Really with the title of this post, little more remains to be said, not least what the mobile world means within the online world, and therefore what it means in our lives.

Therefore, in this article, instead of mentioning very specific aspects of ASO or App Marketing, I will highlight some market data already published by other sources, but also provide more information by linking some data.

In April 2016, Google searches from mobile devices exceeded searches on Google from laptops or desktop computers. Something was beginning to shift.

According to a recent publication on the StabCounter statistics portal, last March, the Android operating system dethroned Windows as king of the operating system most used to access the internet. Thus, Google surpasses Microsoft with a share of 37.93% of internet uses, compared to 37.91%. They are followed, from a way behind, by iOS (13.09%) and Mac computers (5.17%), both from Apple.

There are many who are referring to this as the end of an era and even as a milestone in the history of technology. Of course, that is like saying a few sentences make a change in a whole rule. We are still immersed in a technological revolution in which mobile devices are at the forefront and, with that, the Apps market.

In a Sensor Tower article that discusses Top Apps for the first quarter of 2017, we can see how:

The profits generated by Apps worldwide, let me take the opportunity to comment, we know that the world of Apps is divided into two large blocks, Apps and Games, though games obviously are Apps, but due to the large volume involved in today’s market, this distinction is made,that is to say, not including games, have increased 55% this year compared to the first quarter of 2016. And analyzing by market, we see how the increase has been 55% for IOS And 101% for Android. Or in the same way, by this time last year, IOS made four times the profits of Android Apps without including games, and this year, it doubles it. This is comparable for the global market including games, or any category of specific Apps.

The Apps market has not stopped growing to its full extent and within it, Android does this at a greater pace than IOS nowadays.

As for economic profits IOS is still above Android, however, in the market figures regarding number of Apps and downloads of them, among other things, is not so, as it has been for years. For example, here you can see the number of downloads in both Apps markets in the first quarter of 2017 without counting games and, in addition, in what percentage they increase.

Android, or rather Google, has bitten Microsoft as the most used operating system, and IOS or Apple, as the most growing market in recent times.

In the following graph we can see the different market shares of the big applications markets, Android, IOS and Windows Phone in different countries.

Note: EU5 includes UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain.

We see that, regardless of points of growth or decrease, Android surpasses IOS growth.

This article is a continuation of the one published on the blog on February 21, 2017, ASO + App Marketing = How to position an App in less than a month, and of the analysis made in it.

In the previous article, we analysed how it is possible to position an App in competitive niche market and in a country like the USA, where competition in the applications market is the highest.

In summary, what does it take to get there?:

1. A well optimized study “ASO on page” for the launch of the App in the market. In this case on Google Play. Including keywords, their density and placement in title and descriptions, App logo, and images of the store listing among others.
2. Boost the ASO with App Marketing during the first few weeks the App is in the market.

Without this combination, ensuring the success of an App in any market with the competition that exists today, is complicated.

3. At the beginning we will start to have downloads from external means, this will cause all the “ASO off page” factors, such as retention, reviews etc., to start generating value and with them the “ASO on page” factors. That is, the algorithm that decides how to show search results in this case on Google Play, will attach importance to our App because of the keywords of the “ASO” study. Thus, little by little, will be getting more organic discharges. There will come a point where they will equal those coming from external media (App Marketing), and eventually surpassing them. Or in the same way, reduce costs, generate more downloads and, therefore, more profits.

Well, we have worked on the application, Relax Meditation Therapy Music, in this way so if you look at how the downloads were achieved for the week that began on March 20th, it is evident that most downloads are Organic. This is two months after the App’s launch in the market, and incidentally, the number of downloads the App has are not few!

If you look closely, we see how, in the previous article, the downloads meant a combination of App Marketing “Adwords + Third Party” for the most part and fewer organic downloads. However, in the image above, we see how it is a combination of organic downloads and, to a lesser extent, App Marketing, in this case only from “Adwords”.

Going into more depth, we have daily installations little by little marking an upward trend.

This makes sense, having good retention of the App’s users. Which is the trend of the total active installations as shown below.

