Hello again. This lesson is on case studies.
You now understand how tools can be used
and how to consider some of
the data and reports available.
Let's now consider some case studies.
These are from an industry and
competitive examples that I'm familiar with,
and are based on my assessment of public data.
By understanding the overall strategy,
it helps to see where app optimization
fits within the big picture.
What you'll learn in this lesson is,
how to determine what factors influence the outcome,
how to use data and reports to assess
app performance to determine the right strategy,
and we'll use a checklist to improve app find-ability.
In this first case study,
we get a sense from
App Annie's data about the impact of adding
a top feature to
both the keyword property in iTunes and the title.
This feature enable this app to become
a clear differentiation against its competition,
and approach the number one competitor in this space
only a month later in terms of the amount
of visibility for that particular app's keyword.
Some will question whether keywords in the title matter.
They absolutely do.
In this data from mobile dev Hq
shows a 10 percent ranking increase
by having a keyword in the title.
Why wouldn't you have it?
It simply makes a lot of sense,
and beyond just ranking it gives
users a clear indicator of what that app is about.
This graph from SearchMan shows
in early November that
the app was declining in search visibility.
Perhaps that was due to low ratings reviews,
but also we can determine
that the title and keyword needed updating.
That was the only element besides the app
refresh that occurred in that first week of November,
bringing the app to a standard
of visibility that sustained itself over
the subsequent two launches in
mid-December and mid-February and proves
the value simply of getting the title and keyword
aligned to the overall visibility score objectives.
In this case study, we see a number of
app updates in a very short amount of time,
five within about two months.
Now, the poor ratings began because the app quality
was sub-par and needed some work
and so these releases happened in very short succession.
The fourth release of the app,
from that first week of
November until the middle of November,
brought the app's visibility score
up because the ratings improved.
Keywords were then added into
the title about a month later.
Not increasing the app's visibility
significantly but allowing it to sustain
the visibility due to the app quality
and enhanced by more relevant keyword alignment.
Sometimes the addition of a single competitive term
to a title can have a great increase on rankings.
That was the case here.
You saw it across the board
for all these regions represented
by the colors and App Annie
shows that that was sustained.
Now, picking the title based on
keyword implies that the app's quality is good,
the ratings are also good,
and we believe that we can rank
well for a competitive term.
That proved to be true with this particular app.
This app is a regional slice for
Japan of the prior slide's visibility score.
For this client, we saw that adding
an improved title with
more relevant keywords had
a significant impact on the discoverability.
This app had gone through a number of updates,
through the month of October and November and saw
a significant spike in
mid-November simply due to the title enrichment.
So this comes back to issues of control versus influence.
You can control the title and by
writing it in a way that incorporates
keywords and is relevant to those who are looking
quickly in the App Store
and trying to make a download decision.
It can have a significant impact on visibility.
An app I'm aware of from an industry source,
went through a particular challenging time
where it had a poor rating profile,
keyword selection wasn't optimized, poor messaging,
description wasn't compelling, images were uninspired,
there was no demo video and
no professional third-party reviews.
Some real challenging issues here.
As a result, this team
took initiative to make some improvements.
First, they looked at solicitation of
ratings following the positive user events
like sharing a video,
asking users to submit ratings.
They optimize their keywords,
monitored and updated them at every launch,
updated the on-page content,
added a demo video,
solicited professional reviews from
third parties and those into the description,
saw continuous monitoring of ratings and
reviews and provided that feedback
into the product development teams.
Therefore, they didn't need to update
the title optimization to improve search visibility.
When all of these improvements were taken into account,
the improvement in visibility was significant.
This shows that there are
a combination of factors at play.
In blue, at the time of this first launch update,
the spike was significant and sustained
through the second launch update in July.
Whereas, the competition in Green started to fall.
So the success of
this particular effort was significant and really helped
this client's apps to gain
not only the visibility but they knew the app was great.
They knew that they needed to
put some additional firepower
behind it and that was proved
out by the data that they received.
Checklists can be helpful
as you think through the step-by-step procedures.
In this scenario, it's important to
identify app opportunities you
have to improve visibility.
The app quality always sets
the baseline for where
your improvements can be made against.
If you have a poor quality app,
there's only so much improvement
you can make through optimization.
Second, is look at the factors
you can control and influence to improve rankings.
Titles, keywords, images, and descriptions are
easily in your control and should be
the first place you go to start making improvements.
Third, use some of the tools shared
earlier to assess your competitors.
At the keyword level,
at the brand level,
look at the data that they have
and how they're interpreting
their data against you so that you
can better understand how to compete against them.
Forth is, how do you measure
success using tools and reports?
Which KPIs will you choose?
I've shared a number of examples already,
but you need to make sense for your own business.
Fifth, what changes will you make to
update your apps on a regular basis?
Are you committed to update
titles and keywords with each new launch?
Will you revise images,
or descriptions to better reflect what that app is about?
By having this checklist and
a commitment to see your app quality,
and app optimization improve,
you can compete very effectively in the marketplace.
In conclusion, case studies are
a very useful way to understand
the business context of a scenario.
In these three case studies,
you saw unique ways that challenges were overcome.
There's nothing inherently difficult
about what was shared but,
it does give a more strategic view
of the potential opportunities.
These types of practices
across teams help create a culture of
improvement and innovation that
generates great business results.
As a result, your app's
continue to improve their performance and become
those the market for
your keywords will find more irregularly.
In this lesson, we looked at,
what factors influence the outcome,
how to use data and reports to assess app performance,
and I shared with you a checklist to
help improve your app find-ability.
