Millions of people use Apple products, such as iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Naturally, everyone wants to download different kinds of apps to their Apple devices. Hence, developers are constantly adding new apps to the iTunes app store and mac app store. However, creating a high-performance and user-friendly app isn’t enough. You need to ensure that people can see it when they search for that specific type of app. Since there are millions of apps on the Apple app store, ranking your app high in the app store search results can be difficult. Fortunately, there are top free APIs that provide you with valuable app store data so that you can analyze it, identify trends, and learn how your competitors’ apps are performing, allowing you to optimize your apps accordingly. One such API is the App store API by APILayer.
APILayer is a curated marketplace that consists of a wide range of the best APIs that you can easily integrate into your apps. All the APIs in the APILayer marketplace come with a free plan so that you can try and test the features of the API.
In this article, we’ll discuss how app store search optimization works and how to optimize your app store search rankings using the App Store API by APILayer.
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What Is Apple App Store?
Apple app store is essentially an app marketplace where developers can sell their apps to thousands of people worldwide. Similarly, Apple users can use the app store to download apps for their devices. Built and maintained by Apple, the app store is considered a trusted and safe place to download apps for iOS and iPad. There is also a mac app store that enables users to download apps for macOS. Apple approves all the apps on the app store before they are made available to the public. Apple reviews the apps for privacy, security, and content before approving them.
Why Do You Need To Optimize Your App Store Search Rankings?
As the use of mobile phones is increasing drastically, the demand for mobile apps is also booming. According to statists, as many as 255 billion mobile apps were downloaded in 2022 alone. Of these downloads, a significant majority were for the iOS platform. As a result, more and more developers are now focusing on creating apps for the Apple app store. However, application development is a time-consuming task. For example, it can take 3-9 months to develop a high-performance app, depending on the type and complexity of the app. Additionally, app development can involve high costs.
Hence, once you create an app for the app store, you must ensure that people can see it when they search for that specific type of app. This way, your app will get more downloads and generate high revenue. In other words, people can’t download your apps if they can’t see them in the app store search. This is where you need to optimize your app store search rankings. With app store optimization, you can rank your apps high in the app store search results and get them noticed by users.
How Does App Store Optimization Work?
While the exact algorithm the Apple app store uses to rank apps isn’t known, there are proven ways to rank your app higher in search results. App store optimization depends on several factors:
- Choosing the right title: A relevant and descriptive name (maximum 255 characters) for your app can greatly affect its search ranking in the app store. Additionally, it’s recommended to use relevant keywords in your title.
- Using the right keywords: Just like SEO (Search Engine Optimization,) it’s essential to use relevant keywords in your app’s title and description. However, keyword stuffing can have a negative impact on your app store optimization.
- Writing a good app description: Like a good title, a good description can boost your app store search ranking.
- Using good screenshots: High-quality screenshots can have a great impact on convincing people to download your app, which in turn can improve your search ranking.
- Choosing the right category: Another crucial factor in app store optimization is choosing the right category for your app.
How To Optimize Your App Store Search Rankings Using The App Store API?
Now that you know the key factors for improving app store search rankings, let’s discuss how the APILayer app store API can help you with these.
The app store API is the unofficial API for scraping and parsing app data of the app store and the Mac app store. The efficient API uses API keys to authorize API requests. It offers four subscription plans, including a free plan. The API doesn’t store or cache any data on the servers – it scraps the app store in real-time to provide up-to-date data in an easy-to-read JSON format.
Here we’ll discuss the key features of the app store API and how they can help you with market research and the Apple app store search optimization:
App Information
With the ‘app’ endpoint, you can access valuable information about an app using its id. The endpoint returns information, such as the app title, the app’s compatibility with apple devices, the price, and category of the app, screenshots included on the app page, the total number of views, etc.
You can use this data to optimize your app store search rankings. For example, you can extract data of top-ranked competitors’ apps and see the title and screenshots they are using. You can then create a title and screenshots for your app accordingly. Similarly, you can see the category of similar apps and select the right category for your apps.
Here is a sample response from the API:
App Ratings
The App store API offers a ‘ratings’ endpoint that allows you to gather ratings information of any given app. The API fetches ratings in the total number and also shows a histogram. This data is valuable for market research. For example, it can help you determine the demand for specific types of apps.
App Reviews
The app store API also allows you to fetch the reviews of any app. This way, you can see what people like and dislike in similar apps, and you can then modify your apps accordingly. This can, in turn, help increase app downloads and improve search ranking.
Similar Apps
With the ‘similar’ endpoint, you can get suggested similar items for an app. You can then use the ‘app’ endpoint to fetch information about those similar apps. You can analyze similar apps, optimize your application and search rankings accordingly, and create plans to lead in a specific category.
List Of Apps
The ‘list’ endpoint provides the lists of all apps in a collection and category. You can then use the ‘app’ endpoint to fetch information about these apps. You can also request the list of all possible collections and categories separately using the ‘collections’ and ‘categories’ endpoints. Additionally, the API can fetch a list of all supported countries.
What Other Best Free APIs Does APILayer Offer?
APILayer offers a variety of APIs in different categories:
- AI & ML APIs
- Geo APIs
- Messaging APIs
- Web Tools APIs
- Finance APIs
How Can You Integrate The App Store API?
Integrating the APILayer App Store API is super easy. You must first get your API key by signing up with a free subscription plan. You can find your API key in your account dashboard. It will help you authenticate your app with the service.
Here is how you can integrate the App Store API into a python app:
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import requests url = "https://api.apilayer.com/app_store/app/{country}/{id}" payload = {} headers= { "apikey": "{API-KEY}" } response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data = payload) status_code = response.status_code result = response.text |
The code above will return the details of an application from the App Store. You can explore the detailed API documentation to learn more about different endpoints.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is the app store API the same as the app store connect API?
The App Store API by APILayer is the unofficial API for scraping applications’ data on the Apple app store. In contrast, the App Store Connect API is the official API provided by Apple for d managing the app metadata, availability, pricing, provisioning, and more.
How can an app store API help optimize app store search engine rankings?
An app store API provides valuable data about the applications on the app store, such as the app description, title, reviews, ratings, category, etc. You can use this data to analyze top-ranked apps and optimize your app accordingly.
Sign up for APILayer and try the App Store API for free today!
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