How to Improve ASO With Long-Tail Keywords

Florentin Zacharyby 
Product Manager at AppTweak

5 min read

Keyword optimization is a pillar of any ASO strategy. But how do you ensure maximum performance for the keywords you target in your metadata (title, subtitle, description, etc)? When should you add or remove certain keywords?

There are a variety of approaches to this – and each has its benefits – but we all know that the process of keyword optimization can sometimes be very time-consuming. That’s why AppTweak has released a new feature with the goal of helping you analyze your keyword list even quicker and easier! Read on to learn all about the new Combinations Table (available for Pro plans and above).


The struggle of analyzing individual keywords

One of the main challenges in ASO is getting a complete picture of your app’s visibility for specific keywords. For example, some keywords have high search volumes but are very competitive, despite some of their combinations being easier to rank for. That’s why a good ASO strategy directly targets those long-tail keywords (longer, more specific search phrases) in order to gradually enhance your presence on the stores.

Let’s take the example of the keyword “music.” This is a very popular keyword (search volume of 73 in the US) but it is also a difficult term to have your app rank high for (difficulty of 81). However, many other keywords include “music” – branded terms like “Apple Music” or “YouTube Music,” and also long-tail generic terms like “music player,” “offline music,” “free music,” and many others. Therefore, considering the KPIs of all these combinations is crucial to identify the top keyword opportunities that should be added to your metadata.

Learn more about the importance of long-tail keywords in your ASO strategy

So we know that we should pay attention to long-tail keywords, but two problems exist. Firstly, how do I create these keyword combinations? And secondly, how can I quickly identify them?

Yes, building a solid keyword list can be a struggle, but this step should not be overlooked or taken lightly. Filtering every keyword in your metadata one by one is certainly not very practical, especially when the previous information disappears as soon as you want to analyze another keyword! Instead, you end up having to copy and paste a lot of data just to be able to compare your KPIs on an aggregated level – not ideal.

Make sure your keyword list contains all relevant keywords

A preliminary step in your keyword optimization strategy is to build a list of relevant long-tail keywords for your app. Luckily, many AppTweak features can help you do this in an easy and efficient way:

  • Keyword input bar: First, you should start by typing the keywords that immediately come to mind when you think about your app – those that you know are relevant and should be added in any case.
  • Brainstorm List: AppTweak automatically creates a list of 100 strong keywords that are relevant to your app. There’s no extra work for you to do here—except pressing a button.
  • Semantic Keyword selector: When you input a keyword, AppTweak does some magic to return top keyword recommendations back to you! Using data science powered by Atlas, these semantic recommendations make it even easier for you to build your list and identify long-tail keywords.
  • Keyword Shuffler: AppTweak automatically shuffles any keywords and returns all their possible combinations.
  • Other pickers: play around with Metadata, Top Search Terms, Ranked Keywords, and other selectors to find relevant suggestions that could also be added to your lists.

Once you have built a keyword list you’re happy with – including short- and long-tail combinations – you should now remove any keywords that are actually less relevant than others, or keywords with very low volumes (e.g. volume 5). This will keep your list clean and ensure some clarity remains in your ASO. Typically, we’d recommend keeping between 100 and 200 keywords in your main list (but of course, this figure depends from one app or country to another).

Analyze your long-tail keywords with the Combination Table

Now that you’ve added your keyword combinations to your keyword list, you can open the Combinations Table for an overarching view of your metadata strategy. By default, only single terms will appear while all their combinations are hidden. These terms are sorted by their number of combinations in descending order, which is quite useful to quickly grasp the distribution of keywords in your list. You’ll also notice some single terms that you didn’t add to your list; AppTweak extracted these keywords in the background to give you the full picture of all the potential long-tail keywords.

If you want to go more in-depth and see all the keyword combinations related to a single term, you can simply expand a keyword to view all its possible combinations. By default, these are sorted by volume (in descending order); however, once you choose to sort the table by any metric, both the parent and children keywords will also be sorted accordingly.

Once you expand a keyword to see its combinations, we show you the individual metrics (volume, difficulty, rank, relevancy, etc) of each combination. For any single keyword, we also show you the average of each of these metrics, alongside the sum of installs driven by the keyword and its combinations.

⚠️ Be careful here: keywords may be repeated in multiple combinations, meaning that the same installs may be counted multiple times in different combinations. As a result, the sum of installs should just be an indicative metric and not a primary driver of your keyword selection.


You can also use the filters above the table to hide low-volume keywords, only display generic/branded keywords, and more. The choice is yours!


AppTweak’s Combinations Table is here to help you monitor and optimize your visibility in the most efficient way possible.

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Florentin Zachary
by , Product Manager at AppTweak
Florentin is an ASO Expert at AppTweak. He’s passionate about how new technologies can improve our lives. He also likes cheese, philosophy and climbing!