App store optimization in 2021 - Five trends you should know about

2021 is here and app marketers are already making plans to promote their mobile apps. One of the main areas of focus is naturally app store optimization. After all, who wants to miss out on a completely organic stream of app downloads?

It is important to know the prevailing ASO trends before setting up your app listing. The last thing you want is your competitors gaining a leg up by acting upon new trends in the world of ASO.

Tools like AppMySite make it very easy to create an app. It is more important to focus on other challenges like mobile app marketing. App store optimization is a vital channel of marketing. Understanding the underlying trends of ASO is thus essential.

Here’s a breakdown of five app store optimization trends you should know about.

#1 - Stagnant growth of business apps

Business apps saw a meteoric rise in 2021 thanks to worldwide lockdowns during the pandemic. Apps like Zoom gained household popularity as professionals were forced to adopt a work-from-home lifestyle.

The gains made during the lockdown are unlikely to continue in 2021. There is thus a reasonable chance of business apps losing the rapid growth they showed earlier.

How does this affect app store optimization? A drop in demand for business apps will naturally correlate with a fall in search volume for business app-related keywords.

If you’re working on app marketing for business apps, your first action must be to diversify your app download channels. Look for other platforms to promote your app.

The best course of action is to focus on user retention. Make sure you retain your existing user base and launch reward programs to encourage referrals.

From an ASO perspective, it’s a good idea to target more keywords than you normally do. This is to offset any drop in search volume for the keywords your app is already ranking for. In the larger scheme of things, the wisest thing you can do is work on app retention.

#2 - Privacy

Privacy is no longer a buzzword like it was two or three years back. The iOS 14 update has brought concrete steps to protect user privacy and regulate data collection schemes. Other platforms are expected to follow suit in one way or another.

How will this come back to impact ASO?

Many app companies rely on running app install campaigns on search engines and social media platforms to drive downloads. Privacy-related action will hurt such companies from acquiring app downloads through targeted personalized ads. This will mean lower number of app downloads and thus snowball into hurting app store rankings.

The solution?

The simplest way to deal with this problem is focusing more on ASO. Target more keywords and enhance your app store visibility to off set any drop in app downloads due to privacy-related action.

Changes in privacy policy will only affect outbound marketing. You can keep working on your inbound marketing channels to keep up app downloads.

#3 - App localization

App localization is already becoming a hot topic of discussion in ASO circles. App companies are slowly seeing the advantage of creating custom store listings for specific countries and regions. Appealing to local audiences in their own language can have many advantages and marketing teams are warming up to the challenge of app localization.

A greater shift towards app localization will naturally grow the scope of ASO. Professionals in the space will have to start tracking multiple store listings and optimizing each for relevant keywords.

Every country and region will have unique preferences when it comes to keywords and language. The job of ASO professionals with increased focus on localization will be to understand the preferences local audiences have in each region and optimizing the app listing accordingly.

#4 - Regional regulations

2020 saw the Indian government banning a whole swathe of Chinese mobile apps. This action naturally drew the attention of many companies in the mobile app space. India is a huge market for any app company in the world. Such a large scale action has naturally opened up the possibility of regional regulations having a drastic impact on app visibility.

There is nothing app companies can really do to deal with such events. This should only make ASO professionals focus more on diversifying the countries where they get app downloads from. This will ensure a drastic action in one country doesn’t cause a complete collapse in app downloads.

Should one expect regional regulations to become commonplace? This question is difficult to answer. However, it is difficult to argue something like this would never happen again. It is thus wise to keep increasing the number of countries you’re marketing your app in.

#5 - More apps. More competition.

There are many examples of iOS and Android app builders for WooCommerce and WordPress websites. These automated app-making solutions will further make app development easy for businesses across the board.

What will this mean for the mobile app market? App making solutions like AppMySite will make app development much more ubiquitous than ever before. This will increase competition in the app space and make app store optimization a more tedious process than usual.

There are already 2.87 million apps on Google Play and 1.96 million apps on App Store. More apps would require ASO professionals to take a more unique approach to ranking their app listing. Adding promo videos, deploying A/B tests, and performance marketing are only some of the avenues professionals will have to explore within ASO.

In conclusion

A big reason app store optimization is so important these days is the arrival of app makers. Anyone can go from WordPress to Android and iOS apps within minutes without writing a single line of code. Acquiring downloads through organic channels and streamline an app marketing campaign to a great degree.

This piece breaks down some of the popular trends in the ASO space in 2021. The five points covered here are not the only trends in the ASO and app marketing space. They are still big enough to point app marketers in the right direction. 

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Created on Jan 12th 2021 05:24. Viewed 449 times.

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