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针对iTunes和Google Play的ASO优化建议

发布时间:2014-06-05 17:33:34 Tags:,,,,

作者:Tom Leclerc

随着用户获得成本的持续攀升,许多业内人士开始寻找新方法以提升用户获取效能,包括用每参与成本模型替代CPI,以及采用分析工具等。但人们通常所说的数据显示63%下载量来自检索渠道仍然是一个十分可靠的说法。这让应用商店优化(ASO)成了一个比付费获取更炙手可热的方法。

在我看来,ASO正处于应用开发与应用营销之间的无人区,营销人员极力避开它——我认为这可能是因为该领域的参数指标严重不足所致,而开发者则将其视为Rubik魔方,他们总有一天会破解它,但它实太是太复杂了。不管怎么说,这又不是他们的事情。

对开发者和营销人员来说,其中最令人困惑的元素之一当属iTunes App Store和Google Play这两大主流应用商店之间的区别。无论你是开发者还是营销人员,我都希望本文有助于你分清这两家应用商店的差异,并且获得进入这两者的合法渠道。

ASO(from news.ipadown.com)

ASO(from news.ipadown.com)

真的存在差异吗?

我猜真正的问题在于“我能否只是同时向两家商店发布产品?”当然,你可以这么做,但这却无助于推广你的应用。许多人这么做,但也有许多人并没有实现自己的成功标准。这里的秘诀在于名称:优化。你无法尽善尽美地优化一切,不是吗?有时候我会做白日梦,将iTunes和Google Play分别视为素食主义者和无肉不欢的食客。你也许可以为它们提供相同的食物,但要同时取悦两者,就必须多花点时间准备自己所供应的餐点。

盈利性很重要

你可以筛选和权衡不同的意见、研究和数据,但目前来看,iOS平台的IAP盈利性仍然优于Android。如果你让任何一名应用营销人员选择一名终身用户,他们无疑会选择iOS而非Android用户。原因很多,包括谷歌的广告收益文化,以及苹果无缝隙的支付方式,或者多个原因的结合,总之这种情况暂时不会有太大变化。

简而言之,如果你想以一种高利润的免费模式为应用盈利,iOS才是最佳选择。当然,如果只是简单地绑定免费模式,不考虑应用质量问题,那么你还是赚不到多少收益。免费模式可能是一个棘手的领域。如果给予过多免费内容,用户就不会再锨掏钱,但如果给得太少,他们就会很快失去兴趣。

展示

这是两家应用商店的一个极大区别。作为一名ASO专家,这甚至会影响到我的日常工作。谷歌和苹果展示应用的方法极为不同。谷歌主要依靠检索,而苹果则更关注搜索和屏模。

这意味着从应用下载情况来看,你必须针对每个应用商店设定不同的目标,为以不同方式实现目标。根据设备的不同,你的应用可能位于Google Play首页,位列榜单前25名(这个排名权重要高于前50名),但在iOS平台,相同的排名却意味着用户需要滚动24次才能看到你的应用。

鉴于对盈利差异的了解,你可能还会发现iTunes是一个更具挑战性的机遇,但回报更高。这正是我所强调的为何应用质量很重要的一个原因。从根本上说,高质量、有风格,创新的应用更有机会获得推荐,而这显然会对你的下载量造成极大影响。不要误会我的意思,我并不是说你应该为了数小时的推荐时间而放弃稳定的发展,但这个推荐时间真的很有帮助。

对苹果的一点偏爱不仅可增长下载量,还可以让你的游戏成长为更成熟、可信的应用。随着行业的成熟发展,可信度对用户来说将更为重要。

关键词

我认为关键词搜索是ASO的方向盘。如果没有过得去的关键词,那一切都是徒劳的。我在过去见过不少糟糕的关键词例子,但现在的行业整个上变得更为紧凑了。相关性、竞争性、流量和搜索差异(人们搜索内容的不同方式)等关键原则在两个商店中仍然甚为管用,但你必须在不同的方向上发力。

例如,在Google Play中,拥有人性化的优化文本至关重要。在今年这个充满不安全感和关键字堆砌的时代,如果说有什么东西会自动令用户反感,那就是安全问题。但更重要的是你的应用名称。与更广为人知的SEO领域做个比较,如果你的应用描述就是你的页面副本,你的名称就是URL。再次强调,要为你的应用名称进行关键字优化。这对于Google Play来说非常关键。

iTunes的关键字则略为更复杂一点,但从优化者角度来看也更灵活一点。在此你有100个指定关键字的字符,以及应用名称(它的权重高于你的指定关键字),但你还可以使用IAP和应用商店之间的一些交叉内容。

iTunes的一个有趣元素在于,虽然它的IAP关键字权重很小,它们会堆叠并且不会局限于自己的应用商店。例如,、挪威语中的硬币是mynt,如果你的挪威IAP中含有mynt这个词,你在美国iTunes中的这个关键词排名就会上升。当然在本例子中这并没有什么用处,但却是对iTunes算法的一个有趣见解。

