How do you make your apps findable?

szymon247

Back in the days when I would make an app, it would be positioned fairly well in the Play Store. These days I research my app ideas really well and apply great keywords as per textbooks, but still when I release new apps they are barely possible to find with any related search queries. I send links to my friends to get some downloads and ratings to boost the app to sort-of findable range, but it's not helping much. It's gotten to the point that when searching literally for the app's name I am not even competing with apps in the same category, with dozens of apps completely unrelated to the search term (and my app's name) coming up before my app does. 

Something had to change, because these days my new apps are getting more downloads on Amazon than Google Play, while for my old apps Amazon gets me maybe 1/20 of what GP does.

Are you guys also experiencing this? And how do you guys counteract this? Yesterday I published my 3rd app in a row that is just not findable on GP, only making it well on third party stores.

Apps

I have the same problem. Too much competition!
For years now, I think alternative stores can help get downloads, but it also involves much work with icons, shots, descriptions and everything else.

szymon247

I think the GP algorithm must have changed to the worse, as I frequently make apps that have no competition and are very different than anything else that's available, name them as literally what they do and still when you search for them you get random, completely unrelated apps first. A lot of apps that are actually good, that I put lots of time and effort into go completely unnoticed, sticking with a few downloads per week, and a 5.0 rating from a few lonely commenters who somehow managed to find it.

It's as if you named your app "michael jackson" (imagining there's no other like it), published it, searched for it with a phrase "michael jackson" and all you see are dropbox and fart sounds, with your app proudly named "michael jackson" far enough down the search results for nobody to reach.

I feel like the algorithm these days favors apps with large marketing budgets, with the most important factor being amounts of downloads per day. But how is one to receive them without even being visible? I feel like apart from there being more apps, Google did something that ended up hurting small developers, as there's also competition on Amazon, with much less users, and still the apps are findable and I am getting fair amounts of downloads more proportional to app's actual quality and demand for it.