App Store keywords: how to choose, place and maintain them

App Store keywords come from four places: your title (30 characters), your subtitle (30 characters), the keyword field (100 bytes), and your category. My rule never changes: the main keyword for your category, the one you have to rank for no matter what, goes in the title; the important ones go in the subtitle; and the keyword field takes the secondary terms, the long tail, and variations, without repeating a single word across the three and without leaving a byte unused.

To choose them, I use Sensor Tower, the keywords competitors rank for, App Store autocomplete, and user reviews, and I decide between volume and long tail based on how big the app is. Then I make use of the extra locales each storefront indexes and review the keyword field every four to six weeks, dropping whatever doesn't bring downloads. Here's the whole process, step by step.

Where keywords count on the App Store

Apple ranks your app in search on text relevance, meaning matches with your title, subtitle, keywords, and primary category, and on user behavior: downloads, ratings, reviews, and more (Apple). Promotional text doesn't affect search ranking, so don't use it to stuff keywords.

How I do keyword research

Ideas always come from several sources at once:

• Sensor Tower, to see which searches exist and how competitive they are.
• The keywords your competitors rank for. To learn which generic searches bring them traffic, never to use their names.
• App Store autocomplete. Type the start of a search and see what it suggests: that's what people actually type.
• User reviews. The way users describe your app in their own words is often different from how you describe it.
• AI for other languages, to find the words people really use in each country, not the literal translation.
• A brainstorm of how a real user who doesn't know your app yet would search.

Volume or long tail: it depends on your app

Apple explains it in its search guidance: popular terms drive a lot of traffic but are highly competitive, especially for a newer or smaller app; less common terms drive less traffic but face less competition (Apple).

I decide based on the app. An app that's been in the store for years, with a solid user base and hundreds of thousands of downloads, can compete for big keywords. A new or small app has to go after the long tail. With Atalana Games, we passed a million organic downloads with idle games by ranking for the generic long-tail searches our biggest competitor ranked for. Going after big keywords with a small app is one of the mistakes I see most when an app doesn't take off; I cover it in my guide on why your app has no downloads.

How I place keywords

Title: your main keyword

The title always carries the main keyword for your category, or the one you want to show up for no matter what. It's the field with the most weight and the one everyone sees, so it has to work for the algorithm and for the person reading it.

Subtitle: your important keywords

The subtitle carries the next most important keywords, without repeating any from the title, written as a phrase that explains what your app does. Apple shows it below your app's name throughout the App Store.

Keyword field: secondary terms, long tail and variations

Everything that doesn't fit in the title or subtitle goes here. Apple's rules (App Store search, App Store Connect Help):

• Separated by commas, no spaces. You can use spaces inside a multi-word keyword.
• Up to 100 bytes. Accented letters take 2 bytes; Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters take 3.
• No repeated words from your name, subtitle, or category. Singular and plural count as duplicates.
• No generic terms like "app" or "game," and no filler words.
• No names of other apps or companies. App Store Connect doesn't allow them, and Apple lists competing app names, unauthorized trademarks, and irrelevant terms among the common reasons for rejection.

An example

A fictional recipe app, published in the U.S. in the Food & Drink category, just to illustrate the rule:

• Title: [Brand]: Healthy Recipes
• Subtitle: Meal Planner & Grocery List
• Keyword field: cooking,diet,fitness,dinner,vegan,protein,smoothie,salad,calorie,macros,keto,lunch,breakfast,snack

That's 98 bytes. No word repeats from the title or subtitle, and "food" is left out because it's already in the category.

The extra locales each storefront indexes

This is the lever most people leave on the table, and I use it every time. Each App Store storefront has a default language and often additional ones (localizations table), and Apple confirms that people can find your app by its localized keywords in every country or region where the store supports that language (App Store Connect Help). Every extra locale means another title, another subtitle, and another keyword field.

A few examples from Apple's table:

• United States: English (U.S.) by default and, among others, Spanish (Mexico).
• Spain: Spanish (Spain) by default, plus Catalan and English (U.K.).

Here's how I handle Spanish (Mexico) in the U.S.: I mix. Title and subtitle in Spanish, keyword field in English. If the client has zero interest in Spanish-speaking users, I put everything in English. It works quite well.

The trade-off to keep in mind: the title and subtitle in that locale are what users with their device set to that language will see. So if that audience matters to you, keep the title and subtitle in its real language and only use the keyword field, which isn't visible. If you want every market handled this way, it's part of my ASO localization service.

Keywords on custom product pages

In App Store Connect, you can assign keywords from your latest approved version to a custom product page, so it shows up for those searches instead of your default product page. You can do this at any time, though the page is only searchable once it's approved and visible, and Apple recommends a unique set of keywords for each page (App Store Connect Help). You can have up to 70 (Apple).

On a social casino app, we used them for very specific long-tail searches, like Caesars-style slots or Las Vegas and Rome themes, with screenshots built around each theme and copy that invites people to download. The results in conversion and downloads have been very good. It's part of what I do as an App Store optimization expert.

How often to change your keywords

I review the keyword field every four to six weeks, but there's no fixed schedule: it depends heavily on the category, the timing, and whether we see that the keywords aren't ranking or aren't bringing enough traffic. If a keyword doesn't bring downloads or doesn't convert, there's no point keeping it: we iterate with another one.

Keep in mind how App Store Connect works: version metadata can only be edited when the version's status allows it (App Store Connect Help), so to change the keywords on your default product page, you create a new version and submit it for review (Create a new version). The only things you can change at any time are your promotional text, which doesn't count for search, and the keywords assigned to custom product pages.

And don't swing to the other extreme: changing the field too often doesn't give the algorithm time to understand it. On the App Store, I plan on at least a month and a half to see results.

Keyword field mistakes I keep seeing

• Keywords repeated across the title, subtitle, and keyword field.
• Unused space: a keyword field sitting at 70 bytes is visibility you're giving away.
• Spaces after commas, which burn bytes for nothing.
• Singular and plural together, or words already in your category.
• Big keywords for a small app that can't compete for them.
• Competitor names or trademarks, which Apple doesn't allow.
• Extra storefront locales left empty.
• A field nobody has touched since launch, or one that changes every week.

My ASO character counter catches most of these as soon as you paste in your text. And for the rest of the levers on your listing, like your icon, screenshots, and ratings, see my guide on how to get more app downloads.