The day has arrived. All the sleepless nights, cups of coffee and hard work has produced before you your very first app! Or maybe it’s your 100th app. No matter what, before you go rushing to submit it to the app stores, take a step back and assess these following points. It’s important to put your best Pre-Launch ASO foot forward to get off to a great start with your new product!
Your App’s Name
It’s important to pick the best name for your app.
The name needs to be unique, not trademarked, and searchable. Ask yourself, will it be hard for a direct search to lead to your app? Try searching for your app’s name and see what apps are displayed. If there aren’t many results or only generic results, then your app name should be fine, but if there are a lot of results and popular apps, you might want to rethink your app’s name.
You also want your app title to contain your main keyword or phrase. For more info on how to choose an app store optimized app name, read our post: “Your app name matters: here’s how to choose it“.
Your Icon and Screenshots
Pre-launch ASO is as much about your graphic elements as it is about text (title, subtitle, description, etc.)
Your icon needs to be eye-catching to stop users mid-scroll and your screenshots should contain text callouts that highlight your app’s main selling points. Showcase your app’s screenshot in a device or think outside of the box when representing your app’s UI. Try to design something that will differentiate you from the competition.
Your Video
Do you have a video uploaded to publish with your app listing?
If not, get one!
Why? StoreMaven sheds light on the importance of preview videos:
“An app video can increase install rates by more than 25%. Adding a video increases Exploring behavior and reduces Decisive behavior. Visitors who watch the video are 3x more likely to install.”
Having a well-made preview video adds a lot to illustrate your app’s key features as well as help call users to action to download!
Learn more about our Preview Video Service here.
Your Backlinks
Because your app hasn’t published you won’t have backlinks yet.
You could build backlinks to a pre-launch landing page, but a better strategy would be to line up guest blog posts and backlinks for when your app does publish.
Building backlinks can be a valuable source of users outside of the app stores.
More and more app-related results are displaying for mobile web searches, and with the focus on deep linking and app indexing for web, it provides a fantastic opportunity for optimization outside of the typical in-store keyword rankings.
