Sam Cherry

Just like their search engine Google has a scoring system for ranking Android Apps in the Android Market. Google does not completely reveal their scoring system for their search engine and the Android Market is no different. So what metrics should Android App developers pay attention to and what tactics should they use to gain more visibility in the Android Market?

Ranking an app in the Android Market is very similar to ranking a website on Google. A lot of basic Search Engine Optimization tactics can be applied to the Android Market. Here are some metrics to pay attention to and how to go about optimizing your app to gain more visibility in the Android Market.

• App Name and Description: You want to make sure that your app name and description best reflects what your app does. This will not only make it easier for potential app buyers to find your app but it will reduce the number of refunds as well. Make sure that you use keywords in the app name and description that will help potential app buyers find your app. Your app will be ranked on how relevant it is when potential app buyers do a search in the Android Market.

• Number of Downloads: The number of downloads will effect your app’s ranking and visibility. When you first release your app you can help get your app downloaded by contacting app review websites and submitting review requests. If you have a budget you can also consider purchasing ad space on these websites. For more detailed information on this read the  Free and Paid Mobile Marketing Campaign post. This can help you out a lot and make your app popular among users which can get your app some more visibility in the Android Market.

• User Ratings: If your app gets bad user ratings this will be bad for visibility. To get good user ratings for your app pay attention to the ratings and make improvements based on the user feedback. Good user ratings will help get your app more visibility in the Android Market.

• Installation Time: The shorter the installation time the better. There is not really much else to this metric.

Just like with a website you can figure out the other metrics to use to have your app gain more visibility by conducting weekly carefully controlled experiments. This can help you figure these other metrics out and see what works best for each of your apps.