How to Perform App Store Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of the most important components in a successful app store optimization (ASO) strategy. But how do you conduct keyword research for mobile app stores? And what do you need to do and have? Our experts have some tips:

1. Analyze a Mass of Keywords

To find the phrases and terms to use in your app name, keywords and description, you must evaluate hundreds (or sometimes thousands!) of combinations and alternatives. To do this, you need to collect all the relevant phrases and words that users might enter when searching the app store for an app like yours, as well as synonyms and word combinations

2.  Look at Competitor Keywords

Sneaking a peek at the keywords used by your competitors in their app metadata can help you discover which keywords you will be competing for. It will also help you expand your database of potential keywords and give you ideas for keywords and phrases to analyze.

3. Compare Traffic & Competition Scores

Once you have your keyword list, you need to analyze the traffic and difficulty scores for each keyword and phrase. The challenge begins when different tools provide different results for the same keywords. Research we conducted, comparing the popular ASO tools on the market, showed some troubling data – there are massive gaps in data reported between tools, turning it harder to make educated decisions optimizing your app. This is why we use multiple tools, including our own proprietary software to ensure we get the most accurate numbers.

4. Stay Informed on Algorithm Changes

Alterations made to the app store algorithms can have an adverse effect on your ASO efforts. To adjust to these changes, you need to constantly and consistently track the performance of your targeted keywords. In addition, you need to stay on top of announcements by Apple and Google regarding changes to the app store indexing algorithms.

5. Keep It Local

If you think that the keyword research you did for the US app store is enough to cover all English speaking countries – you’re wrong. Every locale and app store have their own search trends, user behaviors and competition levels. So for every country you must conduct a separate keyword research process.

6. Never Stop Optimizing

Since search trends and the competitive landscape change frequently, you can’t just “set it and forget it”. You must track the performance of selected keywords, as well as experiment to achieve higher visibility, and attract the most relevant and engaged users.