与之相似,西班牙语关键字也会影响到美国应用商店搜索排名。这显然是因为在美国拉丁语demo很重要,但它也为优化者提供了一个新的探索领域。我并不建议优化者借此操纵应用商店系统,但我的确想知道这算不算一个根据地域或人口分布而非应用使用地区来权衡关键字的战略环节。

视频

Google Play仅允许你上传一个视频,但iTunes目前还不支持这种功能。我相当确信这在未来会有所改观,因为视频格式是一个让用户更了解应用的管用和重要渠道。

Google Play上的视频来自谷歌旗下的YouTube,而这也为优化提供了另一个渠道。一般来说,你有8秒时间影响潜在用户的下载决策。这意味着除非他们真的点击太迅速了,你的大部分视频内容是不可能产生你所预期的影响。优化视频是另一个领域的概念,但若善于使用其中的工具和信息,你并不难找到正确的方向。

我们很容易通过YouTube以行动号召方式进行交叉推广。与之相似,你可以优化缩略图,在用户点击视频之前为应用创造一个良好的第一印象。通过YouTube本身植入的分析托管服务,你甚至可以对视频进行A/B测试,并尽你所能对视频进行优化。

唯一的问题在于iTunes何时才开始支持视频功能。苹果显然有这个实力,但我认为这目前还不在他们考虑范围内。他们做了一些推荐游戏的类似措施,但却还没有运用这种普遍功能(游戏邦注:苹果已在2014年WWDC大会上宣布iTunes App Store支持视频功能)。

评价

评价可能是一个极为棘手的话题。它们可能成为你的最大福利,也可能成为最糟糕的噩梦。就我与包括Wooga在内的各个团队打交道的经历来看,开发者似乎都有一个印象,即差评主要是因为应用崩溃和漏洞。当然,这是一个大问题。如果你有一款漏洞百出的应用,你就会得到差评。但是,这方面实际上还有更大的学问。

Google Play和iTunes的一大区别在于Google Play允许你直接回复评价和联系用户。这意味着你可以获得大量机会,尤其是持续开发过程中的协助。评价可能是ASO领域最少被使用的一种资源,但却是你可以从用户那里获得的最强大的互动形式之一。

从“纯ASO”角度来看,在Google Play,你可能直接影响自己的评价情况。我认为行业中还有许多开发者没有充分利用这一强大的工具。重要的是反面,你的应用越小,你就越容易因为低成本而获得更多好处。如果你每周只有五六个评价,其中两个是不甚理想的评价,你就很容易富有针对性地直接解决问题。你可以抛出自己的改进后的PR/用户满意度,让人人都看到你的应用评价(以及客服支持)很棒,并且一直在优化。值得注意的是,平均来看,获得4.5颗星的应用盈利性比获得介于4至4.5颗星的应用高30-40%。它们之前的下载量也有15-20%的差距。

但是,你也可以通过评价挖掘来影响应用在商店中的排名。无论你是使预制工具,还是创造自己的工具,或者只是手动挖掘数据,你都可以从评价挖掘中得到宝贵的信息。我习惯将其视为用户免费为你提供的一个巨大的用户调查数据银行。含有真正交互用户的免费市场调查。只要是思维正常的人都会将这些数据视为一种资源。通过挖掘评价,你可以获得对应用的更清晰的认识,并解决这些问题,宣传你所做的改变。

如果你处于预发布阶段,你还可以挖掘其他内容,如你所需的竞争对手的一切信息,了解其应用的缺点和强势。只需数小时和过硬的评价挖掘工具,你就可以更清楚地了解这些投入程度较高的用户喜好,他们将来的需求,以及他们不喜欢你产品的哪些方面。

总结

ASO并非一蹴而就的过程,而是一个持续的状态。但即便如此,你也应该考虑两个应用商店的不同之处。Google Play使用终身数据来确立排名,而iTunes主要使用过去30天的数据。这意味着谷歌算法在预测趋势上比苹果更慢。如果你准备为产品打造声势,或者增加你的营销投入,可能就有必要考虑这个情况。

我希望本文有助于你更好地理解两家应用商店的属性,以及你自己的ASO战略。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Spot the difference: App Store Optimization for iTunes and Google Play

by Tom Leclerc

With user acquisition costs steadily rising, many in the industry are looking to recreate what user acquisition is all about ­– from Cost Per Engagement models replacing CPI, to ever more involved analytics – everyone is looking for a new angle that works. However, that oft-touted statistic that 63% of all downloads come from search is still very much valid. This makes App Store Optimization, far from being the poor cousin of paid acquisition, ever more appealing. The ugly, misunderstood duckling of the industry, if you will.

