Common App Store Optimization Mistakes to Avoid

Most app store optimization mistakes don’t look like mistakes. They look like reasonable decisions made under a launch deadline, which is exactly why they’re so common. Here are the ones that showed up again and again in 2015, why teams kept making them and what fixes each one.

Stuffing the title with keywords

Why it happens: the title carries the most search weight of any field, so it’s tempting to cram in every relevant term rather than just the brand name and one clear descriptor.

The fix: a title packed with keywords reads as spam to a human scanning results, and tapping through to an untrustworthy-looking listing drops conversion even when the ranking improves. Use the title for the brand and a single clear phrase, then put the rest of your keyword research into the dedicated keyword field on iOS or the description on Google Play, where it can work without scaring off the tap.

Treating the keyword field as an afterthought

Why it happens: it’s hidden from users on iOS, so teams fill it in quickly at the end of the submission process rather than researching it properly.

The fix: every one of those 100 characters should be a real search term a user would type, separated by commas with no wasted spaces or repeated words already covered by the title. Filling it with vague phrases instead of validated terms is one of the cheapest ways to leave visibility on the table, since it costs nothing to get right.

Screenshots that show every screen instead of the best one

Why it happens: it feels thorough to give a full tour of the app’s features across five or six screenshots.

The fix: most people glance at the first one or two screenshots, small, in a results list, before deciding whether to tap in at all. A generic tour buries your strongest selling point behind screens the visitor may never scroll to. Lead with the single feature or benefit most likely to make someone want the app, with a short caption, and treat the rest as secondary.

Asking for a rating at the wrong moment

Why it happens: prompting on first launch is easy to implement and easy to forget about once it’s live.

The fix: a rating prompt fired before someone has experienced any value produces mediocre ratings from people who barely used the app, and a mediocre average rating suppresses ranking regardless of how good the rest of the listing is. Trigger the prompt after a clearly positive moment, completing a task, hitting a milestone, finishing a level, so the people asked are the ones most likely to answer well.

Ignoring reviews after launch

Why it happens: once the initial launch push ends, review monitoring tends to fall off the team’s radar along with everything else that isn’t urgent.

The fix: both major stores weight recent review activity, and a listing that goes quiet looks less trustworthy than one with a steady trickle of new reviews. Set a recurring reminder to read new reviews, respond to the negative ones where the store allows it and use the specific complaints as a punch list for the next update.

Skipping localization because English “covers most of the market”

Why it happens: translating a listing takes real effort, and English does reach a large share of any global audience.

The fix: check your actual install data by country before assuming this. If a meaningful share of downloads already comes from a non-English-speaking market, a localized title, keyword field and screenshots for that store locale competes against a far smaller pool of local listings, often for less effort than the English optimization took in the first place.

Every one of these mistakes shares a root cause: treating the store listing as a formality to finish before launch rather than as an ongoing piece of marketing that deserves the same testing and iteration as a landing page.

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More from the Marketing Analytics archive, everything published in 2015 and the Digital Business Marketing Awards.