The Apple App Store currently has millions of different types of apps. Naturally, some apps are downloaded more than others. A big factor that affects app downloads is its visibility and ranking in the Apple app store search results. Like Google search results ranking, the App Store ranking depends on various factors, such as choosing the right category, optimizing the app title and description, etc. One effective way to improve your app’s ranking is to scrape App Store application data and analyze it to identify trends, see how your competitors optimise their apps, etc., and optimize your app accordingly. This is where you need an efficient app store search API that can scrape app store data quickly and provide detailed results.
In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of scraping app store application data and show you the best App Store API by APILayer.
APILayer is a curated marketplace consisting of a wide variety of reliable and high-performance APIs. All the APIs in the APILayer marketplace have detailed documentation, making them easy to integrate into your apps. Moroever, all APIs have a free plan, allowing you to test the API’s features.
Table of Contents
What Is An App Store Search API?
An app store search API is an Application Programming Interface that enables developers to scrape Apple App Store or iTunes store data, the official app marketplace for Apple devices. These APIs provide detailed data about an app, such as app title, description, URL, version, supported devices, screenshots, price, two-letter country code, and more. Depending on the app store API you’re using, you can also retrieve app reviews, details of developers, a list of similar apps, a list of apps for a specific collection or category, etc. Since scraping all of this data manually is time-consuming and hectic, most developers use an App Store API to save time and cost.
Why Do You Need to Scrape App Store Application Data?
As an app developer and owner, you know how crucial it is to optimize your app store search rankings. By scraping app store application data using an app store search API, you get invaluable information regarding different apps on the app store. This information helps analyze trends, such as the most downloaded apps in the past few months, the features people like or dislike in specific types of apps, etc. Moreover, you can get valuable insights into how your competitors are optimizing their apps, which keywords they are using and how well their apps are performing.
You can then use this data to optimize your app’s title and description accordingly and improve your app’s features as per customer reviews. Additionally, you can analyze your competitors’ app prices and set a competitive price for your app.
Which Key Factors Do You Need to Consider When Choosing An App Store Search API?
Does the API Provide Detailed Data?
When choosing an app store API see if it provides the following details:
App Title And Description
Writing an effective app title and description using relevant keywords can significantly boost your app store search results ranking. Hence, you should choose an app store API that returns the title and description of your requested apps so you can see how others are optimizing their app store search rankings.
App Screenshots
Using high-quality screenshots of your app makes it easier to convince people to download it, improving your search ranking. Thus, an app store API should return screenshots of the requested app, allowing you to analyze what type of screenshots your competitors are using.
App Price, Reviews and Category
By analyzing the price of your competitors’ apps, you can set a reasonable and competitive price for your app. Moreover, app reviews help you understand what customers like and dislike about a specific type of app. You can then use this data to improve your app.
Choosing the right app category also affects app store search ranking. You can use the store search API to retrieve category data of other similar apps and then choose your app’s category accordingly.
Is the API Easy To Use and Integrate?
Check if the API you’re choosing is easy to integrate with your app. A good also API has detailed documentation consisting of several coding examples, making it quick and easy for users to get started with the API. Moreover, the API should return results in an easy-to-read format, such as JSON, so you don’t have to deal with parsing the results.
Does the API Offer A Free Plan?
With a free plan, you can test the API’s features. And if you need more API requests, you can buy a paid subscription plan.
What Is The Best App Store Search API?
The App Store API by APILayer is the leading app store API for scraping and parsing Apple App Store and Mac app store app data. The powerful API scrapes the app store data in real-time and provides up-to-date JSON results. And it doesn’t store or cache any data on its servers.
Here are the key features of the API:
App Information
The API comes with an ‘app’ endpoint that returns useful information about iOS apps:
- App title
- Category of the app
- Price
- App’s compatibility with Apple devices
- App’s screenshots
- The total number of views and more
You can request an app’s data using its ID.
Here is a sample API response:
App Ratings and Reviews
With the ‘ratings’ endpoint, you can retrieve ratings information, such as the total number of ratings of any given app. The API also shows a histogram for ratings. It also has a ‘reviews’ endpoint, allowing you to gather customer reviews of an app.
Similar Apps
The API also offers a ‘similar’ endpoint that gives you a list of suggested similar items for a given app. You can then fetch information about each individual app using the ‘app’ endpoint. Using the ‘ lists ‘ endpoint, you can also get a list of all apps in a collection and category.
Free Plan
The APILayer App Store API offers four subscription plans, including a free plan. With the free plan, you get 30 requests per month. You can subscribe to one of its reasonably priced paid plans if you want more monthly requests.
Detailed Documentation
The APILayer app store API has extensive documentation consisting of all the details about the API endpoints and features. It also includes several coding examples.
In conclusion, an App Store Search API scrapes Apple App Store application data, such as an app’s title, description, reviews, ratings, screenshots, price, and more. This data allows you to optimize your app store search rankings. For example, you can analyze trends, see how your competitors’ apps are performing, analyze which keywords the top-ranked apps are using, etc., and then optimize your app accordingly.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What Is iTunes search API?
Apple’s official iTunes search API allows you to add search fields in your app. This allows users to search for content within the iTunes store, iBooks store and Apple App Store.
Can I Retrieve App Reviews Using an App Store API?
If you’re using APILayer App Store API, you can request an app’s reviews as well as ratings.
How Does an App Store API Help Optimize App Store Search Rankings?
An app store API scrapes valuable app store data required to optimize your search rankings. For example, you can retrieve and analyze the data of top-ranked apps in a specific category and optimize your apps accordingly.
Sign up for APILayer and try the App Store API for free today!
