Hey! This is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today, let's talk ASO with Steve P. Young!
Okay, so today, we have our first ever interview. I've been trying to arrange
this since last year. A little conversation with Steve P. Young. Now if
you - if you've been in the app industry for a while, you probably heard of his
name or listen to his podcasts. He owns the podcast AppMasters, the audio podcast.
And he also has his YouTube channel and it's a little bit similar to mine. I
know we have a lot of the same viewers, so a lot of you probably already know
who he is. But he talks a lot more about ASO specifically where sometimes I will
mention ASO, sometimes I'll talk about other things, but more about, you know, the
development side of things. But he'll do things in a much more scientific way
like taking a look at Sensor Tower or Mobile Action and comparing them. And
a lot of really good content over on his channel. So, let me go ahead and start the
video here, but let me first say that I was a bit nervous. I don't
know why all of a sudden I got really nervous. So, I rambled on a little bit
and don't let him talk enough, so I hope that doesn't ruin it for you. Anyway,
here's the interview with Steve. Okay, everyone! So today, I'm meeting with Steve
P. Young. Now, for those of you, guys, been in the in the app industry for a while,
you may have heard his podcast. I mean, I've listened to his podcast for the
last few years and he's been doing a lot of stuff on YouTube lately. A lot of
times, I'll talk about- yes, I talk really badly about Sensor Tower and Mobile
Action and some of these big ASO tools. Because I was saying they're been
expensive, I never understand what I'm doing, no matter what I'm doing I always
seem to need to upgrade. But a lot of what I do. you know, what I say at the
beginning of every video is that I make apps.
I'm an app developer and when it comes to like the science of ASO, I'm not like
a scientist. Like I'll do what works for my applications and then
that's it and I might try to go back and look at you know theorize about
why it was, but when you watch us, Steve. "Hey, Steve! By the way, I might be
small, we're trying out Google Hangouts for the first time. Like I said, this is
my first ever interview. So anyway, so if you watch these videos, he'll take a lot
of scientific explanations of things from the ASO and always watching how the
algorithms change and a lot of spreadsheets. And you know, here's
a column for mobile action, here's the color for sensory tower, and I know so
many times - okay, so actually, let me say, "Hello, Steve! How's it going? What's up?"
Steve: Eric I didn't want to bother you because Google Hangouts flip. So I was like, let's
keep it on one handsome guy at the moment. Eric: This is the thing is I'm
so used to just being the one talking that I don't even like, just you know,
just gonna stand there wait. So, I've been watching a lot of your
videos lately and sometimes I'll comment on them. And sometimes there are comments on
them, other people say, "Hey Eric, you watched Steve Young too" and I say, "Yeah."
Then kind of, you know, everybody should. I think the app industry is, I mean, it's in
one iway, it's so large because they're so - you know, everybody's an app
developer these days. You migh,t you know, my grandmother's an app developer.
That could be a joke! But then nobody really talks about
working the algorithms and it's a - it's a market that changes all the time.
So, I'm really glad that you're here, Steve. When I asked you, to ask a few
questions and also just to get to know you a bit more, because, you know,
I'm starstruck watching you. Steve: You're starstruck? I'm
I am on the Overpass Channel, I was like looking at Eric and I'm like dude, have
me on. I'm begging Eric just to come on so I'm thankful that he finally said yes.
Eric: So, I mean - so, I think the first thing I want to ask is like most of the people
who watch my channel, they're app developers like me. So, you
know, we all kind of did the same thing, we developed the application, we developed
an app, we put our heart and souls into it, we put it up on to the App Store
and we told everybody about it that this is gonna be huge and then nothing
happens. Nobody finds it, right? So, I mean, as somebody who and so -
after the fact, after we released it, after we've already given it a title,
an icon and then we go, "Hey, what's this ASO stuff and everything." And afterwards,
we go in and and find that. So, as somebody who lives and breathes ASO, do
you think, I mean, what kind of advice do you usually give to people who are just
starting out? Steve: Literally just created this video, Eric, we're - is just a piece of
the puzzle. And I think you do a very good job of talking about ASO and the
impact of it. You've done some phenomenal, so just to your horn a little bit,
you've done some phenomenal work on the ASO, and I've watched a couple of your
videos, I'm like that's a good tool. I don't even know about it.
Like UberSuggests, but it's always just the piece of the puzzle. So, if you think
about, ASO, it's like what if I told you, Eric, there's a channel that will get
you downloads and you don't have to pay for it. Alright, what do you think
about that channel? And that's what ASO is all about. it's like how do you drive
downloads based off of things that people might be searching for and so if
you think about that angle and then how it feeds in to your overall marketing
plan. Just like YouTube is your part of your overall marketing plan, it's so should
be a part of your overall app business plan, marketing plan as well. Eric: Cool!
