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App Store Optimization Study: What We Can Learn From the Top-Ranking Apps

App Store Optimization Study: What We Can Learn From the Top-Ranking Apps

If you have an app and have it listed on the Play Store (Google) and App Store (Apple), you’ve probably dug into the ins and outs of optimization for these platforms. 

Textbook recommendations might not necessarily do the trick, though. That’s why we teamed up with MobileAction, a renowned tool for App Store Optimization and mobile user acquisition, developer of Mobile App Insights app in Semrush App Center, to dissect the best practices of the apps that make it into the top 10 in the App Store and Play Store.

App Store Optimization Study: Highlights

Any good content has a teaser, so we’ll reveal some of the most interesting findings from our study. Take a sneak peek at our most compelling discoveries and dive into the full study:

The App Store appears to have a more diverse landscape when it comes to app developers. The Play Store typically features fewer competitors across the analyzed categories.  Brand awareness is the underlying success factor for your app. Both iOS and Android users tend to use brand names when they search for various apps. Reviews, unlike ratings, seem to have a direct correlation with rankings. Play Store users are generally more generous with reviews — the average app within the top 10 on Play Store gets 267K reviews, while in the App Store, that number goes down to 31.7K.  Apps ranking for #1 positions are more likely to have a target keyword within their app name.  Guess which app store features apps with more MBs? Right, it’s the App Store. An average iOS app is triple the size of an Android app. Does this have any impact on rankings? It’s counterintuitive, but heavier apps take higher positions across both stores.

What Is App Store Optimization?

App Store Optimization (ASO) is an organic approach to growing your app’s visibility on major app stores. All through optimization. 

Think of it as SEO, only for the Play Store (Android devices) and App Store (iOS devices).

Just like Google search, the two biggest app stores keep their ranking factors a secret. But the general consensus among ASO specialists is that app rankings can be influenced by:

 

App Store

Play Store

App name / app title

Keywords*

App subtitle

App URL

Number of installs

Reviews

Ratings

App updates

In-app purchases

*Note: Play Store and App Store have different approaches to indexing keywords. The former considers the entire content (including title and descriptions), while the latter also indexes keywords added to a designated keywords field and the app subtitle.

We’ve looked at each variable to unwrap the extent of their influence on rankings and to pinpoint the best practices that you can use to give your app a potential visibility boost. 

ASO Study Methodology

Together with the MobileAction team we defined a list of categories from both the Play Store and the App Store. We’ve pinpointed six categories where ASO plays the biggest role: Finance, Food and Drink, Games, Health and Fitness, Social Networking, and Shopping.

For each category, the MobileAction team pulled the top 100 most popular keywords, while our job was to: 

Choose the 10 top-ranking apps for each keyword in both the App Store and Play Store. Collect a number of metrics and features for further analysis (app name, developer, icon features, date of app’s last update, app size, description, category, screenshots, reviews, and ratings).

App Store and Play Store metrics and features (example): 

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Once we had pulled all the data, we grouped the metrics into four categories:

User-driven factors: how ratings, comments, and other user evaluation criteria affect apps’ performance in search. Representation features: potential impact on rankings of everything from app name and subtitle to description and icons. Technical features: how things like app size or monetization model potentially influence apps’ visibility.  Branding factors: possible importance of the weight of the brand.

App Store Optimization: Examining the Top-Performing Apps

Although similar, the Play Store and the App Store each have their peculiarities. So, we’ve separated our study into two key parts:

Findings for the App Store; and Findings for the Play Store.

Now, let’s see what it is that shapes the top-notch performance of the 10 best-ranking apps within their categories. 

Dissecting ASO For the App Store (iOS)

(How) Do User-Driven Factors Affect Apps’ Rankings?

Ratings

Our analysis shows that ratings don’t determine an app’s position within the top 10. In fact, the average ratings for apps that make it into the top 3 tend to be lower than for apps ranking below position 3.

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If you think that your rankings lag because you lack a 5-star rating, you’re mistaken. The average app rating for positions 1 to 5 is about 3.3 stars. 

Maybe there are some differences from one category to another? We looked at that too.

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Apps in the Health and Fitness category tend to get the highest ratings from users; their average is close to 4 stars. The only category that shows a significant drop in user satisfaction is Food and Drink — the averages here don’t even make it to 3 stars.

