Good visibility in app stores is a safe path to acquiring more users. The higher the position of your app, the more people see and install it. Such installations are called organic — just because people download the app voluntarily, driven by a need for specific functions or interest in something new. In most cases, organic users make the most loyal and monetizable audience. The bottom line is that a stable organic traffic flow is the best thing that can happen to your product.
Organic traffic comes to the app page from search results, recommendations, editor’s choices, and top charts. Besides, the App Store offers dedicated screen Trending Searches that accommodates the top traction-gaining terms.
The factor that globally affects the app’s position on the App Store is the number of installs for a specific period. And this makes sense: if users often wind up installing the app after searching, that app must be relevant to what they are looking for. So the stores start showing the app on higher lines in search results and top-charts. Google Play, in its turn, considers not only the number of installations but also behavioral factors — primarily, re-openings.
We have developed a proprietary incentive traffic acquisition service that spans 5+ million real iOS and Android users. Our technique helps capture the summits of search results for the most frequent terms.
Organic climbing may take too long. With that, a new app may land on the lines 50th to 100th and even lower. And given 65% of installations fall on the first three apps in results, here is the question: how many of the remaining users will make it to your basement-dwelling product?
The instrument that helps quickly boost in-store visibility is called incentive traffic. Incentive traffic is real users who download the app on their device for a small reward. By directing incentive traffic to the app, you can see your positions in keyword search soar and turn your product much more visible.
Intelligent incentive traffic acquisition may dramatically advance the volume of organic traffic.
The most efficient channel in terms of the cost-to-traffic driven ratio. Assume your application helps drivers pay fines quickly and easily. You may want to secure the top SERP lines for terms like “traffic fines” (frequency 2226), “fines” (frequency 628), “pay fines” (frequency 22), etc.
You can compile a semantic kernel, comprised of search terms of different frequencies, for virtually any product — and that will be your stable source of organic users. Naturally, an app holding the upper lines for relevant terms can see many times more organic traffic than its rivals.
The volume of incentive traffic (number of installations) you will need to bring your app to the top for a specific keyword, is calculated based on the search term frequency and related competition. Low-key phrases can do with 300 incentive installations and help the app climb to the first line. On the other hand, over 3,000 motivated installations may be required to conquer high-frequency keywords and phrases. But the silver lining here is that the first lines for such terms can deliver 1,000 new target users every day.
This is necessary and sufficient for your app
to get to the top position in search results
Keyword-based promotion is a simple way to master incentive traffic and evaluate its performance. More importantly, this organic traffic boosting method will work for most apps.
On the other end of the spectrum, using keywords for promotion will not pay off for peculiar and exclusive products (e.g. games with whole-new mechanics). The reason is simple: people don’t look for such apps in stores.
Before iOS 10, the fastest way to drive a large number of organic installations was bringing the app to one of the charts (New, Paid, Free) or categories. And the App Store’s composition — where top charts sit in a separate tab — facilitated such native promotion.
Later, the store changed the approach and separated games from applications and focused on Editor’s Choices. While the App Store’s top charts remained, they turned more specific in terms of navigation and don’t bring as much traffic as they used to.
When using incentive traffic, we recommend concentrating on keyword-based promotion.
This is an App Store page where up to 7 traction-gaining search terms are shown, demonstrating what people often look for.
Users go to the Trending Searches page, notice a noteworthy term, click, and land on the screen with the results for that term. And if the app holds the first position there, it will help gain more organic installations
Earlier, it was possible to get to the Trending Searches page by using incentive traffic. But starting from 2019, we in Appbooster don’t recommend this method of promotion: algorithms got more complicated and now can detect abrupt spikes of search activity. All this tangles forecasting the volume of incentive installations required and time of staying on the top: you can gain 5,000 to 7,000 incentive installations can still not hold for even a day. However, there may be a reverse situation: just a few hundred installations made within a short period under a specific term may turn the app into a trending thing. You can view the last month’s top 10 terms in Trending Searches in your platform account.
Currently, there are no — or very few — low-competition niches in stores. One can find 5 to 30 (or even more) high-quality apps in any vertical. If you can compile a semantic kernel for your app, one of the leaders must have been boosting their product using keywords.
To jump in, you need to secure the following:
Incentive traffic-powered promotion with the help of keywords is the passport to boosting visibility in stores. This will help you get the maximum volume of organic traffic that delivers one of the highest conversion rates in the industry.
Contact our manager to learn how to engineer a mobile app promotion strategy and evaluate an incentive traffic advertising campaign.
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