5 Ways to grow your app organically

In the world of app marketing, there are two ways you can increase user downloads - organically and inorganically (paid).

Paid marketing options such as search engine ads,  in-app ads, and social media marketing are great ways to boost app installations. But, they are not always the most financially friendly option for app developers. 

Whereas, Organic installs rely more on the user downloading your app themselves. While this may seem to be free, it does involve strategizing to such levels that large amounts of users can organically view your app. It may include users who:

• Have heard about your app on a blog or podcast and downloaded it 
• Found your app with generic keyword research on the App Store 
• Referred by another app user

So, organic app installs are the way to go!

Boosting organic app installs will help you get more users and increase your apps' retention rates. Another bonus is that it improves your app store rankings making your app visible to potential users.  Statistica 2022 report shows that the number of global mobile app downloads has increased to 230 billion in 2022, from 140.7 billion downloads in 2016. This means that there is a high chance you can get users to download your app without having to run paid marketing campaigns. 

So, let’s take a look at 5 ways to grow your app organically:

1) Improve ASO for the app

ASO or App Store Optimization is a marketing technique that helps improve the app by following the store’s guidelines. This technique also helps improve rankings for keywords to increase search presence and get higher organic download numbers. 

There are 2 primary ways to improve your ASO:

1) Keyword structuring and proper utilization:

The basis of ASO relates to the main keyword of the app. It requires you to find out what users are searching for and target those keywords on your app page to help boost visibility and encourage downloads. Once your main ASO keywords are ready, you must integrate them throughout your metadata. 

1. Title- Integrating the main keyword into your title helps boost online presence in the store, improve overall ranking and eventually increase app installs. 
2. Description - App descriptions are the main option app publishers get to describe their app and its utility. Here you have the chance to showcase what your app will achieve while adding keywords to connect with the app stores’ algorithm. 

However, If you are an Apple app creator, the store does not have a description field. Rather you can add the keywords directly in the Keyword section. As a keyword, you can enter up to 100 characters.

1. URL - The URL for your app should have been integrated with the main keyword. Google Play Store considers backlinks on your apps, which works similarly to website SEO. 
2. Keyword field - Choose a keyword that best describes your app and has minimal difficult rates. If you look at highly competitive keywords, chances are that your app will not rank in the top 5. So, look for keywords that are searched for by your target audience but are not the ones your competitors are ranking on. 

2) Creatives that connect with the audience:

Another way you can improve your app’s ASO is by adding strong creatives. This can help catch a potential user's attention and is a persuasive tool to bring the user into your conversion funnel. 

1. Creatives include your app preview video and your app screenshots. Add bright, attractive creatives to capture the attention of potential users. 
2. Choosing the best creatives that convert is through A/B testing. Tools such as StoreMaven and SplitMetrics run tests of groups of creatives to segment your audience and gather information on which performed the best. 
3. When building your app icon, you must remember that it is the first thing a potential user will see. So, it should be at the top of the priority list. The icon should represent your brand, have your brand colors and be easily understandable. It should also be instantly recognizable and engaging. 

Do you know that average app users take only 3-6 seconds to decide if they want to download your app or not? Not a whole lot of time to convince someone to download your app. This is why you need to make the biggest impact at the beginning. ASO is not only about visibility or discoverability, it also includes Conversion Rate Optimization. CRO is the process of improving the percentage of people who convert into customers. This can only happen once you start improving your ASO for your app.

ASO is the best way to get your app in front of users. But, it is one of the hardest organic app installation methods.

2) Leverage Social Media

Social media platforms are some of the most important traffic sources app publishers can focus on. Your target audience spends the most hours on apps and platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Being active on your social media channels is the best way to get app installs and constantly connect with your users. Depending on the preference of your target audience, the social media platform will change. 

Facebook has over 2.8 billion monthly active users, while Instagram has over 1 billion. You can easily reach a wider audience by posting information about your app. 

How can you leverage social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram? 

1. Share creatives and content relevant to your users that highlights the importance of your app
2. Push content that shows your app’s features, benefits, and utility
3. Showcase previous customer reviews to attract potential users
4. Contests are a great way to increase app installs. You can offer free rewards inside your app when people participate in these contents
5. Use hashtags to increase reach and engagement 
6. Connect with online users who comment on your posts 
7. Offer exciting rewards for new users 

When you engage with users on social media platforms, listen to what they say. Understand what they like or dislike about your app and try to solve the issues to avoid high churn rates.

