How to Conduct Effective App Keyword Research on AppTweak

Lucas Riedingerby 
Product Manager at AppTweak

8 min read

ASO is a key strategy for app developers and marketers to boost visibility and organic discoverability within the app stores. Among the many factors that contribute to ASO success, keyword optimization takes center stage.

Keywords connect users with relevant apps in the app stores, much like search engines use them to understand intent.

By optimizing the choice and placement of keywords, your app can climb the search rankings and attract the right audience. This will lead to increased conversion rate and more installs.

In this blog, let’s discover how AppTweak can help you discover valuable keyword opportunities to optimize your app’s metadata.


1. Dig through your app’s & competitors’ metadata

The initial step to uncover valuable keywords is to carefully analyze your own metadata and that of your competitors. By examining competitors’ keyword choices, you can gain invaluable insights into the most relevant and competitive keywords to target for increased visibility and organic growth. The goal here is to identify whether these keywords actually help you push your (or your competitors’) app up the search rankings.

You can take a first glance at our App Page Preview feature that allows you to visualize an app’s current metadata alongside its actual page listing:

App Page Preview for the game Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells in the US, App Store
App Page Preview for the game Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells (App Store, US).

2. Start adding keywords to your keyword list

It’s time to head to the Keyword Research tab and leverage AppTweak’s keyword suggestions panel. This is the ideal place to discover keyword opportunities, analyze them, and create the best metadata for your app.

Dive into this exclusive guide for expert tips on how to find new keyword opportunities for your app

Metadata keywords

As mentioned before, you can find the most relevant keywords in your (or your competitor’s) metadata.

Add keywords from our suggestions panel, found in the title, subtitle, and description, directly to a keyword list.

You can directly add keywords found in the app title, subtitle, and description to a keyword list
You can directly add keywords found in the app title, subtitle, and description to a keyword list.

AppTweak is also here to help you do keyword research for foreign languages.

Use the “Auto-translate to English” button to understand keywords for analysis, even if you don’t speak the language.

Simply toggle the auto-translation button to pick relevant keywords.

Keywords in the gaming app title and subtitle from Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells has been auto-translated into Spanish
Auto-translate allows you to translate keyword suggestions from any language, based on your AppTweak language settings. This helps you better select your keywords and focus on those that make the most sense for your app.

Check out this blog to  to identify the most relevant keywords for your app

Top installs & ranked keywords (per competing app)

Looking at app metadata was only the first step in the quest for keyword opportunities. You should also analyze keywords that bring your app (and competitors) the most installs. This would help you understand the user intent when searching for your (competitor’s) app.

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AppTweak provides you with Top installs & Ranked keywords.

  • Top installs: Keywords that are estimated to bring the most organic downloads to the selected app. The top keywords are high-volume search terms for which the app ranks in a good position.
  • Ranked keywords: Keywords upon which the selected app is ranking, segmented across various ranking tiers.
Top installs & keywords for which Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is ranking #2-3
Top installs & ranked keywords for which Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is ranking #2-3.

Expert Tip

Top install & Ranked keywords pickers are subdivided into:
  • Opportunity keywords: Your competitor’s unique top keywords (keywords your app doesn’t rank on)
  • Shared keywords: Terms for which both your competitor & your app are ranking on

Keywords upon which your app is ranking between #3 & #30 are typically good-opportunity keywords and are worth putting more effort into. Indeed, a slight increase in ranking here could lead to a significant increase in organic installs.

AI keyword tools

Powered by Atlas, our own artificial intelligence, AppTweak’s AI keyword tools can help automate your keyword research and save time.

  • Semantic keywords: You can generate a whole list of related high-volume keywords to enhance your ASO efforts. Whether you have a specific keyword in mind or want to explore related terms, AppTweak offers features to find keywords with close semantic relevance or uncover long-tail keywords that can boost your app’s discoverability.

Expert Tip

With Semantic Keywords, simply input a specific keyword, and we’ll return 50 semantically related suggestions at the click of a button.

Find out how we reversed engineered the app stores to understand their own semantics

  • AI-generated keyword list: Designed to help you kickstart your keyword analysis, this meticulously crafted list is tailored to the chosen app and showcases the most pertinent keywords. We encourage you to leverage this resource not only for your app but also for your competitors, so you can uncover valuable keyword insights that can elevate your ASO strategy.
AI-generated list now in your Keyword Research tool on AppTweak
AI-generated list now in your Keyword Research tool on AppTweak.
  • Relevancy Score: Also powered by Atlas, our Relevancy Score is a unique metric between 0 and 100 that quantifies how relevant a keyword is to an app, considering its app store context. For example, the keywords “run” and “running” would be different in the eyes of the app stores than in our eyes.

For example, we might, at first glance, consider the keywords “run” and “running” as both relevant to fitness app Nike Run Club. However, combining our AI-powered Relevancy Score with a Live Search of each keyword, we actually see that the stores consider “run” as more relevant to games (like Subway Surfers or Temple Run). On the other hand, the app stores consider “running” as more relevant to running apps (like Nike Run Club).

Semantic keywords related to “run” and “running”
Semantic keywords related to “run” and “running.”

Learn more about AppTweak’s AI-powered features

Market keywords

If you’re still looking for more keyword inspiration, try our Market keywords suggestions. These suggestions are especially powerful as they include the most relevant keywords for your app based on its specific market.

At AppTweak, we developed a more granular app/game classification than the stores’ categories. Our AppDNA and GameDNA taxonomies – powered by Atlas – provides a more in-depth view of the app competitive landscape, which helps you to gain access precise insights into the app stores. This advanced classification empowers you with better granularity, allowing for more accurate analysis and understanding of your app’s performance within its specific market niche.

Example of market keywords like “walk,” “run,” “bike,” “ski” for the AppDNA Outdoor Activities on AppTweak.

Expert Tip

All these keywords suggestions are also available in our Apple Search Ads Manager to help you bid on the most relevant keywords for your app.

3. Keyword metrics & Live Search

Now that you found enough keyword inspiration and created a long keyword list, it’s time to analyze the keywords you’ve added to refine your keyword selection. To help you with this task, AppTweak provides you some important metrics among others, such as:

  • Volume: Keyword search popularity
  • All Installs: Installs driven per keyword
  • Results: Number of apps that rank for a keyword
  • Chance, Difficulty, & KEI: How easy or difficult it would be for an app to rank on a given keyword; KEI aims to show which keywords have the best potential for your app
  • Relevancy: How relevant a keyword is for your app

While these metrics are a powerful toolbox to refine your keyword selection, you also would not want to miss out on our Live Search feature. The Live Search is a replica of the results you get on your phone when searching for a keyword. This is really helpful to understand which apps are ranked high on a keyword, and assess whether your app would stand out within these results. You get to understand all kinds of insights that can appear in the search results – from a story to ads and custom product pages.

Live Search for match puzzle in the US, App Store
Live Search for “match puzzle” (App Store, US).

Conclusion

In the realm of mobile apps, ASO is crucial for enhancing app visibility and discoverability. Central to ASO is keyword optimization, a pivotal factor in helping users find relevant apps. AppTweak simplifies the process of finding valuable keywords, enhancing ASO efforts, and ensuring your app thrives in a competitive app landscape. Through careful keyword optimization, you can boost your app’s search rankings in the stores and appeal to the right audience.

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Lucas Riedinger
by , Product Manager at AppTweak
Lucas is a Product Manager at AppTweak, helping to fuel growth for the world's most popular apps and games. He is passionate about rugby, basketball, and video games.