Discovering Store Keywords to Maximize App Visibility

I Want Our App to Stand Out in the Store (3)

In previous posts, we looked at how to identify and manage keywords that can drive organic installs. We also covered how to optimize the ranking for those keywords. However, if you keep repeating this cycle—optimizing a keyword's rank, verifying its impact, and then focusing optimization efforts on those proven keywords—you will eventually run out of keywords. In other words, your pool of keyword candidates worth testing depletes rapidly.

We need to discover more keyword candidates full of install potential, but how exactly can we find them?

I Want Our App to Stand Out in the Store (3) — Discovering Store Keywords

In this final installment of the series, let's explore different methods for discovering additional store keywords.

Is Discovering New Keywords That Important?

Every piece of material out there repeatedly emphasizes the impact of keyword discovery. Moreover, most ASO services tout "keyword discovery" as a core feature. Back when I was too busy just managing the core keywords right in front of me, I didn't fully grasp what they meant. But I soon realized that the true power of KWO (Keyword Optimization) lies in keyword discovery. Simply put, it's like opening up a brand-new route to welcome customers. If this were physical goods, it would be akin to entering a new distribution channel. Compared to optimizing within a limited set of keywords, the upside of this strategy is on a whole different level.

Of course, the keywords in question must actually be impactful. Otherwise, no matter how much you manage them, their rank won't climb easily, and even if it does, it won't convert well into installs. It would just create a meaningless route. Since we've already learned how to judge a keyword's effectiveness and manage it in previous posts, let's focus on finding those new keywords now. While many ASO tools offer these methods, you can easily do them manually as well.

1) Check Keyword Density in Competitors' Meta Information

• Copy the meta information (app name, subtitle, description, etc.) of your core competitors to check their keyword density.

• Form a hypothesis by compiling a list: are there keywords frequently seen in competitors' meta information that are missing from ours? What is their frequency? What percentage of the total text do they make up? And what are the search rankings of those apps for those specific keywords?

• You can conveniently use this site to check keyword count and density.

2) App Store Autocomplete

• Enter a few keywords you've been managing into the App Store search bar, and the App Store will provide an "autocomplete" list.

• This is especially useful when discovering long-tail keywords. When searching for "exercise," you might notice that "calories" is also searched alongside it. You could even start managing "calories" as a completely separate keyword.

• You can discover keywords highly relevant to your core keywords, simply because the App Store recommends terms that users are actually searching for frequently.

3) Apple Search Ads Search Terms

• Create an Apple Search Ads account and navigate to the 'Add keywords' section within the dashboard.

• Get recommendations from Apple Search Ads by clicking 'Add All 100 Recommendations'.

• It even provides a Popularity metric. Though it's a bit lacking in precision, it's best to just take the recommendations and judge their effectiveness separately using your own consistent criteria.

• Similar to App Store autocomplete, this has the advantage of high accuracy since it's based on actual App Store data.

• The downside is that since it relies on Apple Search Ads data, it can't be used for countries where Search Ads isn't supported.

4) 'Praise' or 'Suggestion' Types in User Reviews (VoC)

• Keywords frequently mentioned by users are likely highly relevant to how our app is used.

• They might be keywords tied to the "situations" in which our app is used (studying, working out, appointments, commuting, etc.) or to its "attributes" (health, routine, habits, etc.).

• Compared to other methods, this is fantastic for discovering out-of-the-box keywords (ones you've never even thought of).

• From a product management perspective, since we read VoCs every week (around 300-400 a week for our product), it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

• The Google Play Console does compile and show the word density within store reviews, but honestly, it isn't exceptionally helpful.

With this post, we wrap up the 3-part series, I Want Our App to Stand Out in the Store. Next time, I plan to follow up with methods for increasing "conversion." (Taking my time, though...)

• I Want Our App to Stand Out in the Store (1) Boosting Keyword Rank

• I Want Our App to Stand Out in the Store (2) Managing Keywords

• I Want Our App to Stand Out in the Store (3) Discovering Keywords