Tool for searching keywords on Google Play?

Hi,

Is there a tool to see how many searches have been made on Google Play for a particular keyword?

What is the best way to optimize the description for Google Play?

Only Google knows what is searched for. And they don’t seem to be telling.

If you think about it, there are two parts to this puzzle:

  1. search queries from user
  2. and data Google has to work with (existing app descriptions)

Since you cannot know (1), that leaves (2) as an ‘attack vector’ for you. So just optimize against the existing keywords in all the existing apps that are your competition.

I couldn’t find a game like mine on Google Play so I don’t know the competition. Maybe the competition is the other apps that use similar keywords to mine then, even if some of them are apps, not games?

The name of my game is “Fire Ball Escape” (released 48 hours ago). Searching for “fire ball” or “fireball” returns my game in the first 15 positions. However, it doesn’t look like there are a lot of searches for these words because so far I have only seen downloads that are driven by my campaign with appbrain. So I couldn’t spot any organic downloads.

Maybe going up in rankings for “fire”, “ball” or “escape” will help but my game description is already optimized for those words (or so I think).

you can also use the instant search suggestions as keywords as those are keywords being searched for.

You are thinking about it wrong. People don’t already know the name of your game and are searching for it. People will search for a ‘best puzzle game’ or something similar. THAT is what you need to optimize against.

Btw, I would change your screenshots. 1st = main menu on the game and 2nd shows lots of levels… SO WHAT ? There is zero gameplay shown or anything interesting to get the user to download it!

I read somewhere that, if there is a lot of competition for a keyword, it might be better to optimize for less popular searches. That way you would have better chances to appear on the top even if it is for less popular keywords. So I am trying to follow that as it makes sense.

With only 48 hours since the release, optimizing for ‘best puzzle game’ or something similar wouldn’t get me anywhere because there are tons of apps out there that are extremely popular and have exploited these keywords to the maximum.

Maybe in the future, if the game will be a success and have high ratings and lots of downloads, I will attempt to optimize for more popular keywords.

Is there something wrong in my logic?

Thanks, I moved the home and levels screen in the end of the list so the gameplay screenshots appear first now.

No… but I think you don’t appreciate what the advice implied. What it meant was “don’t try competing with the big guys, because your app will be so far down the list, it won’t show up… so if you want any downloads, you could TRY optimizing for keywords that the big guys don’t care about because only a few users search for them. IF you can get those users to install… well, a small number of users is better than no users”.

Yes, that is exactly what I am thinking. However, I don’t see any organic installs coming my way.

Do you think I should try to optimize for more popular keywords where competition is high now or should I keep doing what I am doing and optimize for more popular later?

I am trying to figure out what is better to do right now, when the game is 2 days old.

That is the difficult part… the million dollar question that nobody really knows the answer to: “How do I make people download my app more, so it goes up the charts?”

My advice: ensure your graphics on Google Play “Sell the dream”… not the reality of your game. Yes, they should show gameplay. But look at the TOP APPS. How many of them have screenshots ? ZERO. They have all been modified to tell a story to convince the user they need to install the app!

If you speak to a advertising company, they will tell you that you need to 'buy your way to the top, so you can get organic downloads"
And if you speak to a graphics company, they will tell you that your graphics need to be better…
And if you speak to a coding company, they will tell you that your games needs more (something)…
And if you speak to an analytics company, they will tell you that you need to include their analytics so you can ‘make better business decisions’

Each only knows their speciality… and tries to sell you what they know.

As an Indie, you need to figure out how to take just enough from each to make your app successful. Also, you might need some luck :slight_smile:

I personally hat the lack of proper screenshots, but mind is right - big players do this, so should we, because it seems to work. :slight_smile:

That is what I am trying to do. I hired a designer, I hired a sound editor, I am promoting with appbrain, social media and forums and I am trying to figure what to do with this damn description. I even hired someone to rewrite my description (supposedly he knows some stuff about ASO).

So I am trying to understand some things on my own about how this works to see if I made the right choice. :slight_smile:

I did the same (hired professional guys) and also promoted heavily in WordHero… Still Anagram Hero (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhs.anagram) only has 10k downloads :frowning:

The graphics for Anagram Hero look great. With such a large database of users from Word Hero I find it very difficult to understand why Anagram Hero is not downloaded more.

