5 Steps to Improve Your App Store Product Description!

Like moving house or getting married, launching a game in any mobile market can be stressful - as anyone who follows the business side of gaming will know.

Between deadlines to fix bugs or optimize monetization strategies, it’s tempting to push app store descriptions to the bottom of your to-do list.

But in terms of discovery and subsequent downloads, writing a good description of a few hundred words can make a huge difference. Even if the app store icon is well designed and the screenshots are numerous and attractive, an unqualified description will make all these efforts go to waste.

So, how can developers ensure that their app descriptions are up to par — or at least don’t send potential consumers into a state of rapid back-swiping?

To ensure your app store description is effective, we’ve put together five simple steps.

1. Clever

Before you pick up your pen or turn on your computer, you must be aware that your app faces fierce competition for discovery.

While marketing , PR, and advertising all play a role, the best way to help your app get legitimate traffic is to optimize your keywords to fit the ASO algorithm ( Apple App Store Optimization algorithm).

However, Tomasz Kolinko, founder of AppCodes, discovered that mastering ASO means taking a different approach to SEO (search engine optimization).

“App store SEO is like web SEO,” Kolinko explains.

"With on-page SEO, you have to find the best possible phrase and then try to appear at the top of the search results. With ASO, there is no such thing as 'appearing at the top of the search results' - if you're low, there's nothing you can do except look for different phrases."

So when the keywords are limited to 100 words, Kolinko believes that the keywords combined by developers must meet two points: first, they must be search terms that users may click on and that seem credible; and second, they must be less likely to compete with other applications.

It may seem tricky at first, but if you get the hang of it, Kolinko says optimizing ASO is a breeze.

“Unlike Google SEO, ASO requires you to spend an hour or two polishing keywords before updating. So the effort is really minimal, and when you do do it, you’ll at least be on par with the competition.”

2. Be clear

If the app store description is unclear or vague, the app may lose a lot of downloads. That’s the level of clarity?

A clear description is the key to grabbing consumers’ attention within the first 10 seconds.

If a consumer can't quickly and easily understand a game from a description, then it's unlikely that he'll download it - even for free.

There is no benefit in appearing too clever, as consumers may not even get the punchline in the description. Keeping the language simple is key, as well as ensuring it appeals to your target audience and is formatted to be easy to read.

Dot matrix and short sentences are a developer’s best friend, so use them as much as possible.

3. Sufficient information

Developers are often so caught up in their game that they can't figure out what their unique selling point is.

Although the game production team may know where the highlight of the app is, the average consumer will not look for this highlight after downloading it - this is what the app description should convey.

So, what are the key points that developers should consider? For beginners, it's key to have some form of verbalizing the genre, as game mechanics are often hard to tell from screenshots.

In addition, the description should highlight original features that cannot be directly exploited by the competition. For example, Ustwo’s Whale Trail uses the app description to promote the game’s music, which was composed by Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animal.

In fact, all of the game's marketing materials mention this particular selling point.

It is very important to describe the features of your application in five sentences or less. As Thomas Sommer of AppLift explains, the design changes Apple has implemented in the App Store have made it a great way to entice curious users to click the download button.

“Navigation structure is the most important thing for iOS 6 because once a user discovers your app, only the first five sentences of your description will appear on the main app page,” Sommer explains.

“So you have to condense your unique selling point or the gist of your game into the first few sentences of your description. Candy Crush Saga does this really well.”

4. Simplicity

While developers must make sure to describe things with plenty of detail, brevity is also key.

When consumers are faced with an unnecessarily lengthy description, their reaction is more likely to be “too long, I can’t read it” rather than clicking the install button.

Planning and editing can avoid this problem. Before developers actually start writing a description, it’s best to summarize in one sentence why consumers should download the game.

The second step is to expand this reason into five coherent sentences, and then revise the coherent draft based on the three requirements of "cleverness, clarity, and sufficient information" mentioned above.

Then put this draft aside and revise it again half an hour later.

Delete any unnecessary words (e.g., “the graphics are stunning” instead of “the graphics are stunning”), then check again to make sure you’ve covered all of your game’s features and clearly outlined why players should download it.

5. Personalization

The last step is the trickiest for developers. According to Sue Keogh, Director at Sookio, personalization is the key to getting noticed in the market.

“The competition in the App Store is so intense that you have to be able to capture people’s attention in a split second,” Keogh explained.

“If you can describe your product in a way that’s compelling, you’ll have an advantage over other products that are focusing all their attention on the game itself rather than how it’s presented.”

Luckily, there’s an easy way to write a personalized description: go drink. Not literally, of course. What Sue means is that imagining yourself talking to your friends at a bar is a good way to make your descriptive tone friendly.

Keogh added: “Pitch your app like you would talk to a friend at a bar.”

“Speaking louder will help others understand what your game is about; imagining you’re chatting with a buddy can help you sound friendlier.”

Combining this strategy with the four steps above should at least ensure that your app store description doesn’t hold your game back commercially.

Due to the lack of consumer positioning and unclear consumer intentions when downloading games, it is difficult to know how much influence the app store description has on the game.

However, in such a fiercely competitive mobile market, the failure of even one element is unbearable for almost all developers.

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