Top ASO Lessons to Learn From Monitoring Your Competitors
Competition monitoring is a vital part of any app store optimization (ASO) strategy. In this blog, we first explain how you can effectively identify and classify your competitors. Next, we present the valuable insights you can find through monitoring your competitors’ launches, metadata updates, reviews and ratings, and social media strategies. Finally, we highlight the pitfalls you should avoid when competition monitoring on the app stores.To get more news about App Store Optimization, you can visit aso700.com official website.
The first step of competition monitoring is identifying your competitors. This analysis should begin with your product research and the competitors that you already know of (these initial competitors will most likely be apps or games offering very similar products).
You
should also consider more distant, indirect rivals that may impact your
store traffic and consumer attention. Despite perhaps not offering
similar features, these apps may still impact your ASO goals.
First,
take a look at your category rankings. For example, the games
Hearthstone, World Series of Poker, and Uno all rank within the
Card-Game category. While the games may not immediately come to mind as
competitors, each game affects the others’ possibility to rank high in
that category.
You should also consider the Google tags attached to
apps and games on the Play Store. Monitoring other apps that use the
same tags can give you an idea of with whom you are competing for
visibility.
We recommend conducting keyword research to help identify
your indirect competitors. Taking the example of the Card-Game
category, monitoring the keywords “card games” and “online card games”
could help you spot competitors you had not originally thought of.
Finally,
be sure to monitor the Similar Apps section of app product pages,
alongside collections on the app stores. The Similar Apps section can
show you apps that are associated with your own. Similarly, collections
contain groups of apps that have been featured on the stores; monitoring
the collections most relevant to your app can also highlight with whom
you compete for consumer attention.
Having selected Hearthstone’s main competitors, analyzing their app powers allows us to further differentiate them:
Rivals:
Yu-Gi-Oh has a higher app power than Hearthstone; however, this app
power is not completely out of reach. We can therefore consider Yu-Gi-Oh
as one of Hearthstone’s main rivals. The game is also quite active in
terms of ASO and may target a similar market to Hearthstone.
Threats:
The games GWENT and Legends of Runeterra may represent Hearthstone’s
threats - they incorporate similar gameplays but have lower app powers.
Therefore, Hearthstone should keep an eye on these games and monitor
their movements in the app stores.
Market leaders: We can consider
the games Raid: Shadow Legends and Mortal Kombat as market leaders.
While constituting more distant competitors, they target similar
audiences to Hearthstone. These games also have very high app powers and
may represent learning opportunities to understand how these games
optimize their product pages and the best practices Hearthstone could
also follow.
Distant rivals: Other distant rivals include The Elder
Scrolls: Legends. This game incorporates very similar gameplay but has a
much lower app power than Hearthstone and so does not need to be
monitored at a high frequency. The app is not yet in a threatening
position, but it remains important for Hearthstone to watch out for any
significant changes.
The Wall