ASO keyword research: find the words people type in the app stores

ASO keyword research decides which searches your app can appear for in the App Store and Google Play. People who search the stores type a few words, such as “shopping list” or “habit tracker”, and choose among the apps that come up. On its Apple Ads site, Apple says that almost 65% of App Store downloads happen directly after a search.

Here is the method I would follow for a new app: seven steps, mostly with free tools, that small teams can run without an ASO budget.

If the topic is new to you, my beginner’s guide to app store optimisation explains how both stores rank apps. Both articles belong to my complete guide to launching a mobile app.

What ASO keyword research is, and what you need

An ASO keyword is a word or phrase people type into an app store’s search bar. Keyword research means finding the ones that describe your app, judging which ones you can rank for, and placing them where each store reads them.

The logic is the same as keyword research for a website, with three differences:

• Very little text. The App Store reads a 30-character name, a 30-character subtitle and a hidden keyword field of 100 bytes; Google Play reads a 30-character title and two descriptions. You choose a few dozen words, not a page per topic.
• No official search volumes. Neither store publishes them: Apple gives a popularity score from 1 to 5 in Apple Ads, and paid tools give estimates.
• Behaviour counts. Apple says its results depend on text relevance and on user behaviour, such as downloads, ratings and reviews. A keyword that brings visitors who leave without downloading does you no good.

You need a spreadsheet, a phone for each store (or the Google Play website), access to App Store Connect and Play Console, and ideally an Apple Ads account: an afternoon’s work for a first list. My example throughout is Basket, a fictional shared shopping list app for UK households.

Step 1: write down how your users describe the problem

People search for a task or a problem, not for your brand, until they know it. Write 20 to 30 phrases a user might type: the task (“split the shopping”), the object (“shopping list”), the audience (“flatmates”, “family”) and the features (“barcode scanner”).

Use their words, not yours. Nobody types “household purchase manager”; they type “shopping list”. The best sources are your support emails, the reviews of competing apps (people praise and complain there in their own words), forums and Reddit threads about the problem, and your customers’ questions.

For SEO and copywriting, I use Claude’s Research mode to find what people complain about most in a niche and which keywords keep coming back. The same request works for an app: ask for the problems people describe and the exact words they use, with sources you can open and check.

Step 2: collect the stores’ search suggestions

Both stores suggest searches as you type. Neither explains how it picks them, so treat a suggestion as a sign that people type the phrase, not as a count.

1. Open the App Store on an iPhone, go to the Search tab and type the first word of each phrase from step 1.
2. Add one letter at a time after it (“shopping list a”, “shopping list b” and so on) to bring out longer phrases.
3. Repeat in the Google Play Store app.
4. Add each new phrase to your spreadsheet, noting the store.

Each store shows the storefront of your account’s country, so research the UK store from a UK account and the French store from a French one.

Step 3: study the apps that already rank

Search each main phrase in both stores and open the first five to ten apps. For each one, note:

• the words in its name and, on the App Store, its subtitle;
• on Google Play, its short description and the first lines of its full description, which Google’s search reads;
• the phrases its reviewers use, which often name features the listing forgets;
• how strong it is (number of ratings, well-known brand or not), for step 5.

You can’t see an App Store app’s keyword field, but names and subtitles tell you enough: when most of the top apps put the same word in their name, the word probably matters for that search.

Note the gaps too: a need reviewers keep mentioning but no listing names is a phrase you may be able to own.

Step 4: check demand with Apple Ads search popularity

Apple offers one free demand signal. When you add keywords to an ad group in Apple Ads Advanced, the keyword suggestions show a search popularity for each one, based on App Store searches: a score from 1 to 5, 5 being the most popular, as Apple’s keyword best practices explain.

You need an Apple Ads account and an app on the App Store (pre-orders count), because every ad group sits inside a campaign that promotes one app. Looking at suggestions costs nothing: Apple Ads only charges once ads run. Read the score this way:

• it’s relative: use it to sort and eliminate, not to forecast downloads;
• work one country at a time, so the scores describe a single storefront;
• third-party tools use other scales, so never compare scores from different sources.

If you already run ads, the search terms report shows the words people actually typed when your ad appeared, with the taps and installs that followed. It’s the app version of how I use Semrush in SEO: the keywords advertisers pay for, and what they cost, show which ones work, so I double down on them organically instead of paying for ads. My Apple Ads tutorial shows how a discovery campaign collects these terms.

Google’s Keyword Planner and Google Trends measure searches on Google, not in the stores. Use them to choose between two phrasings or to spot seasonal interest, not to estimate store traffic; my tutorials on Keyword Planner and Google Trends show how.

