With 4th of July nearly upon us, developers with relevant apps can utilize the holiday to give their apps a push. This can be for 4th of July stickers, barbecue recipes, shopping apps with sales, or apps made for fireworks celebrations. Fireworks Arcade is one such app, so for this week’s App Store Spotlight, we’re taking a look and seeing if it’s optimized and can use the holiday to its fullest.
On the Apple App Store, Fireworks Arcade is the second-highest app for “Firework” and “firework sounds,” as well as the top app for “fire work game.” It’s in the top five for “firework TV” and “baby fireworks,” but its rankings quickly drop after that. It’s the 19th highest app for “TNT Fireworks” and 46 for “colorful light.” Its arcade game rankings are also low, ranking #20 for “free arcade” at #26 for “arcade games for free.” In spite of the potential to target seasonal celebrations, it does not rank for “4th of July” or “Independence Day” terms.
Creatives: Given the visual nature of the Fireworks Arcade app, having an engaging video can have a large impact on the app’s conversions. Fireworks Arcade does include a video, wherein it shows the fireworks display on the app and one level of one of its games. This does not show off much of what the app has to offer, and while it does show the fireworks aspect in action, it tells users very little else about it.
The most important thing it’s missing is seasonality. The app could utilize seasonal creatives to show fireworks for the 4th of July with a red, white and blue color scheme. Using callout text for the images could tie them in to the celebrations, engaging with users who are looking for apps for the holiday. Even if it’s just a minor increase in one territory, capitalizing on any possible seasonality is important.
The screenshots it uses are simply pictures of the in-app fireworks. It does not use callout text, so the screenshots are presented without explanation; if it’s showing different games or features, it’s hard to say at a glance. In fact, the two first screenshots – which should focus on the most engaging and interesting aspects of the app – simply show the menu screen.
What the app could do is show the different visual styles of the games and the variety of fireworks, accompanied with callout text to tell users what it is and how it relates to their interests. As they are, the only thing one can tell from the creative set is that it has fireworks-styled visuals.
Title & Subtitle: The app’s title, “Fireworks Arcade,” uses 16 characters. This gives it 14 characters worth of space that could be used to tell users more about the app and target additional keywords.
Similarly, the app does not use a subtitle. This leaves 30 characters of space empty, which could be used to include more keywords and provide users with additional information about the app.
Since it is almost 4th of July, the subtitle could also include seasonal keywords related to it, like “Celebrate Independence Day” or “Make a 4th of July Light Show” – thus targeting keywords like “Independence Day” and “light show.” This would help the app index for those keywords if they were added early enough in advance, so users would be able to find the app while searching for good mobile apps for the holiday.
Description: Fireworks Arcade’s description begins with an introduction that describes how the app can be used, calling out the “brilliant displays of light and sound” and the game modes. This is presented in a single large paragraph, so it could be split into a few shorter lines for ease of reading. While it touches on the game modes, it does not provide much information about the games, so users are unsure of what kinds of arcade games it offers.
Following the intro, it uses three feature sets. These are small features with bulleted lists, so the formatting is good for users to read at a glance. It talks about the different ways the app can be used, such as the music options and the tap or drag interface. While it could still provide more information about the arcade aspect, it does provide plenty of useful information about the fireworks mechanics.
The description does mention several different holidays people watch fireworks on, like New Years and Guy Fawkes Day, although it does not put much emphasis on any of them. If it wanted to improve its visibility and conversions during those holidays, it could update its keywords as the holiday got closer and adjusted the descriptions to call them out more. In this case, it says “Get ready for the 4th of July” once, but does not highlight the holiday any further.
On the Google Play Store, Fireworks Arcade is the #1 app for the “firework” keyword, #2 for “touch arcade” and #6 for “touch games.” Its rankings quickly fall after that, though, going to #15 for “sensory games,” #58 for “taps game” and #138 for “explosions.” It does not rank for any “4th of July” or “Independence Day” terms.
Creatives: The creative set is identical on both stores, with one exception: the Google Play Store version does not include a promotional video. Since the Fireworks Arcade app is focused on creating fireworks displays, a video could demonstrate to users the variety of fireworks, the games users can play and so forth. Google Play does not have Apple’s restrictions that require videos to show in-app footage only, so it could also include footage of actual fireworks displays and people watching, then use that to transition to the app’s fireworks. Without the video, users can only look at the screenshots to show the app’s features.
Like with the iOS version, the screenshots do not include callout text, so each image is just pictures of fireworks or the arcade menu. It does not describe what the app can do or the range of games it provides, so users will have difficulty seeing the full range of the app from the screenshots alone.
Description & Metadata: The description is the same across stores as well. While the description’s intro could still be spiced up with more information about the game, the main thing it needs to focus on is keyword placement.
Since Google Play’s algorithm crawls the description for keywords, where they’re located is of great importance. Fireworks Arcade’s description is not written with an emphasis on keywords, so the algorithm will have difficulty pulling them.
For instance, one feature set talks about “show mode” and the variety of fireworks displays. If it were to instead call itself “Fireworks Show,” and talk about how users can “Launch fireworks” and make “light shows,” it could target those terms and improve its indexation for them. This would be particularly helpful for improving its arcade-related terms, by talking more about the games it provides in a keyword-focused manner.
Similarly, it could call out the upcoming holidays with its description to say things like “Independence Day is approaching, celebrate with a fireworks show.” That would indicate to Google Play’s algorithm and to users reading the description that it’s relevant to the holiday.
Fireworks Arcade still has room to grow, but there is plenty of potential to improve. It could emphasize its visual elements with a strong video and callout text on its creatives that highlights its functionality and games. Reworking its description can also target more keywords on Google Play, while providing extra information for users on both stores.
Whenever a fireworks-friendly holiday rolls around, the developer can target those holiday terms by updating the app’s metadata and descriptions. Calling out the holidays can help it appear in searches for them and potentially convert users looking for a mobile way to celebrate them. It could also use Apple Search Ads and Google Ads to run a marketing campaign during those holidays to appear in searches for them, which would utilize the seasonality to improve visibility.
While Fireworks Arcade may not have the most explosive App Store Optimization, it is always possible to improve. With the proper ASO, it can target more keywords and potentially improve conversions, helping it celebrate each holiday with a bang.
Want more information regarding App Store Optimization? Contact Gummicube and we’ll help get your strategy started.
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