Thanks to the App’s good positioning by Concrete Keywords in Top 10 and Top 20, as we see according to the traced data from App Annie:

In addition to the data above, will make this App, a successful App in the market. Being the trend in use as shown in Google Analytics:

And finally and most importantly, the trend in revenue:

If you would like to contact me for any clarification or more information, do not hesitate to do so! -> carlos@asoapp.net

Today, March 2nd, I received some questions related to the new format on Google Play of showing results by searches of specific keywords. Here is an example.

If we look for “Radios de España” a featured App appears, subsequently, those which are recommended “Similar Apps”, then another recommendation “You may also be interested” and before the usual list of results, a last recommendation, “More about the developer of the featured App. ” As I said, lastly, we have a summary of the list of about 250 Apps that Google Play returns for the keyword search “More results” .

In all of them we can click on “More” and we will go to the conventional or common list. As shown in the following example for “More Results”.

Will it be this way for all searches from now on? The answer is no. In fact, if we search for other keywords, we have different ways of displaying the results.
For example, for “Therapy Music”:

Or, “Radios de México”, it is shown as it has always been:

Google is testing, and a few weeks ago, between November and December 2016, they did something similar. If you searched for certain keywords, not all, but in some cases, they showed between three and five highlighted Apps, as it appears in the first image of the article, but instead of one, at least three and up to five. Then it showed “More results”, so by clicking on “More”, the list was displayed as always without including the highlighted Apps. After a few days of testing, it returned to showing how until a few days ago, that is, for each search, a list of about 250 Apps results are displayed with the Apps that are using Adwords campaigns in the first or the first two positions.

Something very curious is what has happened since yesterday, if you look at the listing for “Radios de España”, “More results”, we see a promoted App in the second position, which does not make much sense for Google’s own interests in generating an income. That is to say, in order for someone to download that App by that keyword search, you see the featured App, slide the screen, see many similar Apps, those that are recommended, go to another window by clicking ‘more’ and in the second position, as I mentioned, you will find it. It doesn’t seem to make much sense. Therefore, everything indicates that they are simply testing as they did between two and three months ago to study different possibilities when showing the search results on Google Play. As always, we will gradually see what happens.

Another consequence of this change is the new alteration in the search results (I recommend reading the articles prior to this one). Avoiding to take long, I only took one of the Apps that I am monitoring in test mode, it is not an App with any objective other than to test Google Play itself. We can see the positions occupied for different searches throughout February.

If you look, today, the results have changed a great deal. Words for which it was positioning badly, now make it better, and to the contrary. This is just an example, but it complies with 80% of the Apps that I follow continuously: There is now a significant difference compared to the previous weeks for the same target keywords.

I have in mind to create an App. I have a great idea, I know and understand how to carry that idea out and develop said App, that is, I am sure about the niche, market study and feasibility of creating the App, and in addition, I am sure of the purpose of the App, whether it be monetization or something else. But, one must ask what we all do at this point; how do I get downloads for my App? Where do the downloads come from? I will explain clearly and directly.

According to recent studies:

As you can see more than half of the downloads are generated from the application markets themselves, known as organic downloads. And, how can I get organic downloads? Through the good positioning of my App by specific keywords.

Is it possible to position well within a few weeks through good ASO work combined with initial App Marketing? The answer is, yes! Although we may find ourselves with comments that differ from the above, but to do this we will see and show it.

For the course I teach in Benowu, I created an application, Relax Meditation Therapy Music, in January 2017. An App that is being used to show how to make an App easily, position it and monetize it, within a very popular and competitive niche.

In particular, three App updates were uploaded: January 20th and 23rd, and finally February 20th.

The idea, as always, is to start with good, completed ASO work, driven by App Marketing. This will gradually lead to the number of organic downloads exceeding the number of downloads by other routes, with the ultimate goal of positioning the App in keyword and featured TOPs. So, as we see, in the first week almost all of the downloads did not come from the Apps market, Google Play, but from Adwords or a third avenue.