As for rating dynamics versus app position, we can see that various categories show somewhat mixed trends. While Food and Drink apps return a more coherent picture — the lower the ratings, the lower the rankings — Finance and Social Networking apps witness a reverse trend.

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Pro tip: While the App Store doesn’t seem to care much about ratings when ranking apps, users do pay attention. So, while ratings don’t directly impact apps’ performance, they might have an indirect impact, influencing conversions, which in turn affect your rankings. 

Reviews 

Unlike ratings, reviews have a more direct correlation with rankings. Our data shows that the more reviews you have, the higher the position you take. 

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As you can see, with reviews, the averages tend to show a high discrepancy with the median values. This implies that some apps return a lot more reviews than the rest. Therefore, it’s the median numbers you should be looking at here. 

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Category-wise, Gaming apps attract the largest amount of user feedback, with the average being at 9K reviews. The category that shows the lowest volume of reviews is Health and Fitness, our ratings leader. 

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When we look at the reviews-position pairing, it’s the Games category once again that witnesses a sharp decrease in rankings due to a drop in user feedback. Other niches show more even patterns, without any dramatic downturns.

(How) Does the Way You Present Your App Impact Position?

App name

On average, app names on the App Store have around 21 characters, and are about 4 words long. 

The wordiest categories are Health and Fitness and Finance (27 characters), while the Food and Drink apps prefer to keep things more concise (18 characters).

When it comes to impact assessment, we spotted no correlation between name length and position. As you can see from the graph below, character counts tend to stay almost the same regardless of position changes. 

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Now, does anything change when we look at the presence of keywords within the app title?

For instance, if the target keyword is dating, do the apps that include dating in their name rank higher than those that don’t?

To assess this, we’ve designed a metric that evaluates the level of similarity between a keyword and the title. We have a complete match when the metric hits 1, and no match when the value gets down to 0. Note that for this part only, we excluded branded keywords to avoid a situation where, for instance, a search for “Instagram” brings Instagram in the first position.

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We can notice that apps taking over the top position typically have a close match to the target keyword. This means that you’d better include a keyword within your app name if you want to win the #1 position.

One another observation we made is that many apps include special characters (e.g., “Drop The Number: Merge Puzzle”, “Color Merge Blast - 2048 balls”). So we collected the top symbols appearing in app titles.

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Top apps typically include “-”, “:” and “&” in their app name. Social Networking and Finance apps use special symbols more often than other categories. 

App’s subtitle

Our analysis showed that about 80% of all apps within the App Store feature a special subtitle. 

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Typically, subtitles are 4 to 5 words long, and there is not much discrepancy between the categories. We also spotted no significant changes in subtitle usage from one position to another.

App’s description 

While we know that the App Store doesn’t consider your description when it considers keywords, the number of words in your description appears to affect your position.

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Our data showcased that the lower in rankings apps go, the fewer words they have in their description. 

On average, the top-ranking apps across all categories feature about 300 words in the description. 

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Health and Fitness apps tend to have the longest descriptions (420+ words). 

Also, we noticed that apps use descriptions as a place for different calls-to-action (CTA) — all to entice users to install the app.

The table below sums up the most frequent CTAs used in descriptions of different app categories:

Health and Fitness

Social Networking

Finance

PhraseCountPhraseCountPhraseCount

help you

281

chat with

144

secure

151

heart rate

196

the best

100

send money

110

weight loss

162

new friends

93

manage your

98

the best

127

share your

92

help you

95

easy to use

107

you want

83

you need

89

you need

99

meet new

65

the best

65

your fitness

96

your favorite

61

easy to

53

your sleep

94

easy to use

51

allows you

49

your favorite

80

new people

51

money transfer

47

improve your

72

help you

46

access your

40

keep track

54

allows you

32

track your

40

share your

54

is free

32

sign up

28

thousands of

45

free to download

23

friends and family

27

Food and Drink

Shopping

Games

Phrase

Count

PhraseCountPhraseCount

your favorite

171

the latest

135

the best

309

your order

103

your favorite

129

with your friends

208

the best

95

the best

117

your own

177

food delivery

62

download the app

62

your favorite

100

save your

46

you love

34

become the biggest

99

find your

41

black friday

33

challenge your friends

78

track your

39

the perfect

29

real money

57

help you

35

never miss

27

follow us

52

earn points

29

gift cards

26

compete with

40

you like

29

online shopping

24

show off

39

customize your

28

best deals

24

challenge yourself

35

order food

19

rewards and coupons

23

free to play

35

download the app

18

free shipping

21

3d graphics

24

Pro tip: If your app falls into one of these categories, double-check if your description features some of these phrases. If not, try adding at least a few CTAs from this table, and see if you notice any positive shifts. 

