How I got my first 100k downloads in Playstore
Update 20/09/2020: We hit more than 100k downloads!
Getting real downloads is not easy for any new app and probably you will have almost no downloads in the first months. We have to accept it, and we have to be aware of this.
Been said this, there are couple tips you can use to boost downloads, so I will share in this post all the techniques I used to boost the downloads of my first app.
Who didn’t search in Google: how to get app downloads? Is the first thing the common sense will tell you to do, so I won’t go deeper here with tips you can find in hundreds of posts out there, but just for reference let me summarize the most useful.
The 5 basic techniques:
1. Build a landing page where people can find more information about your project, this also shows professionalism, brings safety and trust to people who never hear about you or your project before.
2. Use social media channel. Show the world what you have built! But be humble, try to post in away people don’t perceive you are self promoting, but instead share your experience and inspire others.
People will get attracted if they feel they can make it too.
3. App Store Optimization: Learn what ASO is, apply all the tips you can read and measure the results for a period of time, let’s say a week, then make some changes and repeat.
This includes searching appropriate keywords, using a good description and adding images highlighting the features of your app.
4. Don’t start promoting without reviews. Kindly ask to your inner circle if they can help you with a good review. Try to avoid spam and never buy reviews, platforms will detect this and could ban your app or block your account.
5. Analyze your competitors. Look for the tops of your category and do a benchmarking. Try to learn from the leaders.
Those are the most relevant techniques and in my experience you should investigate more about and apply them.
Of course I started with those 5 tips, but now I will share with you how I did it to gain 10k downloads.
My not secret sauce to get downloads
1. I started promoting my app with family and friends but…
Don’t be afraid to ask your family, friends and colleagues to try your app, but you have to do it in a way they feel involved in your project.
Be clear and ask them what they think about your app. Let them know you will use all their feedback to improve.
Don’t beg and don’t bug or you will loose them. You should not spam or constantly request this, just continue with the ones that show interest.
2. After I followed the 5 techniques above I created a small campaign.
I activated a campaign in Google Ads where I got the cost as 20 cents (USD) per download , so with an investment of $25 I was able to get my first 100 downloads.
In my experience people check the downloads count to see the app popularity, so it’s a good idea to don’t start promoting with 0 downloads.
3. I added my app to TAPPX.
Here is an entire post dedicated in explain how TAPPX works and how I used to get more downloads.
The latest version of my app doesn’t include TAPPX, since I rebuilt it from scratch and left some features pending to implement like offline content and remote config, but I can say this platform helped me getting downloads.
4. I shared tips about what my app does in social media.
I made my Instagram account public so anyone can see my posts and I started sharing tips, not just the link of the app.
For this you need to write well in a way people feel you want to help them and you are bringing something useful. Try to be relevant and bring value to their life.
5. I wrote articles about all the things I was learning.
I think writing about a topic is the best way to learn since it make you investigate and go deeper.
I tried to share my experience to inspire others like me that want to start in this world, but think they can’t. You can! Start now!
The only thing I didn’t share was the code of my app for two reasons:
1. I wanted to test if I can make a business of this.
2. I didn’t feel proud of my code. It wasn’t optimized and I don’t think it could help anyone.
In case you are interested, here is the list of posts:
- How I uploaded my first app in PlayStore using Flutter and Firebase
- Flutter UI Challenges compilation live document
- How to promote your app for free using tappx
- After one year with Flutter this is what I learned
6. I joined dev communities
Since my app was built in Flutter, I joined Facebook groups of this technology, I found great resources and also I got answers to several doubts I had.
Almost all dev communities have rules where you can’t promote your apps to avoid spam so I didn’t use them to self promote, instead, I tried to participate bringing topics of interest and sharing posts like this to help others.
I really like Facebook Groups, I have received feedback and good comments from the Flutter community. More recently I started sharing my posts in Reddit, is interesting how many devs use Reddit.
7. SEO and backlinks to my landing page
As mentioned before, I created a landing page with details of the app, but primary focused in SEO. I applied all the tips I found in this article from Victor Tisnado (in spanish) which I recommend to anyone who want start learning about SEO. Then I submitted my landing page in It’s all Widgets and App of the Day.
Pretty much this is what I been doing all this time. There are also several services that claim that can increase your downloads, I tried a few without results so I can’t recommend anyone.
…So what’s next?
Now you have downloads… stop focusing in downloads!
Thats right, it’s quite disappointing to work hard to get downloads and see how many users uninstall your app.
Someone have to say it: Users will uninstall your app, even your friends. Even your boy/girl friend… even your mom.
There is nothing you can do to avoid users uninstalling your app.
…Oh wait, yes it is.
To start, you can build an amazing user experience avoiding your app to fall in any of the following list:
- Take up too much space
- Drains battery
- Too many notifications
- Constant crashes
- Difficult to use/navigate
- Lack of support
- Too many updates
Then you can focus in monitor critical drop-off points. You can use for this Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashalytics. Both tools will give you interesting data about your users behavior and can help identify key points to improve.
And don’t forget to always give value to your users. Do something for them and focus to make their life easier.
If you liked this post, let me know in the comments. Feel free to give many claps and share it as you want.
