Your first ten keywords in thirty minutes
From an app with no list to a name, a subtitle and a keyword field that rank, using the scan, the top 10 and the two numbers.
Most apps ship with a name that is a brand and a keyword field that was filled in on submission night. The fix is thirty minutes and one release. Start from what the store already returns you for: the scan on the app's page runs your name, subtitle and description through Apple's own search suggestions and reports every term you appear for, with position, popularity and difficulty.
Then read the names of the three apps above you on your best terms. The words they share, in the order they use them, are what the index rewards for that search. A habit app whose competitors are all named "Habit Tracker: Daily Routine" and "Habits: Streaks & Goals" learns that "habit tracker", "daily" and "streaks" carry the rank, and "companion" does not.
Place the ten: the two terms with the best popularity-to-difficulty ratio in the name, the next two in the subtitle, the rest as single words in the keyword field with no repeats across the three. Ship the release with nothing else changed, and read positions a week later.
In order
- 01Open the app's page and run the scan. Sort the result by popularity; keep the terms where you are in the top 50, and every term over popularity 25.
- 02For your five best terms, open the keyword page and read the ten names. Write the words that appear in three or more.
- 03Rank candidates by popularity divided by difficulty. Mark relevance high, medium, low; drop the lows whatever the number.
- 04Name: brand plus the two best terms, 30 characters. Subtitle: the next two, 30 characters, readable as a sentence. Keyword field: the rest as single words, comma-separated, no spaces, no word already used.
- 05Add the ten to the app's list in every store it sells in, ship, wait seven days, read the positions against the release marker.
In the US store, read October 4
- On the searched US terms, 19% of the top 10s have at least half their apps carrying the term's words in the name. The name is the first place the index looks and the first place to spend.