App’s icon 

Each app within the App Store has an icon. 

They can be very minimalistic, but sometimes developers use complex visuals with a lot of colors. 

Is there much difference, though? We’ve analyzed this. 

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Across the board, apps’ icons typically feature around four colors, with white being the most popular color across all the categories (20%+ of apps use white as the core color); the rest of the palette varies from one niche to another. 

For instance, Games apps’ second most popular color is brown. Finance apps prefer blue-ish shades. Food and Drink apps have a taste for red, using crimson colors more than any other category we analyzed. 

(How) Do Technical Features Influence Apps’ Performance?

App size

We’ve looked at apps’ sizes in MB to evaluate the correlation between app size and rankings, and the findings were counterintuitive. 

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We noticed a slight decrease in the average app size with the position. It’s probably some improved functionality that gets “higher-weighing” apps higher positions in the App Store, but we can’t say for sure if it’s the graphics, more features, or something else that contributes to the increased size. 

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The average app in the App Store has a size of 174MB. Apps within the Games category, however, are much “heavier” than others (427MB). That's not surprising as a lot of modern games usually have more complex graphics than shops or messengers.

App updates

You’d think that being current is something the App Store takes into account when ranking apps. Our data shows that it’s true for the first two to three positions.

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When analyzing the full scope of the apps, though, we noticed that some apps were last updated back in 2017. This implies that the app update date is not so important, as even older apps can make it into the top 10.

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As averages might return an inaccurate view (after all, some apps haven’t seen updates in years), we looked at median values to calculate how many days had passed since the last update. It typically takes 21 days to release improvements for all the top-ranking apps across the board, with Finance apps featuring more frequent updates.

App monetization 

An app can be free to download or have a price tag on it. Even if it is free to download, it can contain in-app purchases like a pro account or a paid plan that you can buy inside the app (it has a tag “in-app purchases”). 

100% free apps usually don’t earn money from the apps themselves. These are the apps of e-shops or food deliveries, payment systems, or online banks — the services through which you buy some other product. These can also include apps that earn money from ads inserted into the app interface.

The chart below shows the distribution of pricing types by category. 

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The majority of apps within the Health and Fitness, Social Networking, and Games categories are free to download but have internal purchases. Apps from the Finance, Food and Drink, and Shopping categories tend to be fully free to use. Games is the category with the highest number of apps that require any in-app payment or a paid download.

As for any influence on rankings, our data showed no correlation between app position and the pricing model.

How Diverse Is the App Developer Landscape Within the App Store?

Diversity of developers and apps 

To assess how many developers are ‘responsible’ for the apps we see for each category, we looked at the search results and the number of developers presented. 

Health and Fitness

Social Networking

Finance

Developer 

Count

Developer 

Count

Developer 

Count

abishkking.com

55

pinger.com

22

coinbase.com

27

workoutinc.net

34

getwinkapp.com

14

binance.com

22

myfitnesspal.com

18

yubo.live

13

robinhood.com

18

loseit.com

13

hoop.photo

13

floatme.com

17

strongherapp.com

12

whatsapp.com

13

pro.coinbase.com

16

calm.com

12

instagram.com

13

hellobrigit.com

15

headspace.com

10

go-text.me

12

fidelity.com

14

myfitnesssync.com

10

textnow.com

12

coinmarketcap.com

14

ipnos.com

9

textPlus.com

12

trustwallet.com

13

fitness22.com

9

gotinder.com

12

crypto.com

13

Food and Drink

Shopping

Games

Developer 

count

Developer 

count

Developer 

count

chick-fil-a.com

50

hm.com

40

ea.comiphone

13

wendys.com

43

forever21.com

28

gameloft.com

11

tacobell.com

36

nike.com

23

voodoo.io

11

order.subway.com

31

zara.com

22

sybogames.com

10

pandaexpress.com

28

shein.com

20

voodoo.io

10

popeyes.com

25

urbanoutfitters.com

20

zynga.com

10

mcdonalds.com

25

fashionnova.com

19

activision.com

9

arbys.com

19

nike.com

19

imangistudios.com

9

panerabread.com

19

mobile.tjmaxx.tjx.com

18

rovio.com

9

sonicdrivein.com

16

oldnavy.com

16

azurgames.com

7

Our findings show that the Games, Finance, and Food and Drink categories tend to have more competitors racing for the top spots. The Health and Fitness and Shopping landscape appears to have more dominant leaders, with ABISHKKING owning over 30% of all the apps in the former category and H&M owning more than 18% of the apps in the latter.

