marketing/ASO question

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#1

So I’ve done a lot of reading about ASO over the months. One thing I can’t figure out, and would like to see what others have successfully done about it:

You’ve launched your app, did a somewhat amateurish job of choosing keywords- so you start reading. 

Most articles give you hints on how to improve your keywords (go for high-traffic, low competition… and avoid, at the start, high competition keywords…etc.). 

Not one article discusses this problem: to update keywords, you need to submit an update to your app for approval. But  doing this wipes out the visible ratings (5+) you’ve worked so hard to get (and took too long to get, as well- as you have no visibility). 

So, you want to see what effect the keyword tweaks have. But you can’t tell, because stripping those ratings surely affects how many users download your app. (When I’m in a rush for a kids app, for instance, I often skip past those with no visible ratings). 

Thanks- I’m sure people have successfully figured this little piece of the puzzle out, and I’d really love to hear some suggestions. 

#2

first, 

if any of your friends have reviewed your app out of the kindness of their hearts, you can contact them and ask them to update their review to appear on the newer version.

second,

my most effective method has been to prompt the user for reviews after a certain number of times that the app has been loaded, or some other prerequisite.  it doesn’t ask right up front, but it asks after the user has been playing for a while and i can be reasonably sure they like the game. this ideally weeds out the people who use the app once and then dont like it and never play it again- you only ask the people who stick around and play with it a bit longer.

this produces a slow but steady trickle effect of organic reviews. these will slowly rebuild your lost reviews, and they will usually be reviews that stick around/are heavily weighted since they’ll be coming from legit users of the app.

third, 

the last trick is to make an app people want to play and then review favorably, but that’s a harder thing to pull off, lol.

it’s also a work in progress, an app is never really done :stuck_out_tongue:

good luck!

#3

roboward, sorry if I took you wrong but did you mean to stop the visibility in App store we should not update our app.If it’s this why most of the popular app launches their app updates every 2 month or so.

@batgirl- what if you have a paid app as you friend might not be so kind to download app again and update review. Though I liked the second one as Prompting users is the best one rather than searching review from friends. 

#4

first, 

if any of your friends have reviewed your app out of the kindness of their hearts, you can contact them and ask them to update their review to appear on the newer version.

second,

my most effective method has been to prompt the user for reviews after a certain number of times that the app has been loaded, or some other prerequisite.  it doesn’t ask right up front, but it asks after the user has been playing for a while and i can be reasonably sure they like the game. this ideally weeds out the people who use the app once and then dont like it and never play it again- you only ask the people who stick around and play with it a bit longer.

this produces a slow but steady trickle effect of organic reviews. these will slowly rebuild your lost reviews, and they will usually be reviews that stick around/are heavily weighted since they’ll be coming from legit users of the app.

third, 

the last trick is to make an app people want to play and then review favorably, but that’s a harder thing to pull off, lol.

it’s also a work in progress, an app is never really done :stuck_out_tongue:

good luck!

#5

roboward, sorry if I took you wrong but did you mean to stop the visibility in App store we should not update our app.If it’s this why most of the popular app launches their app updates every 2 month or so.

@batgirl- what if you have a paid app as you friend might not be so kind to download app again and update review. Though I liked the second one as Prompting users is the best one rather than searching review from friends.