However, around three weeks later, the situation has been reversed:

Due to what? The good positioning that the App has taken quickly because of particular key words. For a country such the USA, we see which position the App takes by different keywords, I repeat, in less than 4 weeks! Coincidence? Or, good work in ASO and App Marketing? Overtaking hundreds of more long-standing Apps, with better ASO factors and above all with little time and investment in the market. We should not be afraid to get into exploited niches if we know how to use ASO and work with App Marketing!

The ideal is always, at first, to use “App Marketing” (in this article we cover everything that this entails to clearly differentiate it from “ASO”), to gradually enforce the good “ASO” work previously done, and obtain, in a few weeks, the bulk of the downloads in an organic way. This will:

• Maintain a positive and growing trend of installs without investment.
• Exponentially multiply income.

Graphics of active installs throughout the life of the App.

And daily.

As we know, the positioning in Top Charts or Highlights goes hand in hand with good positioning by keywords, and the very growth of the App. With that, I leave you with a recently received email from App Brain, a very useful tool in the mobile world.

Latest Google Play updates

What better way to experiment with an App than the changes in ASO factors that I talked about in the last article? Well, I set to work. I explain:

• I carried out a search for niche.
• I found one that seemed interesting.
• I discovered that it is a recurring niche with high competition.
• Perform a search for Relevant Keywords which have a large volume of searches.
• Make a simple App to be included within the aforementioned niche.

VERIFYING THE ANALYSIS:

• I name the App using the keywords that I have decided are relevant: “Relax”, “Meditation”, “Therapy” and “Music”.
• What can I expect? Naturally, it is positioned by the keywords included in the title, but, will it be simple? Fast? Can I position well just for having the keywords in the title? Obviously, as always, I make proper use of ASO factors and especially various types of App Marketing.
• What do I get? The App was published on January 20th 2016, and in less than 15 days positioned at the verge of the top 10 according to App Annie for a market like the United States. Searching directly on Google Play with Spain as the location, the App appears within the top 10 using the keywords “Therapy Music” and “Relax Meditation”.

Therefore, it complies with what, as analyzed in the Google algorithm, was predicted during the previous weeks:The apps that underwent changes contained those keywords mostly in the title itself. (We know the ASO value of the App title, but it still seemed to be more valuable than previously noted).”

Of course, the good positioning of some Keywords, in particular, just those which coincide with the title is not only because they are in the title, but with good ASO and App Marketing. Which in addition has consequently led the App to appear in Top Charts and Highlights in its category, for example, in Indonesia it is found in position 139 for “Health Free”.

In short, it can be concluded that the most relevant Keywords by which the Application has been positioned coincide with those included in the title, and it has done so quickly. More than it would have done before the last Google Play update.

Also, to emphasize that it seems that little by little, as also predicted, they are implementing more changes in the algorithm, however, in a much smoother way than as occurred on January 13th.

Accents on Google Play

Lastly, a clarification, in Spanish, for example, the word “meditation”, uses a tilde with the “o”. Well, so far simple, but, do the accents influence positioning? Yes, and I would say, that even more so with the latest update.

If we search for “meditation”, we get:

The first App that positions and does not use the tilde in its title is “Mindfulness and Meditation” and it appears in the sixth position. However, if we search for “meditation” without tilde.

We see how it appears in the fourth position. Therefore, according to the direct results of the search engine, it seems to be an influence. Although of course, it can be claimed that this happens because of other ASO factors, but it seems to be simpler, it has a logical, direct connection that does it by the title itself, but as always, you never know or will know 100%.

A few weeks or even a month ago, we knew that Google has been making improvements in its positioning algorithm to optimize how Google search results for certain keywords are displayed on Google Play. Its intention has been to tone down the influence of reviews and the keywords included within them in the positioning of an app, as well as to lessen the good positioning that recently published apps obtained when they achieved a very high growth from the first moment of publication.

The algorithm works, or worked, as follows: You could position a new app by certain keywords if they appear frequently in comments made by users even though they do not appear in the description and / or the title and also if this app has enough downloads from any media from the first moment of its publication, including high retention and that is positive (more downloads than uninstalls). In this way, it has managed to surpass more long-running apps on the market.

