ASO Guide · 7 min read
App Store keyword research, step by step
A practical, no-fluff walkthrough of App Store keyword research for iOS apps — how to find keywords, score popularity vs. difficulty, and pick the terms you can actually rank for.
App Store keyword research is the work of finding the search terms real users type into the App Store, then deciding which of them your app can realistically rank for. Get it right and a chunk of your installs arrive for free, every day, without spending a cent on ads. Get it wrong and you bury great keywords in your subtitle while chasing terms you'll never crack.
This guide walks through the process the way an indie developer actually does it — fast, in a browser, without an enterprise contract.
Why keyword research is the highest-leverage ASO task
On iOS, the App Store indexes your app name, subtitle and the hidden 100-character keyword field. Those few hundred characters decide which searches you show up for. Unlike a website, you can't write 2,000 words of content to rank — every character competes for space, so each keyword choice is a real trade-off. That scarcity is exactly why research up front pays off so much.
1. Build a seed list
Start with the words a user would type if your app didn't exist yet. Describe the job it does, not your brand. A habit tracker's seeds might be: habit tracker, daily routine, streak, goals, productivity, reminders.
- Pull terms from your own app's description and your top competitors' titles and subtitles.
- Use the App Store search bar's autocomplete — those suggestions are real, ranked-by-demand queries.
- Note the long-tail variants ("habit tracker for adhd") — they convert better and are far easier to rank for.
2. Score popularity vs. difficulty
Every keyword has two numbers that matter: how many people search it (popularity) and how hard it is to rank for (difficulty). A keyword is only worth targeting when popularity is high enough to send traffic and difficulty is low enough that you can break into the top results. We unpack how these scores are computed in App Store keyword difficulty & popularity, explained.
3. Find the opportunity gap
The best keywords are the ones competitors are sleeping on — decent demand, weak incumbents. The fastest way to surface them is to reverse-engineer the apps already ranking near you and look for terms they rank for that you don't yet. AppCompete's opportunity finder scores this gap automatically so you're not eyeballing raw charts.
- 1List 3–5 direct competitors.
- 2Pull the keywords each one ranks for.
- 3Filter to terms with real popularity but low difficulty that none of you own outright.
- 4That filtered set is your shortlist.
4. Place the keywords, then track them
Put your highest-value term in the app name, the next-best in the subtitle, and fill the keyword field with the rest — no spaces, no repeats, singular forms (the Store handles plurals). Then watch what happens: ranks move daily, and the only way to know if a placement worked is to measure it. See how to track your App Store keyword rankings.
Keyword research is never one-and-done. Demand shifts, competitors re-optimize, and seasonal terms spike. Re-run the loop every few weeks. If you're a solo dev shipping on weekends, read the ASO playbook for indie iOS developers for a lightweight cadence that fits around real work.