App Store vs. Play Store Keyword Optimization

App store optimization (ASO) is complicated due to the differences and inconsistencies across platforms or app stores. What usually works in the Apple App Store often has great limitations in the Play Store and vice versa. This holds true particularly for search or keyword strategies, where 65% of installs are affected.To get more news about Aso Promotion, you can visit aso700.com official website.
Yet, when it comes to keyword optimization, marketers often pay more attention to what the stores have in common, such as search volume, download intent, ranking positions, and texts or metadata, rather than their differences.
Most of them eventually fall into the trap of one-size-fits-all approaches. When keyword strategies aren’t tailored or customized to suit different app stores, their full potential can’t be reached. Performance, as a result, will never be as high as it could be — the opposite of everything ASO stands for.
If you’re a mobile marketing enthusiast, don’t make the same mistake. Understand the differences between the App and Play stores, realize their unique challenges and opportunities, and adapt your keyword strategy accordingly. How? Below is a list of the five most critical differences between them that you need to know, as well as suggestions for a customized strategy to get you started.
1. Search algorithms
Apple and Google, like any other platform that offers a search function, rely on their algorithms to crawl and index keywords from an app’s metadata. The stronger the match between those keywords and the search terms or queries given by users, the higher the app ranks for them. Here’s where it gets complicated: algorithms on different stores behave differently to the same keyword and the same app.
For the App Store, it’s widely known that keyword changes generally affect the app’s search ranking immediately. Drastic keyword rank movements could occur overnight. On the contrary, the Google Play Store algorithm usually takes much longer to react.
Two or three weeks’ delay after a keyword update is common until you can see its effects. In short, the App Store’s search algorithm is more sensitive to keyword optimization than the Play Store’s.
Another proof of this difference can be seen in the volatility of keyword ranks across the stores. For the App Store, keyword ranks may show drastic movements after a change but remain stable when untouched (see the flat line in the example above). For the Play Store, things are rarely ever stable. You need to patiently observe the patterns over time to see any changes.
Some experts in the field, when asked for their take on such differences, said this is because the App Store’s algorithm is simpler and, thus, easier to “feed” with ranking signals, whereas the Play Store’s is made much more complex with machine learning and multi-step sorting processes.
This is a fundamental distinction, and your entire attitude towards keyword optimization across these stores should change as well.
2. Ranking factors
Directly related to the search algorithms are the factors influencing ranking signals that can make or break your keyword strategy. They are as important as the gasoline that fuels the search engines and makes them run. Most importantly, while the App Store and Play Store do share many search ranking factors in common, they also have several major differences.
Backlinks: These are the referral links that redirect users from external sites into the landing page of your app’s store listing. Like SEO link-building, getting more links to point towards your app means having more “equity”. The higher the equity, the stronger the ranking signals — and it applies for many keywords at once. Here’s the catch: backlinks only work for Google Play. Don’t invest in link-building for the App Store, unless you also want to improve mobile web search visibility.
Keyword occurrences: Another Play Store-only factor, keyword occurrences stand for how many times the same keywords appear in your app’s metadata. Often used synonymously with keyword density, which simply means loading metadata with many keywords, with or without repeating, keyword occurrences stress specifically on repetition.
In general, repeating each important keyword three to five times is considered sufficient. This doesn’t affect the App Store, where focusing on unique keywords becomes a best practice as it prevents wastes of space, so your creative freedom in copywriting with the same keywords also varies across the stores.