version called Osmand.
==================

Some of the main features:

Navigation
• Works online (very fast) or offline (no roaming charges when you are
abroad)
• Turn-by-turn voice guidance (recorded and synthesised voices)
• Optional lane guidance, street name display and estimated time of
arrival
• Support intermediary points in your itinerary
• Automatic re-routing whenever you decide to take another path
• Search for places by address, by type (ex: restaurant, hotel, gas
station, museum...), or by geographical coordinates

Map display
• Display your position and orientation on the map
• Optional rotation of the map according to compass or direction of motion
• Save your most important places as favorites
• Shows the most relevant POIs (point of interests) around you
• Can display specialised online tile maps
• Can display satellite view (from Bing)
• Multiple overlays of GPX or navigation tracks and additional maps
with customizable transparency
• Display places names in the local language or as they should be
pronounced

OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia data:
• High quality information from the best collaborative projects of the
world
• Maps from OpenStreetMap for the whole world available per country or
region
• Wikipedia POIs, great for sightseeing
• Unlimited free download, directly from the app
• Always up-to-date maps (updated at least once a month)
• Compact offline vector maps
• Select between complete data and just road network (ex: all Japan is
700 Mb, or 200 Mb for the road network only)
• Also supports download of tile maps for a given region

Safety feature
• Optional automated day/night view switching
• Optional speed limit display, with reminder if you are driving over
the limit
• Optional speed-dependent map zooming
• Share your location so that your friends can find you

Bicycle and pedestrian features
• The maps include footpath, hiking paths, and bike paths
• Special routing and display modes for bike and pedestrian
• Optional of public transportation stops (bus, tram, train) with the
names of the lines
• Optional record of your trip as GPX track
• Optional display of the speed and altitude
• Display of contour lines and hill-shading (via additional plugin)

Directly contribute to OpenStreetMap
• Report a bug on the map
• Upload GPX tracks to OSM directly from the app
• Add POIs and directly upload them to OSM (or later on, if offline)
• Optional record of all your positions in background mode


== Free version ==
Limitations of this free version of OsmAnd:
• Number of map downloads limited (16)
• No access to Wikipedia offline POIs

=================
Osmand is open-source and actively being developed. Everyone can
contribute to the application by reporting bugs, improving the
translation or coding new features. That's why our project keeps getting
better and better and will always be developed for the best of the
users. The progress of the project also relies on financial
contributions to fund the development and driving new functionalities.
By buying Osmand+ you help the application to be even more awesome! It
is also possible to fund specific new features or to make a general
donation on osmand.net.


Approximate coverage quality of the maps:
• Western Europe: ★★★★
• Eastern Europe: ★★★
• Russia: ★★★
• North America: ★★★
• South America: ★★
• Asia: ★★
• Japan & Korea: ★★★
• Middle East: ★★
• Africa: ★★
• Antarctica: ★

List of countries supported (all the world!):
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and
Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan,
Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin,
Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bonaire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana,
Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi,
Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad,
Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast,
Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti,
Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial
Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, French
Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana,
Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala,
Guernsey, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Vatican, Honduras, Hong
Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Isle of
Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya,
Kiribati, North Korea and South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia,
Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,
Macao, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta,
Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova,
Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar,
Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia,
New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau,
Palestinian Territory, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru,
Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia,
Rwanda, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint
Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia,
Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South
Africa, South Georgia, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname,
Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania,
Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago,
Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab
Emirates, United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), Uruguay,
Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Wallis and Futuna, Western
Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Keywords: Sat nav, satnav, satellite navigation, GPS navigator, GPS
navigation, navigation system, GPS tracker, GPS tracking, GPS map,
OpenStreetMap, OSM viewer, OSM mapping, offline routing, offline world
map, map viewer, offline maps.

[David White]

This is where one realises the wealth of features available in this application :-)

DW

[Hardy]

Hello Eric,

Thank you very much for this great piece of work!

 

Upon brief inspection, it seems like a huge improvement over what we have now! I may have some minor ideas about some details and also British vs. American spelling, but overall I believe we should not lose much time and I would love to use this as the basis for now in all the major sources of information we have on Osmand.

 

Victor, what do you think? I could take some time over the next few days to dive into this and update our sources, I do belive it is worth it!

 

Best regards,

Hardy

[Victor Shcherb]

Hi ,

Thanks All for the great piece of work. 

@Hardy : I will give you access directly to the application in play store, so you can update it in place. Otherwise you can send to me and I can put it there.

Victor

[yvecai]

I think 'outdoor' activities should be quoted too, along ski map.

[Hardy]

Ok, I have taken a shot at

- streamlining the contents and language some

- updating google play, our project pages, googlecode, and wiki pages

Not all details fitted on every page, but I think the results should be a great develeopment of our marquees ...

Thanks again,

Hardy

[Báthory Péter]

@Hardy: You often polish English strings. Since Weblate cant warn for
outdated translations, it would be helpful for translators if you send a
notification email with a diff link to this list.

Thanks!
Péter

[Éric Piel]

On 27-03-13 17:50, Hardy wrote:
> Ok, I have taken a shot at
> - streamlining the contents and language some
> - updating google play, our project pages, googlecode, and wiki pages
> Not all details fitted on every page, but I think the results should be
> a great develeopment of our marquees ...

