Hey, this is the Daily Overpass! M name is Eric and I make apps! Now today, I want
to talk about superstitions in ASO.
Alright, so early last year, I got an email from someone asking me about the
ASO for Ear Spy. This is before I change the thing from Ear Spy to Ear Agent and
I was ranking really well for the word spy. I still am, even though it's not in
the title. But he'd asked me - he sent an email said, "Eri,c how come your
app is doing so well for the word spy, when you use that keyword more than five
times in the description, which you really shouldn't do." And I emailed him
back, I thought, "What do you mean I should have mentioned it more than five times
in the description. Is that, you know, where did you get that rule from? I
didn't know that was a rule? Is it in the terms and conditions?" I emailed him
back and I never got a response. But it was gonna - it was strange because
I hadn't thought about it before that and you know, and I couldn't find
any - I had no other reference of it except for what that person told me.
And it's kind of like a superstition, like somebody must have
told him that, and then he's adhering to that. Then
this rumor goes around well. Through actual testing if I not, well, actually
that - that's not the case that had made no effect to me at all. I don't think
including it more - including it more probably helped a little bit, but you
can't just go and stuff keywords into your description and have it work.
There's a lot of other factors in play, you know, the backlinks and downloads
and their reviews, all that kind of stuff. We talk about it all the time.
Alright, I also get asked a lot about user retention Ppeople say, "Hey, Eric, how
do you deal with user retention?" I know you said you have millions of downloads
but how many people actually are using it?" And I actually have - I've made a
video about this before. I have very bad user retention. Like some people will
keep the app for years, but it's a very small percentage. And some people keep it
for months. Most people keep it for a day or two. So, people try it out usually, but
you know, people are gonna uninstall apps if they don't engage with them all the
time. That's just the nature of the beast, right? But I still make a really good
living with it. The difference between those two rules, the one
about the five keywords in the description and the user retention is
that, user retention is a rule. Google actually tells us, "Hey, you know,
they will reward you for having better user retention, having an app longer,
you'll rank better and all this kind of stuff. Luckily, I haven't been affected by
that. I know I would do better if I improve user
retention, but just the nature of that application, I can't think of a really
good way to do that. Alright, and I've wracked my head trying to think
of ways, but , so there's that. But the five keywords thing, that was just a case
of superstition. I always like to think of wehere superstitious beliefs come from.
Like if a cat crosses your path, you'll have bad luck. Or if you go under a
ladder, you'll have bad luck. And I think, you know, eventually at some point, someone
must have walked under a ladder and a man hit by a bus or maybe it happened
twice or three times, but it's not a scientific fact where every time
you walk under a ladder something bad happens. I mean, something bad is gonna
happen anyway. But it becomes a superstition. It gets passed on and
passed on and passed on. And then pretty soon, you don't go under a ladder. I'll
tell you what, if I'm walking through the town and there's a guy up on the ladder,
cleaning windows, I won't walk underneath the ladder because, you know, I take the
risk, even though I don't believe in superstitions at all. Now, in ASO, we have
superstitions too. We have things that people try and it might work for them or
might not work for them. But they make blanket assumptions about how things
work. And the way to get around that is testing. You have to - if you're gonna try
something, test it out. If you get something out there,
don't just - everyone's going to give you conflicting advice. Everyone's going to
give you conflicting rules and they say, 'That's not gonna work because
this or that shouldn't work." I love it when somebody tells me I don't know why
this is working for you because it shouldn't be working for you. And I think
I could live with that unless I'm breaking the rules.
This is one of the things - I mean, don't break the rules, don't buy reviews,
don't pay for downloads, unless it's like cost-per-acquisition and you're
buying an ad and that you pay them if they install it. I mean, that's
different. That's legal. But don't do anything that violates terms and
conditions, but do play around a little bit with how things work and test things
out. Ad it's - it's a long process that is boring because you have
to change - like you change the keyword. Where you can't change a description, you have
to remember to go back and look at it a few days later, see if I said any effect,
change it back, all this come and then and making theories about what will work,
what will work, move things blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, there are definitely
superstitions in ASO, but you don't know what's gonna work. It was not
gonna work until you actually test it. Anyway,
let me know what you, guys, think. What are some superstitions? What are some things
that you know for a fact and what are some things that you - that you think
might be superstition. Okay, that's it for today.
I'll talk to you, guys, tomorrow!