Mobile gaming is a solid and lucrative business. Every year revenue is growing, and next year’s forecast is also quite optimistic. If you are a game developer those are great news. Game apps are also the most popular category in mobile stores as about 25 percent of all the available apps fit in this category.
However, it is a very crowded and competitive market. Last year a total of 222,903 new games were launched on Android during the 12-month period, with another 49,178 on iOS. In September 2019 alone over 10,000 games were submitted for approval to the App Store. Talk about a booming marketplace.
Games submitted per month to the iTunes Appstore
Source: Pocket Gamer
In this ocean of abundance, the question that a game developer will have to explore sooner or later is the following:
How can I help my mobile game stand out in increasingly crowded app stores?
It’s a tough challenge, but not impossible. The best strategy for making a splash with your game is the combination of App Store Optimization (ASO) and selecting the right keywords for it.
ASO is the process of optimizing a mobile application in the app stores (Google Play Store & App Store) to increase its visibility in the respective store’s search.
Keywords are words coming to mind when users want to find a new game for their mobile device. Golf, racing, shooter, puzzle match-3… all these words will serve up different results.
Consider the following five strategies to increase the chances of your game to be found:
- Craft a unique game name and avoid common terms
- Make a big list of potential keywords that could be used to search for your game. Here less is not more. More is most definitely more. The more keywords, the higher the chance that the game gets to the gamers
- Write an engaging description to describe the gaming experience
- Create high-quality screenshots of your game (App Store allows you to upload five, while the Google Play Store will allow you eight)
- Film high-quality videos with 15-30 seconds of your gameplay and add them to your product page
Remember, the goal of ASO and keyword optimization is to help your game to get discovered. The more people find your game the more installs you may get (and the perks that come with them).
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