Step 5: score each keyword, and start with the long tail

Give each phrase three scores from 1 to 3:

Then sort:

1. Drop anything that scores below 3 for relevance. Visitors who don’t find what they searched for leave without downloading.
2. Start with phrases that score at least 2 for popularity and at most 2 for difficulty. They are usually longer, more specific phrases: the long tail.
3. Keep the broad, hard terms for later, when your ratings and downloads give you a chance.

For Basket, say the top results for “shopping list” are established apps with thousands of ratings. “Shared shopping list” and “shopping list for flatmates” are just as relevant, less contested and closer to what Basket does best: they come first.

I’ve seen the same on the web. Of the five websites I’ve built for one client, one didn’t work at all because it offered too many services; the one that ranks sells very specific services.

Paid ASO tools such as AppTweak, Appfigures, MobileAction or Sensor Tower estimate popularity and competition for thousands of keywords, show what competitors rank for and track your positions; Astro is a Mac app for the App Store only. Appfigures has a free Starter plan, though keyword tracking depends on the paid plan, and AppTweak offers a free trial. They earn their price once you track dozens of keywords in several countries; before that, a subscription is the shiny-object trap I warn about in marketing.

Step 6: put the keywords where each store reads them

My guide to App Store and Google Play listings covers the writing; here are the keyword rules.

On the App Store: name, subtitle and keyword field

Put your most important phrase in the name, a second one in the subtitle and the rest in the keyword field. Apple’s App Store Connect reference and its search guidance set the rules for that field:

• 100 bytes, not 100 characters. Plain letters take one byte; accented ones, such as é, take two.
• Commas without spaces: “grocery,flatmates”, not “grocery, flatmates”.
• Each keyword longer than two characters.
• No repeats. Skip words already in your name, subtitle or category, plurals of words you already use, and “app”.
• No names of other apps or companies. App Review guideline 2.3.7 also rules out packing metadata with “trademarked terms, popular app names, pricing information, or other irrelevant phrases”, and Apple “may modify inappropriate keywords at any time”.
• A new version to change them. The keyword field belongs to each version’s information, so plan keyword changes with your releases.

Practitioners widely report that the App Store combines words from the name, subtitle and keyword field into phrases, so single words go further than full phrases. Apple doesn’t document it: check your rankings rather than taking it on trust.

App name:  Basket: Shared Shopping List
Subtitle:  Plan meals and split the shop
Keywords:  grocery,flatmates,family,household,couples,recipes,pantry,checklist,weekly,budget,supermarket

“Shopping” and “list” stay out of the keyword field because the name has them, and “meals” because the subtitle does. “Grocery” catches the American phrasing of a British “shopping list”. The field uses 93 of its 100 bytes.

On Google Play: title and descriptions, written for people

Google Play has no keyword field. Google’s page Get discovered on Google Play search says search looks at factors such as the app title, the developer name and the descriptions. So:

• Title (30 characters): your brand and main phrase; “Basket: Shared Shopping List” works in both stores.
• Short description (80 characters): your second phrase and the benefit, for example “One shopping list for the whole household, with the week’s meals planned”.
• Full description (4,000 characters): your main phrases in the first lines, then wherever they fit naturally in sentences.

Don’t paste a list of keywords. Google’s own guidance shows a run of near-synonyms as what not to do, and its metadata policy counts blocks of words and word lists among the common violations.

Step 7: review the results after four to six weeks

Neither store says how long a new keyword takes to move your rankings, so wait four to six weeks and compare equal periods before and after. Here is where to look:

• App Store Connect: open your app, then Analytics, then Sources under Acquisition. “App Store search” shows how many people found you through search, ads in search results included, but not the words they typed.
• Apple Ads: the search terms report, if you run ads.
• Play Console: the store listing acquisition reports have a search term dimension that lists what visitors typed. “Google Play search” only counts searches for your app’s name or brand; generic searches land in “Google Play explore”. Google reworked these reports in July 2026, so the labels may differ from older tutorials.
• Your rankings: a paid tool, or a weekly check of your main phrases in each store, noted in your spreadsheet.

Replace the keywords that brought nothing with the next ones on your list, one change at a time, and write the date down.

Your ASO keyword research checklist

1. List 20 to 30 phrases in your users’ words, market by market.
2. Collect each store’s search suggestions.
3. Note the words the top apps use.
4. Check Apple Ads search popularity.
5. Score relevance, popularity and difficulty; start with specific phrases.
6. Fill the App Store fields; write Google Play’s in sentences.
7. Review after four to six weeks, then with each release.

You don’t need an agency for a first list. What makes the difference is coming back to it after every release, with the numbers from step 7 in front of you.