#41 - Build A Successful Shopify App - Diversification 🚀

1,000.

It’s the number of members we reached in the Shopify App Founders community! 😱

I built this community because I needed it when I started in 2017. I wanted a place with people who would understand me and my business.

In 2017 I faced a wall at $1000 MRR with my first Shopify App. I never knew what was wrong. And a community like this one existed, maybe it would have been different.

But I never thought that I was going to build it. Today I just want this community to be THE PLACE for Shopify App Founders ❤️

Last week something terrible happened. I lost 5 positions for my most important keyword. Going from 2nd to 7th overnight.

What happened is that I lost the badge “Speed Tested” and I still don’t know why (We had it since the beginning).

This is something very important you should understand: The badges are important for your ranking. If you’re wondering why you’re so low even with many reviews it’s probably because you don’t have some badges.

The “App works inside Shopify Admin” or the “Speed tested” are important. And we can understand it. Shopify wants the best for their merchants so they “force” us to create an excellent app!

It rewards the people who ensure a good experience for the user and I think it’s a good thing.

Our number of installs didn’t change. It is even higher than ever.

Crazy right? We go from 2nd to 7th on our MOST IMPORTANT keyword, yet we have more installs!

It comes down to a single word: Diversification.

You can diversify on the App Store but at a higher level, you can do it with different channels.

Diversification on the App Store

The first thing you have to understand is that the ranking is different based on where you are in the world. French people won’t see the same ranking as US people.

And this is something important because even if we are 7th for US people, we are 4th for Germans. And definitely because our listing is translated into German.

So if you have 50 installs coming from the App Store, you might have 5 from Germany, 10 from US, 10 from France, etc… But if you have a single language and you check only the listing for “English” then you might lose potential installs.

And with our 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish) we are less impacted when there is a change to one of these languages.

So we limit risk.

Diversification with different channels

Even if the diversification on the App Store explains why we don’t have fewer installs, it doesn’t explain why we have MORE installs.

Well the reason is simple, the Shopify App Store is not our primary channel.

Shopify can push your app in the App Store but they can also recommend it directly in the Shopify Admin to specific stores (If similar shops use your app Shopify will showcase your app on such shops).

But then we have installs coming from: Youtube, Tiktok, Twitter, Affiliates, App Partnerships.

And our most important channel is Word of mouth!

So make your app memorable and increase Referral (for example through a referral program)

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That’s it for today,

See you next week,

Mat 😁