Alright. I think one of the things - because I started with my first
app in 201, so it's like and I've seen things change a lot, it seems to get
harder and harder to do it. I mean, do you think that somebody just starting out
today, do you think that they need to like - do you think paid acquisition is
necessary these days, or do you think it's still possible to go out there
spending no money at all and still rise up the ranks? Steve: I have a friend who started
now, he started early on in the days like us, too, but he built entire seven-figure
business basically off of all off ASO. Eric: Great! Steve: Now, it's not
something that is something that you can just automatically do. He focuses
more on the long tail of the app business, on the long tail of everything,
and he has a ton of apps so he's playing a quantity type of game. But what I will
say is, it's both. Like the way I think about it is ASO we'll get you
only so far. So, if you want to grow, you might have to spend a little bit more
money. You have to put acquisition dollars which is then in turn gonna help
you here. So, in your keyword rankings which in turn helps sure you can afford
to pay a little bit more, so it all feeds into each other. But at the beginning, the
biggest mistake that I see app developers make is, "Hey, I've got a cool
name, right, for an app name. It's called Tingle or whatever it is. Eric: Yeah, yeah! Steve: And then
frankly, so like, "Hey, Eric! I just launched a play it's called Tingle. Check
it out." "Okay, let me go to the App Store and Tingle," and say, "Which one are you ?' And
you just can't find it. (Eric laughs at the background) I think people are making
that mistake. You think you're going off your gut like that just sounds good as
an app name and not using data, and things simple as what you talked about
with AppAnnie, you can look at what keywords show or like you put at
Tingle keyword into AppAnnie and you say, "Hmm,
how many keyword, how many apps show up for that particular keyword? If it's a
small amount of apps, you're probably gonna rank number one for it. So, I think
that's the biggest mistake. It's like people, your friends, can't even find your
app and you make a silly mistake about naming your app the way you did. Eriic: Yeah, no,
I agree with that. I think it's - it just - see there's some - when I think
about people in it and like an ASO space like you - I think you
know I think that's the kind of thing I'd like to - that's kind of thing I want
to do myself because I do everything myself, you know, that's why
I'm inefficient. (laughs) But I also think about it as if you talk
about - like talk about Hollywood. The actors don't go out and
promote themselves. They focus on their craft. They're like developers who focus on
development stuff like that. So, this is one of the things I've been
thinking about recently, like what every time - for me, it's always looking
at the numbers and thinking about the titles and following the
trends of the app markets. Because I can remember at one point, some of my - some of
my titles on Apple were like really long. It was practically a sentence and
now it's been getting shorter and shorter and shorter and pretty soon it's
just gonna be like one word. So, I mean, when you meet with new
people, I mean, what kind of things do you do you do with them? Like something, so I
say, I come to you and I say, "Hey, Steve I've released this, uh, this flappy birds
clone and nobody's downloading it, you know. How can you help me?" Steve: I said get
the hell out of here. Like I can't do anything with that clone. It's like
unless you did something else to make it, to improve the game, I would say like, "Go,
your effort is gonna be well spent on doing something else. Well, I'll give
you a couple of different campaigns to run, like my pay to free campaign that
you can use to grow those downloads, but in the grand scheme of things, I always
say, "Look, this is your first step into the app business and so whatever your
next step is, focus a little bit more on this. This is just step one.
It's like congratulations, you made an app. Now, focus your efforts on something
bigger and not just a clone, cuz those are hot for a little bit and then psssshh!! Goes down. Yeah."
Eric: Yeah, I think - I'm sorry, the re-skinning is is dead. I mean, I
think I've re-skin one - there's one time where I re-skin it. I'm not talking
about, I'm not re-skinning own app, my own code, but like I purchased an app and
re-skinned it and Google took it off like the next day. I was like, you know, I
wasn't expecting that from Google, but if - anyway, so that was my - but I know I could
remember back in like 2013, everybody was into re-skin. There were books like
How To Get Rich with Re-Skinning and then we got - and this is one of the
reason why I think that we have all these trouble, this trouble with like
Apple and 4.3 is because there's so much junk in the App Store. And we're kind of
all being unfairly penalized. But so like, what kind of things that when you were
going through and study things, what kind of things have really surprised you?
Because there's one thing that - actually let me just say this first - because I'm
unfocused. I was working with a client now and I was telling him
that we were going to go ahead and I mean, he knew about you and he's, you know,
he called you and I said I was going to go through and put some
keywords in the Spanish Mexico or was it Spanish-US? A keyword feel for
iTunes. He said, "Oh, is that a Steve Young trick?" and I said, "Yes, it's a Steve Young
trick." But so, I'm yet - so, what other kind of things that when you were doing some
research really surprised you? Like dude, I can't believe that worked!
Steve: Yeah, that's funny! It's not my trick. I mean, it's just maybe I've been the most
vocal out of it, but the one surprising thing is that trick so - it's
people get confused about this all the time, Eric. I was on just on webinars like
wait, but Mexicans don't convert that well and it's like, "Yo dude!" So,
the trick is the US app store indexes the Spanish-Mexico localization. It's
literally like if you know SEO, it's like saying, "Hey, I'm gonna give you another
page title. I'm gonna give you another content, a blog post that you can write
and you can - Google is gonna index both pages and give it sort of equal weight.
And you're gonna be index for all the content that is on one page and the
other page and they can have two different con, like the content pieces
could be different, but it all plays into one app, right, or all plays into one page.