And it’s that misunderstanding that seems to be creating problems. As I see it, ASO straddles the misty no-man’s land between app development and app marketing. Marketers are keen to avoid it ­– I suspect because metrics are pretty thin on the ground – and developers see it rather like a Rubik’s cube, they’ll do it one day, but ultimately it’s too complex. And anyway, that’s not their job, goddammit!

One of the most confusing elements to both developers and marketers appears to be the differences between the two main stores, iTunes’ App Store and Google Play. Regardless of whether you’re a developer or marketer, I’m hoping this article will clarify the differences between the two stores, and if nothing else, prove that there is a legitimate reason to approach them as separate entities.

Is there a real difference?

So, I guess the real question here is “Can I just put the same stuff on both stores?” And, of course, you can, but it will do little to help promote your app. A lot of people do it, but a lot of people don’t meet their success criteria either. That is what it’s all about, after all, isn’t it? The secret here is in the name: optimization. You can’t very well optimize for everything, can you? In my little daydream moments, I like to think of iTunes and Google Play as being vegan and meat-loving house guests, respectively. You may be able to serve them some of the same food, but to keep them both happy, you’re going to need to spend a little more time planning your meals than you might otherwise.

Money matters

You can sift and weigh the opinions, studies and figures as much as you like, but as it stands now, iOS monetizes better for in-app purchases than Android. If you gave any app marketer the choice of a life-long user, they would invariably choose to have one on iOS over Android. The reasons for this could be anything, from Google’s ad-revenue culture to the frictionless payment method preferred by Apple, or a combination of many factors, but it doesn’t seem likely to change soon.

In short, if you’re looking to monetize your app with the highly lucrative freemium model, iOS is the place to do it. Of course, simply bundling into the store with a freemium model, regardless of the quality of your app, is going to lose you a bunch in revenue. Freemium can be a tricky place. Give away too much for free and users won’t pay for anything, but give away too little, and they lose interest fast. Worth knowing, I would say.

Display

This is a massive differentiator between the two app stores. It affects my day-to-day work as an App Store Optimizer more than anything else, I would say. The way Google and Apple display apps varies enormously. In broad strokes, Google is, understandably, all about search, while Apple has a bigger focus on discovery and curation.

What this means in terms of how your app gets downloaded is that you need to set different objectives for each store, and go about achieving them differently. Depending on the device, you can be page one on Google Play with a ranking above 25 (an order of magnitude better than rank 50), but on iOS, that same ranking means users may have to scroll 24 times. An uncommon occurrence.

Seen like that, and with the awareness of the respective monetization differences, you could – broad strokes again – look at iTunes as being a significantly more challenging opportunity, but one with higher rewards. This is one of the reasons, and I can’t emphasize this enough, why quality is such an important element in your app. In essence, high quality, stylish, ground-breaking apps have a much higher chance of getting featured, which, obviously, has a massive impact on your downloads. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s sensible to sacrifice solid growth for a few hours of featured time, but that featured time really does help.

A little bit of Apple love not only increases downloads on the day, but it can also put your games forward as curated, trusted and worthwhile apps. This is nice now, but as the business matures, trust will undoubtedly become ever more important to users.

Keywords

I think of keyword research as being the wheels of ASO. Without at least passable keywords, nothing else works. I have seen some truly dreadful examples of keywording in the past, but the industry as a whole appears to be getting a little tighter. The key tenets of relevance, competition, traffic and search divergence (having a mind toward the different ways in which people search), are all still absolutely valid across both stores, but you need to direct your efforts in different places.

In Google Play, for example, it’s essential to have human-friendly optimized copy. Keyword stuffing in this day and age reeks of insecurity, and if there’s one thing that will automatically turn users off, it’s security issues. However, far more important (anything up to around 200 ranks, in fact) is your app’s title. Making a comparison to the more widely understood world of SEO, if your app description is your on-page copy, your title is your URL. Again, human-friendly, but keyword-optimized is the way to go for your title. As far as keywords go, that’s about your lot for Google Play.

iTunes makes all things keyword a little more complex, but also a little more flexible from a optimizer’s standpoint. You have your 100 characters of nominated keywords here, as well as your app title (which has much closer weighting to your nominated keywords, by the way), but you also have both in-app purchases and some small crossover between stores.

