This month, we’re going to discuss keyword ranking strategies for Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Tip 1:

Place Your Most Important Keywords in Your App Name/Title

Keywords are weighted differently depending on where they are place in your app store listing. Keywords in your App Name or Title have the highest-ranking power. This is true for both Apple App Store and Google Play.

•iOS apps get 30 characters for the App Name

•Android apps get 50 characters for the App Title

Aside from your brand name, of course, you should fit in your highest priority keywords when you have character space left.

Notice how Booking.com adds the keywords, “hotels” and “travel”, into their App Name.

You can update App Name in your Store Listing Editor.

Tip 2:

Fields that Google and Apple Crawl for Keywords

Google and Apple crawl different app information fields for keywords.

To rank apps, Google Play indexes keywords in:

•App Title

•Short Description

•Long Description

•User Reviews & Developer Responses

To rank apps, Apple App Store indexes keywords in:

•App Name

•Subtitle

•Keyword Field

For iOS apps only, keywords in the app description don’t count for App Store rankings.

Tip 3:

Be Careful with Keyword Stuffing

Google Play works like a traditional search engine while Apple App Store does not. So long story, short:

•Google Play: Repeat keywords across all fields

•Apple App Store: Never repeat keywords

Head to your Optimization Score to get personalized recommendations on how you can improve your keyword strategy.

Tip 4:

Use Keyword Popularity and Difficulty Values

Popularity is the keyword’s search volume. The higher the popularity, the more people are searching for the keyword.

•Popularity = 5: Negligible or nonexistent search volume

•Popularity = 100: Extremely high search volume

Difficulty is how challenging it will be to rank the keyword.

The higher the difficulty, the more challenging it is to rank for the keyword.

•Difficulty = 1: Very easy to rank for

•Difficulty = 100: Very difficult to rank for

New apps should aim for lower popularity and lower difficulty keywords. That way you start ranking in the app stores faster.

Once your apps are already ranking for a good set of keywords, you can aim for higher popularity and higher difficulty keywords.

Tip 5:

ASO can be an overwhelming process. Understanding everything that is involved takes time. Thanks.