Search trends

We looked at the top 10 keywords for each category, and saw that the most popular keywords are those that have to do with brands. 

Health and Fitness

Social Networking

Finance

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

planet fitness

1

instagram 

1

coinbase

1

my fitness pal

2

grindr

2

cash app

2

fitness

3

yubo

3

bank of america

3

sleep: sounds

4

wizz

4

robinhood

4

period tracker

5

messenger

5

credit karma

5

fitbit

6

whatsapp

6

venmo

6

workout

7

text now

7

crypto com

7

white noise

8

jackd

8

zelle

8

peloton

9

wink

9

payday advance

9

fasting tracker

10

yik yak

10

western union

10

      

Food and Drink

Shopping

Games

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

mcdonalds app

1

shein

1

games

1

starbucks

2

target

2

pubg

2

chick fil a app

3

fashion nova

3

rocket league

3

burger king

4

ebay

4

candy crush

4

taco bell

5

bath and body works

5

candy crush

5

pizza hut

6

zara

6

car games

6

food delivery

7

shop

7

subway surfers

7

dunkin donuts app

8

offer up

8

solitaire

8

wendys app

9

best buy

9

free games

9

gopuff

10

kohls app

10

geometry dash

10

The data above implies that people search for specific app brands more often than they search for a specific feature or action. This only means that an investment in brand awareness can go a long way when promoting your app.

Dissecting ASO For the Play Store (Android)

(How) Do User-Driven Factors Affect Apps’ Rankings?

Rating

Just like the App Store, the Play Store doesn’t appear to place too much emphasis on ratings when ranking apps. But rating averages tend to be higher.

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The average app in positions 1 to 5 has a 4-star rating in the Play Store (vs. the App Store’s 3.3 stars).

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In the Play Store, the highest ratings go to gaming apps. 

As for ratings’ influence on apps’ organic performance in the Play Store, it looks like rankings don’t go down with falling ratings.

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Reviews 

When it comes to reviews, the ranking patterns are once again similar to those of the App Store. Reviews do seem to affect rankings, and to a large extent when we’re looking at the top position.

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Looking at median values (as some apps have an incredibly high volume of reviews), we can see that apps making it to the first position tend to have almost triple the number of reviews compared to the next-ranking apps.

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Unlike the App Store, where gaming apps attract the largest number of reviews, Play Store users mostly leave feedback for Social Networking apps. The average review count for this category is 39K. 

When looking at the impact of reviews on rankings, we only see a significant decrease in position vs. reviews within the Social Networking and Games categories, especially in the top 2 positions. For other categories, the drop is less notable. 

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In general, Android users appear to leave more reviews across all categories compared to iOS stats. The average app in the Play Store gets about 267K reviews, while in the App Store, it’s 31.7K. 

(How) Does the Way You Present Your App Impact Position?

App name

The average top-ranking app in the Play Store has around 28 characters and four words in its name.

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Health and Fitness apps tend to have the longest names, with an average of 28 characters, just like in the App Store. 

As for any influence of the title length on rankings, there is some difference between the categories. Health and Fitness, Social Networking, and Games apps do show a slight increase in positions with a lengthier app name. Finance, Shopping, and Food and Drink apps don’t appear to show any correlation between performance and title length.

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As the Play Store indexes the entire content of the app for keywords, does this mean that we can spot a closer dependency between including a keyword in the title and rankings? Let’s see.

Just as in the App Store, the similarity between the app name and the keyword is stronger in the very top position. Meaning, adding a keyword to your app name is always a good idea if you want to race for the #1 spot. But the closeness of that similarity appears to be somewhat lower in the Play Store than in the App Store, which is curious given how differently the two app stores go about keyword indexing.

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As for the most common symbols within app names, they are exactly the same as in the App Store: “-”, “:” and “&”. Social Networking and Finance apps use special characters the most. And, in general, Play Store apps use symbols within their title more than in the App Store. 

