App Store Keyword Research: The Complete ASO Guide for 2026

Keyword research is the single highest-leverage activity in App Store Optimization (ASO). Pick the right keywords and your app gets discovered by the people already searching for it. Pick the wrong ones and even a great app stays invisible. This guide walks through a repeatable keyword research process that works for both the Apple App Store and Google Play, and how to run it fast with AppSqeez.

Why keyword research matters

Users don’t browse — they search. Most app installs begin with a search query, which means your visibility depends almost entirely on which keywords your app ranks for and how high it ranks. The goal of keyword research is to find keywords that are:

1. Relevant to what your app does.
2. High enough traffic to be worth targeting.
3. Low enough difficulty that you can realistically rank.

The sweet spot is the intersection of all three — and that intersection is different for every niche.

Understand the three core scores

When you research a keyword, look at three signals together:

• Difficulty — how hard it is to rank in the top results, based on the strength of the apps already ranking.
• Traffic / Popularity — how often users search for the term. On the App Store, the most accurate signal is Apple Search Ads popularity, a real 0–100 score.
• Opportunity — a combined score that balances traffic against difficulty to surface winnable, worthwhile keywords.

New to these terms? The ASO glossary defines each one.

In AppSqeez, every researched keyword shows all three at once, so you can sort by Opportunity to find the easiest wins first.

Step 1: Build a seed list

Start with the obvious: your app’s name, its core function, and the words a non-technical user would use to describe the problem it solves. Don’t optimize for the language you use — optimize for the language your users use.

A few ways to expand a seed keyword:

• Store autocomplete. Typing a term into the App Store or Google Play search box reveals the queries real users type. AppSqeez pulls these suggestions live.
• Competitor metadata. The apps already ranking for your keyword chose their words deliberately. Mine their titles, subtitles, and descriptions.
• Review language. Users describe features in their own words in reviews — a goldmine of long-tail keywords.

Step 2: Expand with keyword suggestions

AppSqeez offers five ways to find more candidates. On your app’s Keywords screen, open Keyword Suggestions and choose a method:

1. Basic Extractor for backend-matched keyword extraction.
2. YAKE Extractor for statistical keyword extraction.
3. Store Suggestions for live store autocomplete suggestions.
4. Search by others for keywords other AppSqeez users found for the same app.
5. AI Suggestions from your configured model.

Search by others can surface keywords other AppSqeez users found for the same app, which you might never guess on your own.

Step 3: Score and filter

Once you have candidates, score them and filter ruthlessly. A good workflow:

• Filter to keywords with moderate or lower difficulty first.
• Within those, sort by traffic/popularity descending.
• Remove anything that isn’t genuinely relevant.

In AppSqeez you can filter across both stores and all 150+ countries at once, then add the winners directly to rank tracking.

Step 4: Place keywords in your metadata

Where a keyword lives matters as much as which keyword it is:

• App Store: the 30-character name and 30-character subtitle carry the most weight, followed by the 100-character keyword field and the 170-character promo text.
• Google Play: the app name and the short/long descriptions are indexed, with the first lines carrying the most weight.

The two stores index metadata differently — see App Store vs Google Play: how ASO differs for the full comparison.

Use the AppSqeez store listing editor to write metadata with live character counters against the real limits, so you never waste a single character.

Step 5: Track and iterate

Rankings move daily. Add your chosen keywords to rank tracking and watch the trend over days and weeks. If a keyword isn’t moving after an update, swap it for a lower-difficulty alternative. ASO is iterative — the apps that win are the ones that keep refining. Our guide to tracking keyword rankings covers a weekly routine for this.

Tip: Use AppSqeez’s competitor comparison to see exactly which keywords your rivals outrank you on, and prioritize those first.

Common keyword research mistakes

• Chasing only high-traffic keywords. A keyword with huge traffic but crushing difficulty will never rank a new app. Win the winnable ones first.
• Ignoring long-tail keywords. Longer, specific queries convert better and are far easier to rank for.
• Keyword stuffing. Both stores penalize unnatural repetition. Write for humans first.
• Optimizing once. Rankings decay if you don’t maintain them. Make ASO a recurring habit.

Start researching today

You can run this entire process in AppSqeez — research, score, place, and track — without leaving the app. Download AppSqeez free, or read the full keyword research documentation.