Google tries to show results in the most natural way possible on Google Play. They want to avoid, for example, if in a fitness app there are comments like “I love the app, but I end up dead when I use it”, if these kinds of comments repeatedly appear, that words like “dead” end up being a keyword by which this app positions well or even in the first place when being searched for. This is an invented example despite the fact that there are multiple, well known cases which, with the intention of harming certain brands, used this type of technique to position them by meaningless and detrimental keywords. It is a determining ASO factor.

Google made a change in the Google Play App market on Friday 13th January, removing the results of the rankings in a way never seen before, or rather never so drastically in recent times.

Ejemplo 1 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 1 mes

Ejemplo 2 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 3 mes

Ejemplo 3 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 1 año y posiciona TOP 1 por palabras deseadas

Ejemplo 4 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 1 año y posiciona TOP 5 por palabras deseadas

– This data has been provided by AppAnnie –

But what happened on the 14th and following days? Making a detailed study in different niches, the Apps that occupied the first positions by specific searches:

• The apps that underwent changes contained those keywords mostly in the title itself. (We know the ASO value of the App title, but it still seemed to be more valuable than previously noted).
• They had been in the market for more than a year. Not all, but the vast majority.
• The number of total downloads was very important compared to how it was previously.
• Key words in comments are no longer important, despite being a key ASO factor.

These patterns were fulfilled in each of the searches performed. Aside from other less significant ones.

In the following image you can see annotations made on January 14th in an Excel. I use this Excel to track some Apps in a specific niche, the best known, directly from the browser. In this case, I was trying to find patterns from the update.

Ejemplo 5 – Apps que tienen distinta antigüedad como se muestra

Exactly a week later, on January 20th, Google took a step back, and there is no prior evidence of such a substantial change in retouching an algorithm. We could not say to what extent they have taken a step backwards, that is, we could not show which of the changes they have maintained in the algorithm and which they have undone but what is clear is that they have taken a step backwards to a greater or lesser extent.

Ejemplo 1 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 1 mes

Ejemplo 2 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 3 mes

Ejemplo 3 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 1 año y posiciona TOP 1 por palabras deseadas

Ejemplo 4 – App que lleva en el mercado menos de 1 año y posiciona TOP 5 por palabras deseadas

– This data is provided by AppAnnie –

Ejemplo 5 – Apps que tienen distinta antigüedad como se muestra

Today another week has just passed, we are on January 27th 2017 and we can assure you that, indeed, some of the changes have been consolidated, but in a much smoother way. By looking closely at the results shown today, we can be sure that the App title, as far as exact search words are concerned, has more relevance than it had previously. For example, if my App is called “Carlos Hernando”, and Google search is “Carlos Hernando”, my chances of positioning first in the results will be greater than an app called “Carlos Hernando App.” Well, this is logical, but with the combination of ASO factors, right now, it’s simpler than it was before. Through about 20 searches, it can be proved that there has been a jump in the rankings due to this update, as predicted two weeks ago. One such case is one of my Apps.

Ejemplo 5 – Apps que tienen distinta antigüedad como se muestra

Finally, to clarify that the results shown are for Apps in which ASO and App Marketing are not working actively, they are only used to show the impact of this update. For the Apps I tracked myself in the Excel, it works promptly and passively with marketing campaigns and ASO optimization.

Does Google intend to implement those changes that it tried little by little? Could some of these changes have been errors? Will they rectify them? In the end, we will probably never know what happened and what will happen exactly, although thanks to analytics we can adapt to the ASO factors and the influence that these are going to be having following the updates within the Apps search engine on Google Play.

I would also like to mention that sometools or results-tracking platformsseem to have suffered a bug during the week in which Google made the changes commented on in the algorithm. Is it coincidence? Or is it all related?

Apple Search Ads

For months we haven’t posted any blog update on www.asoapp.net, simply because of an excess workload combined with the summer vacations of the members of this project. Exactly… such an easy and lame excuse! So in early September as we were returning from time off, we were a little embarrassed to post. Therefore we thought we should do it on an important date of the Apps Market.

October 5, 2016 proved to be that day. In the last article posted on the blog we talked about our trial of the paid advertising for Apps on Google or the Universal Campaigns for Apps from Google Adwords. Then, on October 5th, Apple launched its own platform to display sponsored advertising within the App Store.

