App Store Optimization Factors

ASO Factors & Trends - Expert Survey

”Big corporates finally do ASO decently.

Thomas Petit8fit

”Stores will give more weight to engagement and UX, over installs and CR.

Jonathan RavehCallApp

”Engagement and crash free apps and more curated lists of apps.

Daniel EntrenasGenera Games

”Search keywords available in iTunes Connect and Google Play Console

Nadir GaroucheSpill Games

”Having install per keyword data would definitely shake the whole ASO game, as it indeed would change the ASO strategies and approaches to the whole topic in general for a lot of companies and other ASO specialists.

Mantvydas LisauskasRuntastic

”ASO (App Store Optimization) will evolve into AVO (App Visibility Optimization).

Victor AsinsPickASO

”Search ads with custom creatives? Let's hope 🙂

Luca GiacomelBending Spoons

”App store focus has shifted to center around the customer. User experience factors are weighted heavily, and "gaming" the system with search will not get you very far. Your app must offer a customer-centric experience to rank, influenced by ratings, reviews, and engagement.

Ashley SeffermanApptentive

”Apple will put even more pressure on delivering high quality apps. Low quality apps will be outranked immediately. Apple will also give bigger boost to rank higher for apps that have healthy developer’s account (no reskins, less rejections) and have good quality app, with professionally designed store listing. We will be also able to track our current rankings on Apple’s Search Ads website.

Jiri ChochlikAppAgent

”ASO is not only about keywords or visibility. Conversion matters. Because of that maybe Apple will launch an A/B Testing tool (like Google Play experiments) in iTunes Connect so all developers can A/B test icon, screenshots, video, and text fields. Apple will also start using the content of description fields to rank apps in the App Store search results. Then the ASO game changes!

Miriam PeláezPickASO

”Augmented reality apps will become more popular on both stores and among users. App store will push more augmented reality apps due to increase new devices with new iOS system sales. On the other hand, Apple Search Ads will go more global

George NatsvlishviliShpock

”New and another ways and channels to discover apps will be more important for marketers.

Guillermo GallardoPickASO

”The optimisation of more app stores outside of the big two. Amazon have put a huge amount of resources behind their app store, 15,000 new apps are added per month and downloads growing by the day. Watch this space!

Ollie RussellappScatter

”Engagement and retention will have more weight in app rankings.

Katerina ZolotarevaTheTool

”Keywords + install combination would be killer to see. Don't think it will happen though. ASO is going to get more "complex", just like SEO did in the past. With more elements in the algorithm, it will be harder to exploit the system.

Gabor PappShapr3D

”Stronger analytics released to developers and A/B testing capabilities on both Apple and Google gets more advance.

Adeline LeeClue

”App Stores will evolve, so ASO will evolve. New layouts, new fields, changes in current fields, and, probably, some surprises...
BTW, ASO is not dead and will still be funny in 2018 😛

Daniel PerisTheTool

”I assume that app publishers will start investing more in Apple Search Ads. Since Apple Search Ads is yet another factor influencing app rankings, it will be harder to grow positions in search for publishers who do not work with this user acquisition channel. That’s why I believe that Apple may start giving the installs data per keyword - that’s something that can allow publishers evaluate the potential of Apple Search Ads. I’ve heard an opinion that app descriptions will start influencing rankings. That makes a lot of sense because now publishers (again) can use descriptions to boost technical relevance of their app metadata and start running ads for the selected keywords. Given that app description impacts neither rankings nor conversions, publishers are basically allowed to add so-so relevant keywords to run ads. So a fair step would be to start indexing descriptions. Having said that, I do not really think that it is a high-priority feature for the App Store’s team and something that will be implemented soon since it leads to huge changes. Let’s see!

Alexandra LamachenkaSplitMetrics & SearchAdsHQ

”Continued weeding out and cleaning of the App Stores of cloned and badly coded apps.

Scott CalonicoKumulos

”Conversion Rate Optimization in terms of graphics and work on ratings / reviews.

Ekaterina PetrakovaRocket Internet SE

”ASO will finally become a must for each & every mobile dev team.

Evgeny KruglovAppFollow

”In-App Purchases will become more important for success in ASO (indexing) and also for generating revenue, which may become a (more) important ranking signal.

Gabriel KwakyiIncipia

”App Stores will allow users to put apps on a wish list for later download.

Stefan BielauDynamo Partners

”Hopefully more analytics and transparency of Apples and Googles algorithms.

Johannes von CramonGrowfirst GbR

”User intention will overtake keywords.

Marcello FrisardiBabbel

”Google Play and App Store will be stricter about suppressing apps with poor performance and a high uninstall rate, in favor of better-performing and monetized apps. As for the utilities category, Google will continue to push their utility apps in the market and to integrate them natively with Android.

Michal SkvorAvast Software

”I hope 2018 is the year that we'll remember for having a new issue to deal with in ASO: app engagement! And thanks to this, great (and used) apps will be rewarded and bad apps nope 😉

Vanessa Estorach

”Businesses will finally start taking ASO and engagement seriously.

Peter GodtfredsenMobtimizers

”We will learn how people truly discover apps in organic search thanks to Google.

Peter FodorAppAgent

”More browsing, less search, more engagement signals.

Sagi Dekel AlroiPlaytika

”Google will fight low quality apps more aggressively On the other hand, it will be harder to get results just by organic optimization, paid campaigns are a must.

Jevgen Tarasenkomysnapp

”Quality: Engagement, Android Vitals, Retained Installers, Ratings, Conversion Rate, etc.

Ido SchoonenLab Cave Apps

”Manipulation of App Ranking via Keyword Search and Download will increase.

Gabriel MachuretASO Agency

”The advance of its (now) pivotal position in a comprehensive app strategy and pioneering efforts to apply proven ASO principles to new stores and platforms (such as Alexa).

Peggy Anne SalzMobileGroove

”A better clean-up of the iTunes App Store taking user engagement into accounts, not only total downloads. Too many fake/scam apps with thousands of downloads but 0 engagement out there! 🙂

Nathan Vander HeydenTapTimize

”Apple to introduce A/B testing solution to allow app marketers understand better how to improve their conversion rates on the App Store.

Rishan WeerakoonYodel Mobile

”Google will split Organic channel to Featured and Search Organic, add impressions in UA report, will add screenshots in search results of Google Play. Apple & Google will change twice or more a search algorithm. Apple will release Search Ads Basic for all countries (not Advanced), add detecting Search Ads campaigns in App Analytics.

Anatoly SharifulinAppFollow

”In an ideal world... iOS: more room for keywords, ability to update information/screenshots without having to update the whole app, A/B testing.

Sara Ronzerolernin

”Installs per keyword from both platforms would be a real game-changer, but likely too good to become true...

Giulia TobaldinZalando SE

”Definitely, engagement will have more weight in ASO, actually I guess there will be more metrics involved, like users behaviour "inside" the apps, that they will be important for ASO.

Carlos HernandoASOApp

”ASO looks like a black box at the moment, hopefully Apple and Google will give us more segmented data and a better way to predict our ranking.

Gessica BicegoBlinkist

”ASO will follow the trends of SEO and become more nuanced and competitive, requiring diverse cross-channel skills for true success.

Emily Grossman