SEO & ASO
SEO
Search Engine Optimization is what you do to get “free” or “organic” traffic from search engines. If a potential customer is actively searching (high intent) for the problem or solution keywords, SEO is what you need to do to ensure they see you as one of the top results or the top result when they “google it!”. “Free” is the most attractive part of this customer acquisition channel. But it takes time and your rankings are at the mercy of the google SEO ai overlord - so not a lot of direct or immediate control, but hey, it’s free & high intent traffic.
Other than keyword occurrences and backlinks from reputable site, the quality of your content and the experience of the user (measured by dwell time and other data GA has about your site) account for a site ranking high, i.e, you may have all the right keywords and backlinks, but if enough people who visit you (through search) leave quickly, you will not rank high.
Basic SEO strategy consists of picking the keywords you want to rank for, understanding people’s search intent, ensuring you have relevant content, ensuring you have on-site technicalities taken care of (title tags, meta descriptions, alt text…), getting others to link to you for relevant
content (PR, bloggers, begging, trading, listing in directories ..)
ASO
Similar to SEO, but this is about being found & converted to a download in the Appstore or Playstore when someone searches for relevant keywords. Other than keywords, the factors under your control are title, descriptions, screenshots, graphic etc., and just like with SEO, the factors that play an important role in ASO that you can’t directly impact are install volumes, ratings, reviews. You can of course influence this by creating a good app, good app experience, having a good relationship with your customers, and pro-actively seeking ratings and reviews, and responding to reviews in Play Store. In the Google provides tools for you to A/B test title, descriptions, screenshots etc in the Play console.
Other than being found, this is also your landing page (whether it’s paid or organic traffic), so optimize elements on your App Store or Google Play page to increase conversions from a visit to app downloads.
Common Mistakes Founders Make
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Optimizing for SEO Pre P/M Fit. SEO takes a long time to work and you might change directions many times.
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Once and done attitude with ASO - market changes all the time - keep monitoring, testing, culling/adding keywords etc.
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Unnatural keyword stuffing
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Bad mobile user experience
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Using questionable tactics to build backlinks/buying links
Real world examples:
Here are some great examples of pages with strong SEO optimization
Brian Dean’s SEO Campaign: http://backlinko.com/seo-campaign
Related Keywords
Long tail keywords, SEO Moz, Keyword combinations, metadata, (need more, ironically)
Related Links
SEO 101 Bernard Huang, Distribution Hacker In Residence at 500 Startups
How to increase your App conversion rates - Storemaven
SEO For Startups Aaron Blumenthal, EIR 500 Startups