3) Promote apps on sites like Quora, Reddit, Medium, etc

Just like social media platforms, sites such as Quora, Reddit, and Medium have their digital environments. People use them as sources of information to answer their queries. Because they are built to help people solve their issues, you can present your app to them to solve their problems. 

Let’s say, you create a finance tracker app. You can join personal finance subreddits or look for questions related to personal finances on Quora. 

Websites like Quora and Reddit that help people communicate and discuss their issues are gold mines for businesses that want to organically grow their backlinking, mentions, and referral installations for their apps. 

But, you must ensure that the app and the posted details add value to the readers. Reddit users are known to bash any kind of in-your-face promotions. People are there to read and learn, not look at ads.

4) Launch a website or blog

As an app publisher, you must have a website to showcase all your work. This creates a sense of security and confidence in users and helps improve app reach as people will first search for your brand or look for details about your apps. The potential search engine visibility that a website offers cannot be ignored. 

Just as you would prioritize your ASO for your app, you must also prioritize your SEO when creating, launching, and maintaining your website. The SEO orientation should be based on your app store pages and development plans. Any added information about your brand and your apps should not be missed. Also, the keywords you target should be relevant to the most searched topics of your app.

Blogging is another great way to increase your organic views. When you use the right keywords and write about topics that affect your users, blogs can help your app grow exponentially. Every time you create a new blog, you add a new page for indexing your website and appearing on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This in turn increases the visibility of your app to potential users. 

Writing blogs can help grow your app organically by: 

• Converting traffic to leads - When your blogs are informative and have the right Call-To-Action (CTA) attached, it can help generate leads. Your visitors come to your website, see the free offers via CTA’s (book a free session, download a few ebooks, etc.), click on it, add their information and submit their details to download the free offer. 
• Drives long-term results - Blogs help answer any customers your users may have or explain how your app can help solve their problems. Creating valuable content establishes you as a leader or an authority on the topic and helps drive long-term results. When potential customers find the answers to their problems on your blogs, they will be interested in purchasing from you. 
• Helps in building links - Backlinking is one of the 200 factors that Google considers when ranking a website on its SERPs. So, when creating articles, you need to remember that you are not only writing for your prospects and for other companies that see you as an authority figure.

5) Word of mouth

Sharing good user experiences greatly boosts brands in today’s digital ecosystem. Recently, an egg gang went viral on Instagram. Within a week, the egg hit 32 million likes and broke Kylie Jenner’s record of 18 million likes. The egg now wields the world record for 52.8 million likes. 

Humans, by nature, are social beings. 

People want to share the news with others when they find something new. The sharing of the egg story hit on this very nature. Word of mouth works extremely well because people trust the decisions of their friends and family. You can prompt users to share apps when they feel great about the app. The goal is to find that perfect in-app moment that pulls at the emotional strings of the user and helps achieve the sharing effect. 

One way you can achieve this is by offering rewards to users for sharing your app. All brands use this strategy to market their products or services. Let’s say you have a gaming app where you offer users $25 credit to invite their friends. For your friend who joins, also get a $25 credit. This is a win-win situation for everyone. Your app gets new users, and previous users get $25 credit. This is exactly how you can use word-of-mouth marketing to increase mobile app installs. 

To ensure the multiplicity of sharing, make sure that your users can share your app across multiple social media platforms. This includes messaging apps like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Final Thoughts!

As an app publisher with multiple apps available for download, you may not have the time to build an organic strategy for your apps. But, if you succeed in making 

Considering that each strategy has to be built, nurtured, and analyzed, it can be quite time-consuming. Also, creating inorganic strategies are highly expensive in this competitive marketplace. 

Also, If you are looking to sell one of the apps from your portfolio, you can sell it on KalaGato.

With over 98% of publishers wanting to do repeat business with us, we provide app publishers with complete transparency in the entire selling process. The complete app selling process takes only 30 days, with initial offers being rolled out in a fortnight. Choose the experts to sell your app; choose KalaGato!