How to Create a Localization Test to Increase App Downloads

In the previous blog post about App Localization, we expanded on if you need localization, what to localize in your app, and determined which language(s) you should choose. There was also a section to question whether it is worth taking risk. Today, I will explain how to avoid this time consuming risk by creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) when localizing your app. As I wrote before, in the localization MVP, instead of localizing your entire app, you only localize your metadata, which is your app store profile.

How Can MVP Help You?

It shows you the potential market in the related country you would like to enter. You can easily examine whether you should localize your app for the country or not by creating MVP instead of localizing your entire app.

Localization is a time consuming process that can count for nothing in some countries. Of course, there are ways to choose the languages, but it is no guarantee that you will get the results you imagine. The localization MVP is easier than localization itself in terms of time and manpower.

Keywords

Keywords are what you consider first while creating a minimum viable product for localization. You can translate your main keywords to the languages you choose. If you have doubts about the necessity of localizing keywords, here is an amazing result for you. David Janner shows us the incredible result of localizing just keywords of an app. Below you can find the language distribution of his non-localized app.

As you can see from the graph above, 76% of the traffic came from English speaking countries. After localizing keywords, the results are fantastic. Only 9.8% of traffic came from English speaking countries. And most importantly, this small change increased downloads by a staggering 767%. While the number of downloads was 3000 per month before localization, after the keyword localization, he had 23000 downloads in just one month.

Title

In order to be visible and discoverable in app stores, you can consider localizing your app title. It might be ridiculous to translate your app name if it is something unique and hard to give it the intended meaning in a different language. However, you can translate the keywords in your title to benefit from the keywords’ popularity in different languages.

Description

Here are some differences between the App Store and Google Play you should consider while creating an MVP.

The App Store does not give importance to app description and that is why you don’t need to localize your app’s description in the App Store. However, if you didn’t localize your keywords and app title, it might be useful to translate your description for localization. In Google Play, you have a 4000-character limit for description and it is important to localize your Android app’s description. What you should do is use your keywords in your localized description.

Screenshots

It is not necessary to translate your screenshots for an MVP, but if you want to see the results, it might be a good point. This is because people like to see visuals more than text, so your screenshots may be your weapon for your MVP. Especially the text areas you should use on your screenshots may draw your native audiences’ attention to have an idea about your app.

Consider These Possible Problems…

While creating an MVP, there can be some possible problems you should be aware of:

• If you do not give enough importance to translation, you can cause big problems with the language. You can be laughed at if the translated text has a different meaning than intended. Try to use a professional translation service like OneSky or get help from a native speaker.
• People can think that your app is entirely in their native language. It might cause disappointment in your users. The easiest way to avoid that is timing. Limit the time you create the test and then remove your app from the related country.

You can easily benefit from an MVP trial to see if you localize your app for a specific country. However, even if it is simpler than an entire localization, you should take it just as serious in order to get the best results you want to take.