LINE App Description Spotlight

February 25th, 2020

LINE App Description Spotlight
David Quinn

by David Quinn

VP of Strategy & Partnerships at Gummicube, Inc.

The App Description serves multiple functions on an app listing. It informs users about the app’s functionality to drive conversions, builds relevancy for keywords and provides legal information and disclaimers like payment policies. For this week’s App Store Spotlight, we take a look at LINE, a popular messaging app, and see how its App Store Description is utilized as part of its App Store Optimization.

Apple App Store Description

LINE’s App Description for iOS begins with a long paragraph describing the app. This appears on mobile devices as a large block that takes up most of the screen. As users typically read descriptions quickly, they’re likely to skip over important information within paragraphs.

What the description could do is break the introduction into shorter lines, each focusing on a different value. This would make it easier to read at a glance while conveying important information with each line.

Following the introduction is a notice about LINE services in Singapore. This could be moved elsewhere in the description or localized for the region so as to avoid interrupting the flow of the description.

The feature list is broken into smaller lines. Each one calls out a value and then quickly describes it. These could be turned into bullet points or lists to be easier to pick out while scrolling through, as it blends in with the rest of the description without something to differentiate the features section from the introduction. This is especially true when it gets to longer features, such as a lengthy paragraph about Face Play games.

Finally, the description ends with information about LINE Fan Account subscriptions. These are only available in Japan, so it could be reserved for the version localized. The rest follows Apple’s rules for subscription apps, which requires that the description includes how users are charged and that they can cancel their subscriptions.

Google Play Store Description

The App Store Description on Google Play is different from the iOS version in several ways. To begin with, the description on the Play Store uses shorter lines in its introduction. It also leaves out the information about Singapore.

Each feature listed starts with a star to draw attention to it, which makes it easier to glance through each and see the main value of each section. LINE also breaks the features into “latest features” and “main features,” so returning users can see what’s new. This is effective formatting, as it’s easy to read quickly while still communicating the core functionality.

On Google Play, descriptions need to utilize keywords in order to index for them. One area where LINE could improve its description is in keyword placement.

While LINE is a popular messenger, its top keywords are primarily brand related. For terms related to its functionality, the app ranks #29 for “instant messenger,” #33 for “video call” and #66 for “free calls.” These are all key terms that LINE could rank higher for if it utilized them in its description more.

For instance, the App Store Description begins a feature set with “Intimate conversations or large round tables can happen anywhere with group video calls.” If it moved “Group video calls” to the front of the line, it could potentially improve its indexation for that term.

Similarly, it calls out features like its instant messenger without using the term upfront. There are areas where the description mentions “Convenient chats where anything is possible,” but “convenient chats” is not a term that users frequently search for relative to a term like “instant messenger.”

While the description is formatted well for ease of reading, adjusting it to target important keywords could help improve the app’s ranking for high-volume and relevant terms in its category.

Overall

App Store Descriptions should be written in ways that are easy for users to understand at a glance while conveying key information. Formatting is essential. It’s also important for Google Play descriptions to utilize keywords so that the app will index for them properly. A good description can help an app’s rankings and conversions, even if the app already has a strong brand name behind it.

LINE uses different descriptions on the App Store and Play Store, which is important for all apps to do. But both descriptions should be written with the App Store Optimization best practices for their respective stores in mind. That can lead to optimal results on each platform.

Want more information regarding App Store Optimization? Contact Gummicube and we’ll help get your strategy started.

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