ASO on Huawei's AppGallery

In this article on ASO app optimization for Huawei AppGallery, we will briefly review and try to answer the following questions:

• What is AppGallery
• Features of ASO for Huawei AppGallery
• Visual optimization for AppGallery
• App promotion in Huawei AppGallery

Let's try to figure out what Huawei AppGallery is and how it is necessary to implement ASO optimization for this app store.

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In a series of articles about alternative app stores, we paid special attention to the Chinese market, as it is very different from the rest of the world.

China boasts a large number of app stores as alternatives to Google Play. There are currently over 400 Android app stores, and only 10 of them hold 90% of the market.

Over the past two years, Huawei AppGallery has surpassed the Oppo Software Store to become the largest app store for Android devices in China, controlling nearly 38 percent of the app market. But this store also has plenty of users outside the territory of China - remember how many people in your environment have a Huawei smartphone.

Briefly about what is Huawei AppGallery

Huawei AppGallery is a global app store available in 170 countries and preinstalled on Huawei and Honor devices.

Although the main focus of Huawei AppGallery is on the Chinese market (which is why most of the applications offered are localized to the Chinese), this store is really international and worldwide oriented.

A particular attraction for developers is that AppGallery is 100% compatible with Android and requires no additional development.

Navigating the Huawei AppGallery

Featured. Here you will find apps and games that AppGallery recommends to its users.

Categories. Here you can search for apps in categories and subcategories.

Top. In this tab you will see the best apps and the best games - this is the equivalent of Top Charts on the App Store and Google Play.

Manager. Here you will see available updates, installed applications, remaining space, etc.

Me is a personalized information tab where you can access your account, select settings, view your gifts and prizes, view your purchase history, and more.

Differences of Huawei AppGallery from other app stores.

Benefits for developers:

• Huawei is China's largest smartphone maker
• Popular among middle and high-end mobile phone users.
• A large number of users all over the world
• Wild promotion opportunities using the Huawei AppGallery store itself.

Difficulties:

• Difficult to meet requirements and compliance, but - the rules are everywhere, and with a diligent study of the Huawei AppGallery Requirements, you can easily pass moderation when you launch your application.
• Game registration number (GRN / ISBN) is required - in fairness, we note that this requirement is only for mainland China; for the rest of the world, this requirement is absent.

Benefits for users:

• Availability of the "Gift Center". When downloading an application/game, the user is given a gift. For example, for the game, the user is presented with an in-game in-app or unlocked access in the game. Discount coupons are issued for the application. Sometimes it is provided within the app, and sometimes it is just a code available in the AppGallery.
• Secure app store. The idea is to provide users with a safe place suitable for the whole family, with parental controls and safe apps on the market without any distortion. The audit process is given special attention and apps/games are reviewed and tested for 24 hours before launch.

Features of ASO for Huawei AppGallery

ASO app optimization for AppGallery has the same goal and principles as ASO for AppStore or Google Play, but of course it has its own features and characteristics. Let's deal with the existing metadata with the possibility of further optimization.

Application text metadata

Application name

1. The maximum allowed length is up to 64 characters.
2. Is a ranking factor (indexed).

To compare:

• App Store title: 30 characters (indexed)
• Title on Google Play: 30 characters (indexed)

3. ASO tips: use the most relevant keywords, the Name should not contain special characters, and avoid mentioning other brands or existing products.

The app name has the biggest impact on keyword indexing. It is visible to users at all moments of interaction with the app store (in search results, collections, and recommendations). This is extremely important, especially for applications that appear on the Featured tab, as users will only see the name and icon.

Brief introduction

1. The maximum allowed length is up to 80 characters.
2. Is a ranking factor (indexed).

To compare:

• Subtitle on the App Store: 30 characters (indexed)
• Short Description on Google Play: 80 characters (indexed)

3. ASO tips: is used to describe the main benefits and features of your application.

In a short introduction, you have 80 characters to convince your visitors that your app is what they are looking for and, more importantly, what value it provides to users. A brief introduction is displayed during the interaction with users, the exception is the Featured tab. But keep in mind, that a feature of the Brief introduction display is that the visible part can be up to 35 characters out of 80.

Introduction

1. The maximum allowed length is up to 8000 characters.
2. Is a ranking factor (indexed).

To compare:

• Description on the App Store: 4000 characters (not indexed)
• Description on Google Play: 4000 characters (indexed).

3. ASO tips: it is the most equivalent to the usual Description on Google Play, a ranking factor and allows you to add from 100 to 8000 characters, which is twice as much as on the App Store or Google Play. Since the entire description is indexed, we fill it with relevant keywords to expand the indexing of the application.

