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Most indie developers pick keywords the same way: brainstorm a few obvious phrases, maybe peek at a competitor's title, and call it done. The result is a keyword set that feels reasonable but performs poorly — either too competitive to rank for, or too obscure to drive meaningful traffic. There's a better way, and it doesn't require expensive tooling or an ASO agency. What it requires is a systematic process you repeat every few weeks.
Understand what the keyword field actually does
Before touching a spreadsheet, get the mechanics straight. Apple indexes the words in your app's name, subtitle, and the 100-character keyword field. Words that appear in your name carry more weight than those in the keyword field. Reviews and in-app purchase names are also indexed, but you have less control there. The practical implication: use your name and subtitle for your highest-value terms, and treat the keyword field as a place to extend coverage with secondary and long-tail phrases.
The keyword field has exactly 100 characters including commas. Don't use spaces after commas, don't repeat words already in your name or subtitle, and don't use plural and singular of the same word — Apple handles stemming. Every wasted character is a missed ranking opportunity.
Start with your user, not your app
The most common mistake is describing your app rather than describing the problem a user is trying to solve. A user searching the App Store isn't thinking 'I need a habit-tracking app with streaks and reminders.' They're thinking 'stop forgetting gym,' 'build morning routine,' or 'track daily goals.' Your job is to get inside that search intent.
- Write down five problems your app solves, in plain language.
- For each problem, write three ways a non-technical person might search for a solution.
- Note the job-to-be-done: what is the user trying to accomplish right now, in this moment?
- Think about the context: are they on the commute, procrastinating at work, trying to fix something urgent?
Build your seed list from multiple sources
A seed list is your starting pool of candidate keywords before you filter by competition and relevance. Cast a wide net at this stage — you'll cut it down later. Here's where to look:
- Your own App Store page: read your reviews. Users describe your app in their own words. Those phrases are gold.
- Competitor names and subtitles: search for your closest competitors and note every descriptive word in their titles.
- Apple Search Ads suggested keywords: create a campaign (you don't have to spend a single penny — just get to the keyword suggestion screen) and let Apple's own algorithm suggest terms related to your app category.
- Google's 'People also search for' panel: search for your core use case on Google and scroll to the related searches at the bottom. These reflect real mental models.
- Reddit and App Store category charts: look at how people describe apps in your niche on subreddits, and study the words used in top-ranked apps' subtitles in your category.
Score your candidates on two axes: relevance and difficulty
Once you have 40–60 seed keywords, you need to cut them to the best 15–20 to fit your character budget. Score each one on two dimensions: how relevant it is to your core user (1–3), and how hard it will be to rank for (1–3, where 3 is hardest). The sweet spot is high relevance and lower difficulty.
Difficulty in the App Store isn't as transparent as it is on the web. A practical proxy: search for the keyword yourself and look at the top three results. If all three are apps from large publishers with tens of thousands of ratings, that keyword is fiercely competitive. If you see smaller apps or apps that are only loosely related, there's room to rank. Prefer specific, multi-word phrases over single broad terms — 'interval timer for running' will almost always be easier to rank for than 'timer', and it attracts more qualified users anyway.
A keyword that ranks you at position 3 for a specific phrase will drive more downloads than a keyword that buries you at position 40 for a popular one.
Prioritise long-tail phrases over head terms
Head terms — single words like 'fitness', 'budget', 'meditation' — are searched often but are dominated by major apps with enormous review counts. Long-tail phrases (three or more words) have lower individual search volume but much better conversion because the intent is specific. A user searching 'guided breathing for anxiety' knows exactly what they want. If your app does that, you'll convert them. Aim to have at least half your keyword field filled with long-tail phrases rather than isolated words.
Test, wait, and iterate — on a schedule
Keyword research isn't a one-time task. You submit a new keyword set, wait for Apple to re-index (usually within a day or two of a new version), then track your ranking positions over two to four weeks before drawing conclusions. Don't change everything at once — if you swap all 100 characters of keywords simultaneously, you won't know what moved the needle. Change 30–40% of your keyword field each release cycle, keep what's working, and replace what isn't.
Appolyn makes this loop significantly faster: it shows you which keywords are currently driving impressions, lets you update your metadata across every localisation at once, and tracks your ranking changes over time — so you're not manually logging positions in a spreadsheet. But even before you use any tool, the discipline of the process matters more than the tooling.
A quick checklist before you submit
- No spaces after commas in the keyword field.
- No words duplicated from your app name or subtitle.
- No competitor brand names (against Apple's guidelines).
- Every keyword is relevant to a real user need, not just your feature list.
- At least half the field uses multi-word phrases rather than isolated nouns.
- You have a baseline record of your current rankings to compare against next cycle.