Global ASO: Three Ways Language Translation Grows Your App

A term that gets thrown around a lot in the app development and marketing world is ASO, or app store optimization. While there is no shortage of blog posts discussing the importance of optimizing your app for users to discover in search, one thing many developers fail to realize is that the app stores are global.

With more than half of users discovering apps in search, it’s more important than ever to make sure your app listing is optimized for search. One area that many developers fail to optimize is the available languages their listing can be read in. Considering Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store are global storefronts, it’s important to make sure your listing can be read around the world in order to maximize downloads. Fortunately for you, translating your app store listing across multiple languages isn’t that difficult.

Here are three ways translating you app store listing will grow your app:

Quick Turnarounds

App descriptions tend to be fairly short so contracting with a translation service will often lead to a quick turnaround on your investment as there isn’t that much to translate. As most descriptions for apps listed in the app store run between 300 and 400 words, translating your listing across the most popular languages on the app store will help increase your ROI in a relatively short amount of time.

A study published by the Harvard Business Review found that a whopping 72.4 percent of global customers prefer using their native language when shopping online. While it’s certainly faster to plug your app description into an online translator, you’re app is not going to catch the same amount of traffic as a professionally translated listing would.

The most popular languages used in the app stores that you should be translating to include Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Portuguese.

Greater Accuracy

Many translation businesses are professionally trained and have experience in translating marketing materials, making them a smart choice for translating app store listings. As mentioned above, while online translation generators are faster, you’re producing inaccurate translations of your app’s description. This can either lead to misconceptions of the purpose of your app or produce a string of words that simply don’t make sense.

Localizing your app listing makes it more accessible to users of different languages. When having your app listing translated, it’s important to keep in mind what you need translated and what should be left unchanged for branding reasons. The title of the app is one of these gray areas that many developers prefer to leave unchanged, however, the title is the first aspect of your app listing that a user will read. If the title does not make sense to the user they may scroll right past your app.

Localizing your keywords is also important for optimizing your app on a global scale. Keywords are short but vital to the success of your app in the app store. Making sure they are translated accurately will drive users to check out your app.

Maximizing your ROI

Many developers fail to take advantage of the fact that the app stores are global distribution channels. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to maximize your chances of getting your app noticed in the search results of a foreign user without breaking your budget.

In the iOS app store, the United States accounts for only 28 percent of free app downloads and 34 percent of paid app downloads worldwide. That is a huge amount of potential users that app developers are missing out on if they’re not translating their app store listings for foreign users.

For more information about translating marketing materials to better optimize your app listing for the global audience, contact us today.