By analogy with Google Play and the full description optimization experience, here you can follow similar principles, and get the user acquainted with all the functionality, features, and competitive advantages of your application. The ASO experience of the AppGallery specialists speaks about the importance of the first (two) sentences in the description, focus on them - because they will be displayed under the Brief introduction.

Developer name, categories, and new features.

Categories

Must match the functionality of the app or game.

By analogy with the usual app stores, Huawei AppGallery is divided into Apps and Games.

• In the applications, you can find 17 categories, each of them containing subcategories.
• The games have 6 categories, each of them also containing subcategories.

New Features

1. The maximum allowed length is up to 1000 characters.
2. Is a ranking factor (indexed).

To compare:

• What's new on the App Store: 4000 characters (not indexed)
• What's new on the Google Play Store: 500 characters (is an indirect indexing factor)

3. ASO Tips: use New Features as a field to describe your app updates, new features, and releases.

N.B. ASO's efforts in the Developer Name field are completely identical to the Google Play Store.

Localizations

Localization is a must-have in the ASO optimization process. Huawei AppGallery supports 78 different languages in all major countries. You can create localized pages including English (US/UK), Simplified/Traditional Chinese (HK/TW/CN), French, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, etc.

For a final understanding of the difference in metadata and their indexing, we offer the following infographic

App Visuals Elements

As with visual app optimization on Google Play and the App Store, we want to remind you of the importance and its key role in your app conversion.

• VISUAL APP ASO OPTIMIZATION: THEORY AND PRACTICAL CASES
• HOW TO CREATE AN APPEALING IOS APP ICON
• CREATE AND OPTIMIZE APP STORE SCREENSHOTS, 13 HINTS

As for Icons, videos, and screenshots for Huawei AppGallery, it is worth paying attention to the requirements for their placement, since, in fact, the process of visual optimization itself will have a lot in common with app stores we are used to.

Icon

The main requirements are spelled out in the following guide:

• Quantity - 1 icon.
• Resolution 216 x 216 or 512 x 512 pixels.
• Format: PNG
• Size: 2 MB
• Icons must be square:

Screenshots

Important: When downloading an app, all information, including app screenshots, must match the actual functionality of your app.

Huawei guidelines clearly state that AppGallery can accept at least 3 different screenshots for your app.

• Orientation - vertical or horizontal,
• Image Format: JPG or JPEG;
• Recommended resolution:
  • 480px x 800px (Vertical)
  • 800 x 480 pixels (horizontal)

To compare:

• The App Store allows you to upload up to 10 screenshots to your device (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc.).
• Google Play allows you to upload up to 8 screenshots to your device (phone, tablet, smartwatch, etc.).

Features of Huawei AppGallery

1. The application name is the most important indexing field.
2. All fields are indexed - Name, Short and Full introduction (description), Developer's name.
3. Metadata (text and visual) is updated similarly to the App Store, that is, only when the application is updated.
4. AppGallery does not support bold or italic text. So, if your text is formatted this way, it will display HTML code along with it, which is unlikely to help increase the conversion of the application.
5. The pre-release moderation process takes 1 to 5 days.

App promotion in Huawei AppGallery

After the release of the application, we begin to wait for our users and in order to speed up their meeting with the app, we begin to promote it.

Huawei Developer Center offers a variety of advertising opportunities to attract users, as well as their following engagement and interaction with the app - in-app purchases, subscriptions, and others. The subscription model is slightly different from the App Store and Google Play. AppGallery offers service subscriptions for new users at special prices.

Regarding promotion in Huawei AppGallery

1. Paid promotion is based on the cost of downloading the CPD application. Inside the platform, you have the opportunity to choose the duration of the promotion and the strategy itself. Huawei Ads is available by analogy with in-store advertising (Google Ads and ASA). Through paid advertising, you can put the application at the TOP for crucial queries in Recommendations, thus increasing the application in search results for keywords and the top.
2. Free advertising is for new apps, you can use splash banners from the store itself, in addition, there is a credit wallet that can be used to promote your application (remember the Gift Center).
3. Joint promotion is the cooperation of your efforts and the Huawei AppGallery team. An excellent example is the promotion of mobile games - the pre-order function is available for them, and the lack of strict moderation as in Google Play and the store can help in attracting organic traffic at launch (according to the recommendation of the app store itself, it is better to start this type of promotion a couple of weeks before the release, least)

Let's summarize the main points of Huawei AppGallery

Huawei AppGallery is a new but very attractive app store that shows constant growth and development.

Despite similarities with other app stores such as the AppStore and especially Google Play, ASO-adapted optimization is the right way to develop your app on this store. After all, Huawei AppGallery is a unique and specific store.

Therefore, the current ASO optimization guides for Huawei represent the cumulative experience of a large number of ASO specialists around the world. Both successful and unsuccessful cases are carefully studied, with subsequent attempts to recognize the algorithms and mechanisms of this store.

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