And that's how you think about it. It's like how can i leverage, use that
Spanish-Mexico localization so that I can target more
US users? And it's the same for - I don't know - if the UK is only probably UK, but
same for other countries too. Like Japan has other localizations that you can use,
so if you put Chinese - I don't know if the right keyword is this, but if you
put Japanese characters into the Chinese, China localization you can benefit in
Japan. So, that localization the thing I wanted to point out with that, is if you
use - you have to hack the app name for the Spanish-Mexico localization. I had
one client where we had the keywords in the US subtitle and then we moved it
into the Spanish-Mexico title and we went out three spots. And so, it's about
using that title to your advantage because if you think about the priority
and the weight of each cat- each thing for ASO, the app name on Google Play too, so
anytime I say iOS, was this work for a Google Play? Yes, alright. So app names
gonna have his most weight and then the short - the subtitle or short description
and then the keywords or a long description on Google Play. So, that's the
weight. If you think about that, how do you hack it, well you have keywords that
you want in the Spanish-Mexico app name. So, the U.S. app name title is different
from the Spanish-Mexico and I usually have. It's always different.
Eric: There's no problem putting like English into the the Spanish-Mexico? Yeah?
Steve: You know, I got exclusive. Here it is. Here's another hack. So, if it doesn't work
because Apple, "Hi, Apple!", they started realizing that we're doing
this. And so, they would remove the Spanish-Mexico localization. They would
approve your app, you would know nothing. You're like, "This is great! Alright. All
done." But I was like, "How come we're not ranking well for this keyword? I know
it's very low competition. I know I should be ranking well for this. I should
be number two for this. But I'm not ranking for it." It's because they don't
allow you to do it. So, you gotta prove it's just that Spanish-Mexico
localization wasn't- didn't get approve They won't go and tell you though. Eric: Okay.
Steve: They thought you don't know no English. So here's what you do.
Very simple. Ready for this? Mind-blowing. Tragic. Use Spanish. That's it! Like go to
Google Translate. Just use Spanish and get it in there and
just have Apple approve it. Because once it's approved, they probably won't look
at it again. Right Apple? Don't look at this. Don't watch this. I know Overpass
people. I know Apple's watching you, Eric. And so, that's all we wanted. Eric: Yeah,
they do. Yeah I'm huge. I'm huge in Apple. No, they will. I call that one
giving one pass the goalie. Cuz every so often, you get something approved and
other like I'll mention on the video and people say, "I didn't think you were
allowed to do that" I said, "No, they let me." And then like the next update, it gets
rejected. I think that just got past them. So, uh you know that's always - it's always
nice to try. I can remember in the early days of the app where we had the -
all these mastermind groups and people would talk about if you published at a
certain time of day, it was better than other times of day which i think was just
a myth. I think because we didn't know anything. We're just, you know, we're just
it's like superstitional almost for doing that. So, I mean do you find
Google Play a lot more difficult than iOS? Sorry, Apple, iTunes Connect?
Steve: In a sense that it's not as fun because I don't have this other localization to
play with, but the process is entirely the same and so, Google Play, I think what
I've seen is, it's a lot harder to get an app going, where iOS I feel like it's
easy to get going. And Google Play, it's a lot harder to get going but once it's
going some of our clients that I work with on Google Play that already
has some traction and are moving, were you pull increased downloads
for them, using the same type of strategies that we use on iOS. Just using
data. So everything is data-driven for me. Eric: Okay, cool!
Alright, cool! Well, dude, I have no other (Laughs) no other question. I mean, I
know you've got your course, right? You've got AppMasters.
Steve: I'm not gonna promote anything, Eric. Eric: What? Steve: I'm just thankful for you to have me.It's all good.
Eric: Alrigh,t so he's not promoting anything. But do check out
Steve's channel because you got to ask a lot of questions, sometimes
along the ASO thing and me, a lot of times with me it's gut feeling and then
I'll implement something and check back to see how it is and I can't tell you
how many times I've tried something and I think, "Oh, this is gonna be huge." And
then, I go back three days later and nothing's happened. So, it's you
know, it's good to talk to you about using the tools and
everything like that. And yeah, I think it's -it's almost like - it's like some of
these like we're using - sorry, going off on a tangent here, but we're
like using Adobe tools to somebody who's like a
designer, makes really good use of that and somebody who's just learning it
doesn't I think it's the same with probably Sensor Tower, Mobile Action
where I go into and I just think, man, why it is so hard? But anyway, thank you
very much, Steve! It has been great talking to you.
Steve: Well, Eric. I do want to say if your listeners or your want viewers to have
any questions, feel free to reach out to me. I make it pretty easy and I do these
coaching calls, where I get one-on-one with somebody and really analyze their
app, any questions that they might have of it, the only ask that I have is that I
get to record it so I can put it on the podcast, but that's it!
Eric: Yeah, I gotta watch it! That's cool! Alright. Alright. Thanks a lot, Steve!
Steve: Alright, brother! Eric: Hey, I hope that was useful. Go ahead and check out his channel, I'll
put a link down in the description. That's it for today! That's it for this
week! I'll talk to you, guys, on Monday!