How to do ASO for news and information apps - Taking Toutiao as an example

Abstract: The promotion of information apps represented by Toutiao can better cater to users in terms of reading methods. Personalized subscription, fragmentation, scenario-based, content aggregation and other forms have become the development trend of news clients!

Mobile Internet is constantly changing our way of life, and people are increasingly inclined to mobile app promotion as a channel for obtaining news and information. According to the latest news app rankings released by Cheetah Global Think Tank, Toutiao ranks first, followed by Tencent News and Yidian Zixun in second and third place.

In terms of overall market share, Toutiao, Tencent News, and Yidian Zixun are leading the major information platforms, accounting for 80% of the market's traffic. Among them, Toutiao's market share is far ahead. Today we will take Toutiao as an example to analyze how it promotes its App.

1. Keyword-based optimization <br />Toutiao covers a total of 3,691 words, of which 195 words occupy the top 3. From the perspective of keyword classification, they mainly include brand words/competitor words/behavior words.
When selecting keywords, we recommend placing highly popular and highly relevant behavioral words in the title to maximize the keyword weight of our App. An increase in weight also means an increase in ranking.

1) Title <br />Today's Headlines - Recommend hot news, videos, topics, information, the headlines you care about are

Although the App Store has a 100-character limit on titles, only the first 32 characters of your app title will appear in search results, so keep it concise. The titles of Toutiao are relatively concise and clear, and the hot news, videos, topics, and information contain highly relevant keywords. The headlines are what you care about, which serves as both a slogan and a brand keyword.

2) App description: "Today, read Toutiao. Toutiao is the news app chosen by more than 400 million users.
The daily usage time of a single user exceeds 60 minutes, and the number of social platform shares reaches 5.5 million times per day

Subvert the traditional reading mode of "searching" for information, use big data algorithms to accurately recommend the content you are interested in, so you will no longer be bothered by redundant information and can swim in a personalized ocean of information, making your reading more useful and efficient. ”

The target keyword should appear as many times as possible within a reasonable range, and special attention should be paid to the number of times the target keyword appears in the first part of the description. The earlier it appears in the description, the higher the weight bonus it receives. It is best if the target keyword appears first in the description.

●Put the two most important features first and the third most important feature last ●Mention your app promotion about 4-8 times through relevant words in the entire description

Let’s go back to the app description of Toutiao. The brand word is emphasized twice in the first two lines of the description, and the words “chosen by 400 million users” are used to arouse user identification. The last line reiterates the benefits that using Toutiao can bring to users - "making your reading more useful and efficient."

2. Advanced optimization - vest <br />Currently, Toutiao has three versions on the app store: free regular version, free exploration version, and paid professional version. With its similar icons and titles, we can also call it a disguised version of Toutiao. Many apps now use vests. The benefits of using vests are:

1) Testing <br />Before the main version is launched, a free exploration version is launched first to test the drawbacks of the actual use of the App promotion, and timely fix them using the vest version. The exploration version of Toutiao has a message like "Welcome to move on, there are gift packages for your suggestions..." This is a beta version, and prizes are used to encourage users to feedback problems with the new version.

2) Increase keyword coverage
Imagine that with one more disguised version of the APP, there can be 100 more keywords, and the number of keywords covered can be doubled.

3) Avoid risks <br />In the industry, it is often said that "one game has three packages". In the current environment, chart manipulation seems to have become a direct and effective means that cannot be avoided. At the same time, there are more or less risks in chart manipulation, and the App Store will also start clearing the charts and implementing removal from the App Store from time to time. How to quickly gain new users by manipulating the charts in an environment that effectively avoids risks, vests are the only choice.

The promotion of information apps represented by Toutiao can better cater to users in terms of reading methods. Personalized subscription, fragmentation, scenario-based, content aggregation and other forms have become the development trend of news clients. This market has already formed a certain scale, and the competition in the industry will inevitably become more intense. How to get to the top of the list in the competition of homogeneous products? I hope that the above ASO optimization suggestions can bring you some help.