From Apple webiste:

“Promoting Apps with Search Ads

Search Ads is an efficient and easy way to promote your app on the App Store for iPhone and iPad in the U.S., helping customers discover it at the very moment they are searching for apps to download. Designed to give users a safe search experience, Search Ads sets a new standard for delivering relevant ads while respecting user privacy.

Ads go live on the App Store on October 5.”

Developers can now buy spaces to highlight their apps in App Store searches. According to Apple, the search tool is used to generate 65% of application downloads for both free and paid applications. So we are facing a new turn when acquiring new users.

Click hereto watch a video from Apple explaining this new resource.

Also, Apple is currently offering a coupon promotion for developers, in this case $100, similar to what Google does with Adwords. The promotion allows for one sponsored search to be highlighted with a blue background. This model is very similar to what Google does when displaying search results in the web application, and ads will appear in the iOS App Store, AppleTV, and Mac OSX.

Mobile App Development: ways of facing it

Nowadays there are three types of Apps: WebApps, Natives and Hybrids. The most common and generally used are Native Apps. Still, one question that many of you interested in the apps world ask us every day is: Is it necessary to know how to program in order to create a native or simple app? In regards to App ASO, we’d like to be frank and explain that, no; programming knowledge is not necessary for today’s web world. There are many alternatives such as:

• phonegap.com: This is a platform that allows us to program apps from scratch using web code, or we can buy app templates from ThereForest and then make any desired changes or modifications to the coding. These apps are then compiled to be read by operating systems such as Android or IOS, and so can be considered Native Apps.
• seattleclouds.com: This is a platform that can create apps without introducing a single line of code, and is known as an app builder. There are many different app builders, and they are analogous to website builders such as WordPress. Similar to the previously mentioned platform, apps can be created and compiled to be read natively.

What we’ve mentioned above is simply to a start to a series of articles in which we will talk about the various ways to create apps. The possibilities, which we will explain, are endless. Additionally, we will answer the frequent question of how to turn a webpage or ecommerce site into an app.

Among the various ways our apps have of doing marketing, or technically speaking, of user acquisition, exist Ads on Facebook or Twitter, and CPI on large platforms, among others. But we could possibly highlight Adwords as the most “generic”and the most effective.

In our first article, written on this blog on October 22, 2015, we mentioned it as a product Google had made available to users on July 2015. As always, since ASOAPP, we’ve been testing a variety of niches, apps, different kinds of targeting, among others, and the conclusion we’ve reached is that nowadays it’s possibly the best way for obtaining high retention and fully potential users, as occurs with its web counterpart, Google Adwords – Google Adsense.

In some cases we’ve achieved better results, in terms of CPI, than with any other method, meaning we’ve acquired the lowest CPI, which many occasions reached a very small amount of cents, 0.03 cents per conversion. And even when it might not be as cost-effective a method in other niches, for as high as the CPI might be, it’s always within normal parameters and values, around 0.20 Euro cents.

And although one can certainly achieve this number through other methods, managing to get lower than 0.05 cents per conversion is a very difficult task for most apps, especially with the minimal effort that has to be invested in Google Adwords.

How to create a Mobile Marketing campaign in Adwords?

Simple, we first have to open an account in Google Admob, and for this we’ll also have to have a Google Adsense (Admob is generally “Adsense” for mobile) and Google Adwords account. Once we’re in Google Adwords we simply need to select a new campaign, of the Universal App Campaign kind, and from there:

• Select the app to be promoted.
• A series of keywords to do it.
• Location.
• Language.
• Budget.

And that’s how simple the segmentation degree is. In the picture below we can see results of this sort of campaign which had a very good average, we even show the logo so you can see what App we’re talking about, in case someone is interested in performing a more complete search.

What do we get with this kind of action?

As is obvious, a user increase in an application has to have consequences, if the app does its job and the users are happy with it, they’ll keep it installed, being able to get good ratings from them, revenues due to advertising, it’s in fact curious that this app has had more revenues than expenses, as can be seen in the picture below, and of course a good position which you can check in AppAnnie, leading it to many more organic installations.