Users today are spoiled for choice. Competitors are just a tap away and the quality bar has risen. How to improve app store rating?
Your rating matters
The fact is people are less likely today to download an app with a low average rating. A low app rating inflicts real damage to your conversion rate and ranking. Resulting in lower downloads and revenue.
To add salt to the wound, in iOS and Google Play app stores, the quantity and quality of the user reviews and ratings are an important factor in the chart ranking algorithms. This shows itself in the charts: only 1 out of the top ten grossing apps this year has an average rating under 4.5.
Put simply, it’s very hard for low rated apps to stay in contention without King.com or EA level marketing budgets.
Tips to improve app store rating
Assuming you don’t have millions to spend on ads each month, you’ll want actionable ways to improve your app ranking and rating – quickly and at minimal cost.
The following are 8 proven tips that developers can immediately use :
1. Identify your most satisfied fans
Not every player who reaches level 5 in your game are going to be thrilled. Some may be bored, on the edge of dropping out of the game. Others may be running out of virtual currency and feeling the pinch points. Others may have experienced lag or bugs.
It’s not a good idea to prompt these players to rate your game. After all, it doesn’t take many 1 star reviews to take down the average quickly.
Instead you’ll want to first identify players who are engaged and satisfied. How do you do this? Simple – ask them:
All those who reply positively are tagged as the target group for the rating prompt. They are more likely to give you 5 star ratings. What
Side note – if you have available developers and have spare time you can create your own in-app survey system, or simply use an off the shelf like polljoy for Unity, Android and iOS, which supports custom graphics.
2. Identify moments of joy
Once you have identified your most satisfied users, the next step is determining when to ask them to rate your game in order to improve app store rating.
It turns out (unsurprisingly) is when the player is most happy and feeling most enthused about their experience.
Some good times to ask your users:
- After leveling up
- Passing a difficult level for the first time
- Collecting a rare item
- First time successfully completing a new action
- Completing a quest line
- Just after unlocking a new feature or piece of content
- After an exciting story development
- Achieving a new high score or personal best
- A particularly lucky moment
Most top performing slot machine games for example ask for a rating straight after a lucky event such as a huge win.
3. Ask them to rate (and make it look great)
Once you have identified the right time, then it’s time to ask them to rate. Use the “prerequisite” feature in polljoy that lets you make the request only if you selected the most positive answer back at step one (ie- you’re a satisfied fan).
The most direct way to make the rating request is with a large, attractive game popup with clear call to action buttons. The more “native” the better- a nice graphical request greatly outperforms an iOS or Google Play default system dialog.
4. Show the benefit to the game
Users love to feel part of the community, and you can appeal to their sense of belonging and support when making the ask. A good way is by reminding them of the benefit a good rating means – a stronger game or app that can invest further in more cool content and features.
5. Reward users for rating you
If you’re a game with points or coins etc, there is the option to motivate users with currency. An in-app survey SDK like polljoy can give virtual currency when actions are taken, giving extra bang for buck.
Note that you don’t want imply you’re only rewarding users for 5 star reviews, but rather the act of rating itself.
6. Use humour
Users see so many rating requests, it’s easy for them to go into auto-pilot mode and just close them without thinking.
To counter that, stand out not only with graphics but also humour. A great example from the latest Star Wars game:
I have to admit, I want to rate this game!
7. AB test your rating request
Different games have different users who respond to messages and visuals in different ways – especially when it comes to humour.
The best way to see what will inspire the highest response – in the polljoy web console you’ll be able to track the click through rate and setup multiple polls.
8. Keep improving your app!
The most important tip saved for last.
At the end of the day, a great experience will always find it easier to get higher ratings. Use polls to hear from the users who indicated they weren’t satisfied and learn what can be improved in your app.
The feedback they have is sure to give you specific ideas for improvements and changes. And that’s what this game is all about.
If you have any questions or feedback on this article drop me a note at caroline@polljoy.com – would love to hear from you.
This is where polljoy comes in. It helps boost your 5 star ratings quickly by letting you identify those who love your app, and then motivate them to rate you on the app store. It also gives you the feedback to improve your product to an even higher standard so the number who love your app increases. A simple thing that will have a big impact on your app store rating, fast.
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