App’s description 

Apps ranking in the #1 position have the highest number of words within their description. From positions 2-10, we could see no decreasing trend, meaning that unless we’re talking about that top position, it really doesn’t matter how many words are included in the description. 

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Similar to the App Store, Play Store apps’ descriptions have around 300 words, with Health and Fitness apps being more wordy (400+ words).

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When it comes to various CTAs within descriptions, Play Store apps tend to use them more often than in the App Store. But as for the actual wording, it doesn’t vary much between the two platforms.

The table below features some of the most used CTAs for various app categories:

Health and Fitness

Social Networking

Finance

Phrase

Count

Phrase

Count

Phrase

Count

help you

367

chat with

241

secure

245

weight loss

310

new friends

170

manage your

193

track your

268

the best

160

access to

181

heart rate

231

meet new

146

you need

164

the best

219

your favorite

145

help you

130

you need

115

share your

130

send money

125

access to

109

free to

111

your money

117

improve your

108

connect with

97

track your

78

fat burning

94

help you

75

you want

78

your favorite

85

around the world

66

download the app

76

create your

66

free to download

65

money transfer

48

no equipment

58

allows you

64

buy and sell

47

download the app

57

you like

62

sign up

45

allows you

56

for free

59

friends and family

31

      

Food and Drink

Shopping

Games

Phrase

Count

Phrase

Count

Phrase

Count

your favorite

263

the best

179

the best

436

your order

154

the latest

175

play with

175

the best

113

your favorite

155

your favorite

149

you want

107

coupons and deals

112

enjoy the game

119

download the app

82

online shopping

81

become the

100

food delivery

82

help you

74

build your

90

order food

59

you need

74

train your

89

customize your

42

download the app

68

real money

84

earn points

38

cash back

68

with your friends

81

shopping list

38

promo codes

61

challenge your

72

for free

34

save money

57

compete with

67

to your door

31

track your

56

around the world

59

never been easier

20

gift cards

55

opportunity to win

31

app lets you

19

black friday

39

waiting for you

29

App’s icon 

Just as in the App Store, Play Store apps’ icons typically have four colors, with white as the most popular color. But then, the picture differs a lot. 

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In the Play Store, Health and Fitness apps have more purple, and Food and Drink apps appear to add more green shades. 

While the icon stays the same in both stores, the top 10 across the stores feature different apps, hence the discrepancy.

(How) Do Technical Features Influence Apps’ Performance?

App size

The top-performing apps in the Play Store seem to be “lighter” than they are in the App Store. If the latter’s average is at 174MB, Android apps are around 60MB in size.

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Once again, the “heaviest” apps take over the top spots across the board. 

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Games apps in the Play Store are almost 50% bigger than the rest.

App updates

The average app in the Play Store has 22 days between updates; this is one day more than the average for iOS apps.

When it comes to the top spots, however, it appears that the Play Store cares about app “freshness” slightly more than the App Store. Apps that make it into the #1 position tend to have the most recent updates.

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Beyond the first position, the correlation weakens, if not disappears. 

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The App Store’s most up-to-date apps are typically within the Finance category. In the Play Store, it’s Social Networking apps that feature more updates. In contrast to the App Store, Finance apps on Android have the highest number of days between releasing improvements. 

App monetization

From a bird’s-eye-view, the Play Store features more free apps than its iOS counterpart. We even spotted that some apps have a price tag on the App Store but are free on Android. 

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The overall patterns, however, are consistent across the stores. Health and Fitness, Social Networking, and Games apps are typically free to download but have internal purchases. Apps from Finance, Food and Drink, and Shopping categories tend to be fully free as they earn from selling their product rather than the app itself.

How Diverse Is the App Developer Landscape Within the Play Store?

Diversity of developers and apps 

The Play Store seems to be less competitive than the App Store when it comes to the diversity of developers. 

Health and Fitness

Social Networking

Finance

Developer

count

Developer 

count

Developer 

count

Leap Fitness Group

72

TikTok Pte. Ltd

26

Bank of America

34

Google LLC

19

Perry Street Software

25

PNC Bank, N.A.

20

iFit

16

Hornet Networks Ltd

20

TD Ameritrade

19

Fitbit, Inc.

16

Media Republic Apps

16

U.S. Bank Mobile

18

Nike, Inc.

16

Bigo Technology Pte. Ltd

16

Capital One Services, LLC

17

FitOn

14

9 Count

15

Coinbase Android

17

MapMyFitness, Inc.

