◆ Sparround

The two sides of ASO: being found and being chosen

ASO (App Store Optimization) is the work of getting your app found and downloaded by more — and more relevant — people in the store. Treating it as one job is the most common mistake; it is really two separate jobs with different tools:

  • Being found (visibility) — your app appearing in search results and lists. The metric here is impressions. The tools that work: keywords, app name, subtitle/short description, category
  • Being chosen (conversion) — someone who sees the page tapping the download button. The metric here is conversion rate. The tools that work: icon, screenshots, preview video, rating, reviews

The practical benefit of knowing this split: you can diagnose the problem correctly.

SymptomDiagnosisWhat to fix
Few impressions, normal conversion rateThey are not finding you — a visibility problemKeywords, name, subtitle, category
Many impressions, low conversion rateThey find you but do not like it — a page problemIcon, first screenshots, rating
Both are fine but retention is badNot an ASO problem — a product or expectation problemOnboarding, or screenshots promising the wrong thing
Many impressions but from the wrong peopleKeywords chosen too broadlyMove to narrower keywords with clearer intent

The third symptom matters most. Raising install counts through ASO is relatively easy — pick broad, popular keywords and make bold promises in the screenshots. But that brings the wrong people: they install, open, do not find what they expected, and leave. The result:

  • retention drops
  • the rating drops (a disappointed person writes one star)
  • and because the rating dropped, ranking drops too

So bad ASO destroys ASO itself over time. Both Apple and Google state that user behaviour feeds into ranking — Google writes directly that apps are ranked on a combination of ratings, reviews, downloads and other factors.

Which is why the right goal of ASO is not "the most installs" but "the most relevant installs".

ASO is not a one-off task but a loop: make a change → wait 2-4 weeks → look at the numbers → make the next change. If you change keywords, icon and screenshots at the same time, you will never know which one worked. Change one thing at a time.

Practice. Open your store analytics and find two numbers for the last 30 days: impressions and conversion rate. Work out which row of the table above you fall into. Done means: you can write one sentence — "My problem is a visibility/conversion problem, because ...".

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