Working with Keywords in the App Store and Google Play

Keywords are one of the main elements of App Store Optimization. In addition to the title, subtitle, and several other fields, they describe your product and allow users to find your application in the store.

What Are the Main Functions of Keywords?

Your app on Google Play and the App Store is generally described by a Title, Subtitle, Description, and Keywords (App Store only).

Keywords are words that describe your product, its characteristics, or its functions. This is the semantic core that defines your application and what it does. These are the keywords that your organic audience can use to find your app or game in the store.

They are a search index, like in SEO, but for your application page. Keywords operate the following way:

1. the App Store or Google Play indexes keywords;
2. the user searches for something;
3. the store matches the query with its index and displays a list of relevant applications to the user.

Your app will appear in search results based on the keywords and phrases in these fields, so choosing them is crucial. The best option for selecting and installing the correct keywords for your app optimization is to collaborate with an app store optimization agency. The experts will help you do things correctly and quickly.

Features of Working with Keywords in the App Store

The main fields from which the App Store takes keywords into account are the title, subtitle, and search terms (as well as combinations of these). The size of these fields is limited: 30 characters are placed in the title and subtitle fields, and 100 in the keyword field.

Therefore, you need to be extremely careful when choosing them. But besides the main fields, words from other ones are also indexed (developer name, internal purchases, in-app events, etc.).

Please note that the App Store usually considers keywords from two or more languages when searching in a specific locale.

In addition, the “weight” of words for searching from different fields of the meta description is extra – the words from the title have the most significant weight, followed by the subtitle, and only then come search terms from the keywords themselves.

Try to keep words distinct from all three fields – according to some reports, the App Store discourages such use, believing that developers are trying to improve quality with quantity.

Features of Working with Keywords in Google Play

In Google Play, the main fields are title, short description, and full description.

You have 30 characters in the title, 80 in the short description, and 4 thousand characters in the full description, so there is much more room for creating your index. 

However, there is no need to spam here – as in the case of the App Store, Google Play does not take kindly to attempts to deceive it. Google’s best practices suggest keeping your highest priority keyword density around 3% (and it shouldn’t be the app name).

How to Choose the Right Keywords for an Application?

Keywords are your semantic core, a set of words that describe your product. If you’re new to ASO, here are some tips to get started collecting keywords:

• think about what problem the user wants to solve with your product and write it down in words;
• think about what unique features your app provides and note it;
• see what keywords your competitors are using;
• observe what users search for and how their search terms relate to your app.

This way, you will collect several dozen keywords, forming your initial core. Next, you need to connect to special services to search for keywords. They will help you correctly assess the frequency of each request, wording, and other vital parameters.

Final Thoughts

Working on ASO requires patience, attention to detail, constant monitoring, and improvement. Having collected a complete semantic core, enter key search terms into text elements.

This will help your application be indexed in searches for critical search terms. Text ASO is only part of the work on optimizing an application and is one of the first and foremost stages in promoting a mobile app.

Choosing the right keywords involves understanding your app’s unique features and the problems it solves, in addition to analyzing competitors and user search terms.

Successful ASO is a continuous process that requires careful selection of keywords, integration into various app store fields, and ongoing monitoring and refinement to maintain and improve the app’s visibility and search rankings.