Hi Hardy,
Thanks for the improvements to the text, it now looks really nice :-)

The play store has just got the update of the description. Unfortunately
the ranking is still not great. "openstreetmap offline" works pretty
fine, but in important searches like "free gps navigation", you cannot
find Osmand within the first ten pages! "gps navigation USA" doesn't
contain Osmand _at all_. One funny fact is that "gps navigation Japan"
returns Osmand in the first page, very likely because Japan is mentioned
as an example for the file size, and for "gps navigation Antarctica",
it's the only app found ;-)

One point, you didn't include the country list and keywords. Although
they look slightly strange (but as most applications in the play store
do it, it's not so strange for the users), they will be really useful.
You might want to reduce the list of countries to the major ones if you
think it's too long.

I've also just read about two other important factors in the ranking.
One factor is the words in the app name (that explains why all the first
navigation apps are called "XXX: free gps navigation" ;-) ). However,
I'm not sure you'd be willing to change the name of the app to this
schema. The other factor is to have as many links on the web pointing to
the android play store page. For this, it's mostly a matter of ensuring
that we keep mentioning and advertising the app, with a link to
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand , but hopefully
that will come naturally :-)

Best,
Éric

[Hardy]

@ Peter: Sure thing! Where exactly would you like to have this sent? And only if I go over some older ones, not the ones just brand new introduced, right?

 

Would a more economic and surefire way to do this be to simply post the file history link of the commits to the English strings file here, or maybe somewhere in the translation tools (I have not much looked at them).

 

An all on one page picture like https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/commits/master/OsmAnd/res/values/strings.xml should maybe be a mandatory check for everyone who mandates a language?

 

Thanks, Hardy

[Hardy]

Hello Eric, yes, thank you for the feedback!

 

I had been rather busy also uodating, the OSM wiki, our googlecode pages (Including separating the How To's into maintanable articles and sorting them), the wikipedia.org (false vandalism report pending there ... :-) ), our osmand.net Homepage and many articles on it, and some other foreign laguage pages. Some more pages draw their stuff automatically, like androidpit, fdroid et.al.

 

So I am now hoping that many of our translators use this material to update and complete their web sites and articles ...

 

Regarding the Play store description: There is a limit of 4000 caharcters, which in English we just about reached without the country names, and in German I had to introduce some severe cuts to fit it in. Please hava a look, but I think I included at least the most improtant facts (excluding the country list).

 

Search hits: I have updated the keywords on all sites I had access to, and where I had researched how to do it. I believe that I have yet to find out how google Play organizes its app search and keyword indexing. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

App name: This is a discussion we should have with Victor, and maybe break out to a separate thread. Not sure it is really a very good idea, it would depend on the exact fashion how we do this ...

 

For all keyword/search improvements we need to wait for a few days anyway until any effect may becme visible, let's keep watching ... (and figure out how to edit the app strore keywording explicitly, if possible).

 

Thanks again and best regards,

Hardy 

[Hardy]

Hi Eric, hi Victor,
concluding further research it looks like we are doing everything pretty much right now. The new description text is both informative and contains all the right keywords!

 

Google Play does not allow any explicit keywords but instead relies to a good portion on search hits of app title and description.

So the only thing left to do is we could upgrade our title in Google Play (as Eric already suggested) to something like "OsmAnd+ Global Offline Maps and Navigation". Trouble is there is a 30character limit, so we would have to streamline this a bit.

Victor, let me know if you want to give something a try, like maybe use "OsmAnd(+) Maps & Navigation" in the Play Store title? I see no reason why we shouldn't try, there seems to be no adverse effect?

 

It would likle point  A LOT more people our way who look for map or navigation ... :-)

Best regards,
Hardy

[Hardy]

PS: I have maxed out our Play Store character limit with country examples as they may be most popular in the different languages, as Eric suggested. Let's see. I also think we should at least "test-drive"  "OsmAnd(+) Maps & Navigation" in the title field?

 

[Victor Shcherb]

Of course it will be good to build brand strong enough and to not have any additional keywords in the title. The small problem is OsmAnd=Osm Automated Navigation Directions. 

But I agree for Google Play we should definitely have something like OsmAnd Maps & Navigation [Offline] or try.

It doesn't mean that we change the name of Application/Project just title in Google Play.

Thanks,
Victor

[Péter Báthory]

Hi Hardy! Sorry for the late answer.

2013/3/30 Hardy <hm.gg...@gmail.com>

@ Peter: Sure thing! Where exactly would you like to have this sent? And only if I go over some older ones, not the ones just brand new introduced, right?

Just for changes. I'm getting emails about new strings, but changes are invisible.

 

Would a more economic and surefire way to do this be to simply post the file history link of the commits to the English strings file here, or maybe somewhere in the translation tools (I have not much looked at them).

For me a simple git diff link would be enough.

 

An all on one page picture like https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/commits/master/OsmAnd/res/values/strings.xml should maybe be a mandatory check for everyone who mandates a language?

I used to check this list recently, but most changes are usually new strings, cosmetics, etc. and it was hard to filter relevant ones. And I haven't enough time to take Hungarian translation always up to date.

Péter