An Android app's ASO and launch-crash fix journey
An Android app maker is improving store rankings and fixing a launch crash for users and reviewers.
Problem it solvesUsers were hitting a launch crash, and the app was not being found by people searching for the problem.
Semih (@its_meseba) reports an Android update fixed a launch crash and real users are opening the app again. He is also working on ASO for the app, after learning its rankings and keyword limits across markets.
How they grewASO across app stores; 20-market store listing pass with Claude and Sonar
Semih
@its_meseba
Day 11 Google approved the android update, the launch crash fix is finally live -- real users are opening the app again, no android errors in the first hours. The reviewer-only login I built yesterday worked, so if you use magic link sign-in, prepare a demo account with a password path for the reviewers before you submit. Today I worked on ASO with a new tool, Sonar. I was using appeeky before but I didn't find it useful at all -- it wasn't doing what it should do properly, they kept adding new features but none of them was working fully. So I switched to Sonar and it is great so far, the CLI works well with my agents too. I also decided to actually learn ASO myself instead of only letting the agents do it, I asked Claude to teach me from zero with my own app's data. I want to understand what I am changing and why, otherwise I cannot judge what the agents give me. Some things I didn't know: - ranking is not only the words in the title, subtitle and keywords, the ratings and whether people download after seeing you matter as much - on ios the long description is not used for search at all, on android it is -- I was writing both the same way - the biggest keyword in my category has popularity 59 and difficulty 79, it is not winnable for a small app rn, so I am picking relevant keywords with popularity 30+ and difficulty under 50 instead - my app ranks #4-5 on android in two countries but only for its own name, which means new users searching for the problem are not finding me yet - in some non-english countries people search the App Store in english, I had marked one market as dead because I only checked the local words The 20 market store listing pass is finished as well, the local loop on claude went through all the regions with the daily quota. In most markets the everyday local word beat the formal word I was using. From now on I will run it weekly -- check the ranks, pick 5 winnable keywords, one change per market, wait 2-4 weeks and measure. TBH I was shipping features for weeks and guessing on the distribution side, ASO is a craft of its own and I want to understand it properly. I will keep posting this journey.