I’ve seen so many crappy games reaching the top lists in the top months… I usually try to understand why crappy games have such success and I try to implement those findings into my game. Guess what: they don’t have the same effect for me! :slight_smile:

They are too Addicted to WordHero :slight_smile:

You and me both… :frowning:

Damn! That really sucks! Since your first game got 1 million downloads i assume is getting good daily downloads, why you don´t try to cross promote your old app with the new one? It´s also very frustrating seeing so excellent games/apps having no success and then you check that fart like apps that get 2 rating stars average get to tops with more then 5 million downloads it just doesn´t make sense and proves that Google ranking algorithm is plagued with faults.

WordHero downloads are about 700/day. Uninstalls are higher due to large installed user base this installed it ages ago.

As for fart apps being popular… it just proves:
a) Google provides apps that users like and download (ie: their search tool ‘works’)
b) Users know what they want better than you do

More about #2: you probably think those users are dumb for downloading a fart app. This shows there is a miss-match between what you think the users want (you probably think they “need” certain apps too!) and what they think they ACTUALLY want as evidenced by what they download.

You can do either:
A) start making fart apps/etc
B) stick to your ideas/principles and target the older audience

I think those fart apps have such a success because of the society we live in. People these days are getting more and more stupid and they don’t even want to stop doing it. I don’t know how it is in your country, but here most TV channels are flooded with stupid shows created for stupid people. People like gossip, they like reading about a movie star that got drunk and pissed in a park or about who has the biggest ass in the showbiz.

I presented my game to several friends and they all said it’s too much to think in my game. They don’t like to think, they want to keep pressing on the screen to pop stuff, destroy it without any difficult logic.

I mostly agree with your point. However, I can’t understand how users bombard said fart apps with very low ratings (I assume they’re looking for high-quality fart apps ;)), yet Google’s search tool continues to place it at/near the top of search queries. Surely if the average rating is 2 stars, it can’t be an app that deserves to be that visible?

This is sadly the truth, quite a weird turn that society seems to be taking.

That is just an indication that their algorithm CURRENTLY tends to favor ‘install velocity’ over review quality.

Personally, I assume this was caused by the 4pics1word fiasco which showed that an app could game the system and have 100k 5star reviews.

But yes, I think they should include a greater bias towards reviews but this time take into account the number of reviews. Apps with a ‘wrong’ distribution of reviews should be investigated by hand… or just rely on the reddit community to report them :slight_smile:

Some problems:

  • there are variants of your apps name - Fire Ball Escape and Fireball Escape - any “word of mouth” will lose 50% of users as they will type Fireball and not find your app. Just typing “Fireball Escape” in Google Play did NOT make me convinced that one of the apps WAS the one I was looking for. So even if user ARE looking for your app specifically they will have trouble finding it. So the name is not unique enough - you “it’s only 48 hours old” was the clincher

  • I would have expected your title to be “Fireball Escape” (at least english-speaking audiences would - and not “Fire Ball”).

  • your icon is not special enough or indicative enough of the type of game you have - if it is a board game, maybe put a background of a board there … and make the fireball smaller by 25% (not a graphic artist so I don’t know what I’m talking about :slight_smile: )

  • since you have space, try changing title of your app to “Fireball Run Escape” or “Escape Fireball Run” - this will give you added traffic from those searching for “Temple Run” and that class of games (though your game is probably not of same genre - so you may not get much conversion there - plus as “mind” said listing in 100th position for “run” may not get you much traffic). But you can try adding “Run” somewhere in title for a week and see it’s impact.

  • reading some of the reviews there it seems users were NOT expecting the experience - this means your app is not conveying the real gameplay. Another said that the levels get challenging - perhaps you can change title to “Fireball Escape Challenge” (don’t know what the traffic for Challenge would be). You can use the Google Adsense keyword tool (don’t have link here - search Google) or try:
    run - Straply
    which suggests run might be better …

  • put a youtube video up of your app being played - this is a major tool users use to evaluate your app. Edit it to show early stage, and later stage play (don’t know what I am talking here - just what I am guessing maybe useful - though OFTEN with app optimization what YOU want may not be what 50% of users want - often as a developer you will have different sensibility than the 90% of public - public does not code, think logically etc. etc. or sit for hours at a computer NOT doing facebook)