One interesting element of iTunes is that while the keyword weight of in-app purchases is low, they stack and, interestingly, aren’t limited to their own app store. By way of example, the Norwegian word for coin is mynt, right? Everyone knows that. If enough of your Norwegian in-app purchases have the word mynt in them, you will start ranking for the word mynt in the US store. Useless, of course, in this example, but an interesting insight into the iTunes algo.

Similarly, and there is a legitimate reason for this, Spanish keywords rank in the US store. This is obviously because of the important Latin demo in the US, but it does provide optimizers with a new avenue to explore. I’m not recommending optimizers use this to game the system by any stretch, but I do wonder if this is part of a strategy to weight keywords based less on the country in which you’re using the app, and more about the region or demographics.

Video

Google Play only lets you upload one video, but iTunes currently doesn’t feature them. I’m fairly sure this will change in the future, as the video format is a useful and important way of giving users a clearer idea of what your app is about.

Being part of the Google mega-conglomerate, videos on Google Play come from YouTube, which opens a little door into another avenue of optimization. As a rule of thumb, you get about eight seconds to impress potential users and influence their downloading decision. This means that unless they’re really, really quick with their clicking, much of your video is unlikely to have the impact you expect. Optimizing video is a whole other world, but with the wealth of tools and information out there it’s not hard to find the right direction.

Cross promotion is quite easily done through YouTube with call-to-action overlays, for example. Similarly, you can optimize your thumbnail to give the best impression of your app, before the user even clicks on the video. With the host of analytics built into YouTube itself, it’s even possible (and easy to boot) to A/B test videos, and squeeze as much optimization as possible out of your video as possible.

The only real question is when iTunes will start featuring video. The capacity for Apple to do so is obviously there, but I guess it’s just not their thing right now. They do something similar with highlighted games, but as a widespread feature of the app store, it’s not there. Yet.

[Edit: Apple announced video for iTunes App Store for iOS 8 at WWDC 2014]

Reviews

Reviews can be a really tricky subject. They can also be your greatest boon, or worst nightmare. In my dealings with the individual teams, both at Wooga and elsewhere, there seems to be an idea that all bad reviews and ratings are based on crashes and bugs. Of course, this is a big issue. If you have a buggy app, you’re going to get poor reviews. However, there is a lot more to look at when it comes to reviews than meets the eye.

One of the biggest differences between Google Play and iTunes is that Google Play allows you to directly respond to reviews and connect with users. This means a number of things, and offers a wealth of opportunity, particularly when it comes to ongoing development. Reviews are probably the least used resource around when it comes to ASO, yet they’re one of the strongest forms of engagement you get from users.

From a “pure ASO” point of view. In Google Play, you can directly affect your ratings. This is a powerful tool that I don’t think many in the industry are using. What’s more, it scales inversely. The smaller your app, the more benefit you can get from it at a lower cost. If you only have five or six reviews per week, of which, say two are sub-optimal, it’s easy to deal with them specifically and directly. You get to throw your retro-active PR/customer satisfaction vehicle into top gear, showing not only the one reviewer, but everyone else reading the reviews that your app (and customer service) is amazing, and getting better. This is good practice for smaller apps, and at least worthy of assessment for bigger apps. Just as a point of interest, on average, apps that get 4.5 stars see around 30-40% monetization than those that score between 4 and 4.5 stars. There is also about a 15-20% difference in downloads. Big numbers.

However, you can also influence your app store ranking with review mining. Whether you use a pre-created tool, build your own, or just manually mine for data, the information you can glean from review mining is invaluable. I like to think of it as a vast bank of customer survey data that users are giving you for free! Free market research with genuinely engaged users. Who in their right mind wouldn’t bother using that as a resource? In essence, by mining reviews, you can get a much clearer idea of the specific problems with your app, then deal with them and advertise the changes you made.

If you’re at the pre-launch stage, you can also mine other, competitor apps for all the information you’ll ever need about the flaws and main strengths of their apps. With  just a few hours and a solid review mining tool, you can build a detailed idea of what these engaged users love, what they want in the future, and what they dislike about your app.

Forging ahead

The ASO process isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it idea. It’s ongoing. However, even in that regard it’s sensible to consider the differences between the stores. Google Play uses lifetime data to establish rank, while iTunes primarily uses the last 30 days of data. What this means is that Google’s algo is slower in recognizing trends than Apple’s. This may be something worth considering if you’re looking to create buzz, or increase your marketing spend. Knowing about that slower lead-in and later drop off may help you to maximize your budget.

I hope readers come out of this article with a better understanding of the nature of the two app stores, if not a more solid idea about their ASO strategy. If I had to give advice to someone taking on multiple-store ASO for the first time, it would be to give it as much time as it needs. ASO is currently not hugely complex, and it can be incredibly fun. Honest.(source:gamasutra


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