SEO vs. ASO: How To Use Each One Most Effectively

App marketing usually falls under search engine optimization (SEO) and app store optimization (ASO), which are the most effective methods for reaching your audience. That is, unless your app is a wildly successful and innovative mobile game. Either way, knowing how to use SEO and ASO is vital to the success of your business.

Understanding the unique characteristics of each is key to using them effectively in marketing.

Here is how mobile app development agency experts recommend you use both SEO and ASO:

• Understand the difference between both strategies.
• Compare the different use cases for SEO and ASO.

There’s a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

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How Are SEO and ASO Different Strategies?

When it comes to marketing apps, two main strategies are absolutely indispensable for your business: SEO and ASO. Social media and email marketing are also quite effective, but they are subject to mitigating factors such as the type of mobile app and its value for your users.

For instance, an ultra-specific and highly niche app such as an income tax calculator will hardly gain much traction on Twitter, at least outside of tax season, if at all. On the other hand, productivity tools that people can use daily, such as Grammarly, enjoy a strong presence on YouTube.

That illustrates the key differences (and hints at use cases) between SEO and ASO. For an app like the income tax calculator, optimizing for visibility on the app store is best as a general rule. It could be worth investing in other SEO strategies when it is most relevant during tax season.

For primarily web-based apps like Grammarly, prioritizing visibility to users outside of app stores is more beneficial. Hence, the creative and energetic ads you might have seen on YouTube. To illustrate more clearly, here are key points to help you distinguish these strategies:

• SEO helps with visibility and awareness on search engine results pages (SERPs), while ASO helps with visibility exclusively within a chosen app store’s home and results pages.
• SEO covers many related strategies, such as on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, but ASO relies almost exclusively on optimizing the app and on-page elements to show results.
• SEO requires analyzing an app to find the best angle and approach to boost its rank, but ASO works better when you tailor the app’s elements for the best possible marketability.

     SEO: Making You Visible on SERPs

As previously mentioned, SEO grants you unparalleled flexibility in what and how you optimize for maximum visibility on SERPs. That includes on-page elements and technical SEO, which are done through researching keywords, modifying meta tags, and linking content, to name a few.

Everything from basic to advanced SEO skills contributes to your strategy's success or, at the very least, to the success of other strategies that boost your content’s SERP rank. SEO presents the most advantage to web apps because they appear on SERPs.

Other apps that benefit from SEO include mobile games, productivity apps, entertainment apps, travel apps, and education apps because they naturally attract backlinks in the form of reviews. It, of course, depends on the app's features and how valuable it is as a product for consumers.

For instance, the category “productivity” includes simple note-taking apps and popular ones such as Evernote, which offer incredible utility. Your app has to offer value to receive any level of attention from users. In other words, it has to provide a good user experience (UX).

     ASO: Ranking Higher in App Stores

ASO is, in many ways, the complete opposite of SEO. The former is limited to app stores, while the latter is limited only by your specific marketing goals. Despite that, they are also extremely alike because ASO and SEO highlight your app's selling points through similar methods.

ASO considers factors such as app content quality, uniqueness, and user ratings when judging and ranking search results and featured apps. To that end, it looks at the description on your app's page, keywords in its semantic core, and reviews users leave about their experience.

The advantage of ASO over SEO lies in appearing within search results and among its featured apps because that results in an instant boost in visibility, allowing you to attract more interest. The major issue is that ranking in both sections depends heavily on your app's performance.

That means optimizing your app for UX, usability, and accessibility matters just as much, if not more, for ranking. You can also choose the paid ad route for ASO in order to appear higher within app stores. This relies on an optimized app page since the ads direct people there.

Comparing SEO and ASO Best Use Cases

You can technically apply SEO and ASO to almost any app, though you may run into cases where one works better than the other. In some cases, ASO yields no benefits, but this depends on several factors. Here are a few that you should keep in mind when deciding which is best:

• SEO applies to all apps in a sense because even if the app itself is not big enough to warrant a dedicated landing page, developers can cite it as one accomplishment. In that sense, you can still apply SEO to relevant content pages mentioning the app.
• ASO only works for apps that appear in an app store (e.g., the Google Play Store, Apple App Store, or Amazon Appstore). It is useless for web apps and progressive web apps (PWAs), which function without downloading an entire app to your device.
• Both SEO and ASO are necessary for native and hybrid apps because they appear in both SERPs and app stores. Moreover, these types of mobile apps are made with very specific audiences in mind, so they benefit greatly from having wider online visibility. 

As you can see, SEO and ASO contribute to success, and whichever you choose, semantic keywords can help secure that. If you are still unsure whether SEO or ASO is right for your app, contact a mobile app development agency to get help assessing your needs.

Summing Up

SEO and ASO are two strategies that work towards the same goal: making your mobile app easier to find and helping you to get more customers. They use similar tools, too, in very different ways. Knowing which is better comes down to the nature of your mobile app.

Need help in choosing the right marketing strategy for your app? Contact Digital Authority Partners to learn how we can help.