14

Meta Platforms, Inc.

15

Robinhood

15

MyFitnessPal, Inc.

14

Grindr LLC

14

Green Dot

15

Simple Design Ltd

13

Video Chat Alternative

14

NetSpend

14

Smart Wearable Devices

13

Twitter, Inc.

13

Binance Inc.

13

Food and Drink

Shopping

Games

Developer 

count

Developer 

count

Developer 

count

Uber Technologies, Inc.

42

Foot Locker, Inc.

38

ELECTRONIC ARTS

39

Double Fox Games

35

Nike, Inc.

29

My Town Games Ltd

20

Chick-fil-A, Inc.

31

Nordstrom, Inc.

22

Zynga

18

DoorDash

27

Wish Inc.

21

ninja kiwi

17

Starbucks Coffee Company

26

Poshmark, Inc.

21

Amanotes PTE, LTD

14

Grubhub

22

Alibaba Mobile

20

Miniclip. com

13

McDonalds USA, LLC

21

Roadget Business PTE. LTD

18

2K, Inc.

13

Burger King, Inc.

20

Etsy, Inc

17

etermax

12

ChowNow

18

Forever 21

16

Gameloft SE

12

Dunkin' Brands, Inc.

15

Walmart

15

PlaySimple Games

11

Across categories, we see more dominance of certain players, with the only exception being Social Networking and Food and Drink niches. In Health and Fitness, Leap Fitness Group has around 35% of the apps’ share within the industry. In Games, Electronic Arts owns around 23% of all the gaming apps. 

Search trends

When it comes to the way people search for apps, Android users appear to be just as focused on brand names as iOS users. So, whether you are promoting your app on the Play Store or the App Store, it’s brand awareness that helps you win the race.

Health and Fitness

Social Networking

Finance

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

fitbit

1

snapchat

1

coinbase

1

planet fitness

2

grindr

2

venmo

2

my fitness pal

3

yubo

3

bank of america

3

fitness’

4

twitter

4

crypto com

4

calm+

5

social media

5

credit karma

5

peloton

6

tik+tok

6

truebill

6

workout +

7

who stalks

7

metamask

7

calorie-counter

8

meet me

8

zelle

8

fasting tracker

9

live . me

9

citi mobile app

9

noom

10

reddit

10

trust wallet

10

      

Food and Drink

Shopping

Games

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

Keyword

Rank

mcdonalds app

1

shein

1

solitaire+

1

chipotle

2

footlocker

2

car games

2

pizza hut

3

stockx

3

slots +

3

taco bell

4

mercari

4

puzzle games

4

burger king

5

shop

5

casino

5

wendys app

6

aliexpress

6

basketball games

6

gopuff

7

ebay

7

retro bowl

7

food delivery

8

old navy

8

sudoku+

8

chick fil a app

9

depop

9

trivia

9

buffalo wild wings

10

finish line

10

racing games

10

Over to You

Now that you know more about ASO optimization and what makes the top-performing apps rank the way they do, here’s a final checklist that sums up our ASO study findings and highlights the most actionable discoveries:

Reviews have a more direct impact on your rankings than ratings. So don’t get discouraged when you see those 4 stars. The leading apps in their categories also don't make it to 5 stars. Find out the average number of reviews for the top apps in your industry and try to hit that benchmark, or it can be a deal breaker. Get creative and add lengthier descriptions for your app. It might not matter much for lower ranks, but descriptions of apps in the top 3 positions feature more words.  Don’t forget to add compelling CTAs to your descriptions. They vary from industry to industry, but if you read carefully through our study, you’ll start noticing some patterns — for example, financial apps tend to highlight security, gaming apps set users up for a challenge, while some other categories want to convince users they are “the best”. Make sure your app name includes your target keyword! App size is not a problem. In fact, top apps tend to be “heavier” than the rest. So don’t hesitate to add more graphics and other features you think add MBs to your app — neither the App Store nor the Play Store seem to mind. When it comes to ranks, your pricing model doesn’t matter. Meanwhile, scout the competition and explore their monetization models. Because while stores might still give you those ranks, users might be more sensitive to pricing. Don’t release updates for the sake of updates. Rankings-wise, your last update date has little impact. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, but if you see issues with the user experience and other problems, updates are a must.

For more ASO insights, check out our comprehensive App Store Optimization guide.

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