App Store Spotlight - Night Sky App

August 15th, 2022

by David Bell

CEO at Gummicube, Inc.

Imagine a tool that lets you explore the stars above and fits in the palm of your hand. Night Sky allows users to embark on their own astronomical journey and identify constellations, planets, and several other space objects. With a plethora of features to traverse the cosmos, it redefines what is possible with an astronomy app.

Remote space travel, AR exploration, and detailed stargazing are just a few adventures Night Sky offers. The question is, does Night Sky do a good job communicating these exciting features to potential users? In this week’s App Store Spotlight, we will explore Night Sky’s App Store Optimization strategy and take a look at potential improvements.

What is App Store Optimization (ASO)?

When it comes to increasing app awareness, visibility is a developer’s best friend. Your app discoverability will largely affect its performance when first launching, as well as throughout its lifecycle. This is why implementing App Store Optimization best practices is essential to growing organically.

App Store Optimization is the process of analyzing and adjusting your app listing in order to increase visibility and conversions. This includes optimizing app metadata and creatives to create an engaging and informative experience for potential users.

App Metadata – Night Sky

App metadata on iOS consists of fields such as the title, subtitle, promotional text, and description. Along with these areas, the keyword bank is also an important part of app metadata. Placing relevant terms and engaging copy within these fields further aids in increasing app visibility among search results.

Night Sky has numerous features to highlight, but are the developers conveying these effectively within their metadata fields?

APP TITLE

Title tags are a big contributor to visibility, so implementing hyper-relevant keywords in this field will allow users to quickly identify what your app offers. Night Sky currently does not include any title tags that target keywords relevant to its feature set. By doing this, the potential for increased rankings among applicable terms and downloads is limited.

To align with ASO best practices, utilizing a title tag will help to position the app among terms the developers want to potentially rank for in addition.

APP PROMOTIONAL TEXT & DESCRIPTION

The app promotional text and description are where developers shine in convincing potential users to download the app. However, stuffing the field with an endless list of features with little structure can very easily deter users from reading. This is where we can find room for improvement for Night Sky.

Currently, Night Sky doesn’t implement a Promotional Text, leaving the first part of its description to mention an award they received. While great for building trust, briefly describing the main objective of the app could be much more effective in attracting users. While not indexed, developers can use this 170-character field to explain what the app offers. The promotional text provides a great opportunity to convert a potential user before having to read the full description.

While the full description does not get indexed for keywords, it is still an important element to potentially drive conversions. Strategically including calls to action and more engaging copy throughout the beginning of the description could drive users to read more and as a result, increase downloads.

App Creatives - Night Sky

The app creatives are a great way to provide a visual representation of your in-app experience. Night Sky currently uses screenshots from within their app which is always a good strategy, but we found that there is room for improvement.

While it is ideal to include accurate representations of what your app looks like, simply using a screenshot without context is not the best way to drive conversions. Optimal app store screenshot design provides users with more context as to how what they’re seeing relates to an in-app experience. Night Sky can continue to use in-app imagery while also providing highlighted text and calls to action that support the content shown. By implementing screenshot copy with targeted keywords, Night Sky has the potential to resonate with users searching for a new app to download.

Night Sky could also see this as an opportunity to highlight each important feature the app offers. The App Store allows you to showcase 10 screenshots within your product page. Dedicating one image to each key feature with supporting copy is a great way of giving users a preview of what to expect.

Overall

Night Sky brings the excitement of space exploration to users. With insightful information at every tap and an extensive feature list, the developers’ have built a platform that space enthusiasts can dive into and explore the galaxies. But how would these virtual cosmonauts discover it?

With the help of ASO tools and technology, Night Sky can optimally position itself to attract users. Strategic adjustment of its metadata fields and creative sets can contribute greatly to organic growth and as a result, increased conversions.