ASO Keywords for Beginners: A Simple Starter Guide

ASO keywords are the search terms people type into the App Store and Google Play to discover apps — and the words you deliberately place in your listing so the stores rank you for those searches. App store optimization (ASO) is the practice of choosing the right keywords and putting them in the right fields (your title, subtitle, keyword field, and description) so high-intent users find your app instead of a competitor’s. Get this right and you earn free, repeatable installs from people who are already looking for what you built.

If you’ve never done keyword work before, this guide is your starting point. We’ll cover what ASO keywords are, how the two stores actually use them, and a simple step-by-step process you can run this week — no jargon, no guessing.

What are ASO keywords, really?

Every time someone opens the App Store or Google Play and types something — “habit tracker,” “free workout app,” “budget for couples” — they’re searching with keywords. Your job is to figure out which of those phrases describe your app, then make sure your listing is built around them.

A few things to understand up front:

• Keywords aren’t just single words. Most valuable terms are phrases (“sleep sounds for babies”), not one word (“sleep”).
• Relevance beats cleverness. The stores reward listings that genuinely match what the searcher wants. A keyword that brings the wrong users hurts you.
• Placement matters more than repetition. Where you put a keyword carries far more weight than how many times you say it.

Keywords are only one half of ASO. The other half is conversion — turning a listing view into an install with a strong icon and screenshots. For the full picture, read what is app store optimization.

How the App Store and Google Play use keywords

The two stores look at keywords differently, and beginners lose rankings by treating them the same. Here’s the practical difference:

	Apple App Store	Google Play
Title	High weight (30 chars)	High weight (30 chars)
Subtitle / short description	High weight (30 chars)	High weight (80 chars)
Keyword field	Hidden 100-char field	None — uses description instead
Long description	Not indexed for keywords	Fully indexed for keywords
Best move	Pick exact terms for the keyword field	Weave keywords naturally into the description

The takeaway: on Apple, your hidden keyword field is precious real estate — fill it with exact terms, no spaces wasted on words already in your title. On Google, your full description is indexed, so write it for humans but include your target keywords naturally a few times.

The four metrics that tell you which keywords to chase

Not every keyword is worth targeting. Beginners often chase the biggest, most obvious terms and never rank. Instead, judge each keyword on four signals — the same scores AppNiche’s keyword explorer shows you automatically:

• Popularity — how many people search the term. You want real demand, not a phrase nobody types.
• Difficulty — how hard it is to outrank the apps already there. As a beginner, you want this low.
• Traffic — the estimated volume actually reaching the term.
• Opportunity — the combined “is this worth it for me?” score that balances demand against beatability.

The sweet spot for a new app is low difficulty with at least moderate popularity. That’s exactly what low-competition app keywords are — and they’re where beginners should spend almost all their effort.

A simple step-by-step process for your first keywords

You don’t need a complicated system. Run these five steps and you’ll have a solid keyword set.

1. Brainstorm a seed list

Write down how a real person would describe your app. Cover the core feature, the problem it solves, the audience, and obvious synonyms. A meditation app might start with “sleep sounds,” “anxiety relief,” “guided breathing,” and “calm before bed.” Don’t filter yet — go wide.

2. Expand with real search data

Type your seeds into App Store and Google Play search and note the autosuggest phrases — those are real searches. Better, feed your seeds into a keyword tool to pull related terms and, crucially, the keywords your competitors already rank for. AppNiche surfaces competitor keyword gaps — terms a rival ranks for that you don’t — which is one of the richest sources of overlooked, easy-to-win keywords.

3. Score and shortlist

Sort your expanded list by opportunity, then keep the terms with low difficulty and meaningful popularity. This is where a tool saves hours: scanning hundreds of candidates by hand is slow and error-prone. For the deeper mechanics, see our app keyword research guide.

4. Check the live results

Scores point you in a direction; the search page is the truth. Open your finalist keywords in the actual store and look at the top apps:

• Are they highly rated and recently updated, or stale and ignored?
• Do their titles and subtitles actually contain the keyword?
• Is the result list short, or padded with irrelevant apps?

If the leaders are weak or barely use the term, you’ve found a real opening.

5. Place keywords in the right fields

Put your strongest keywords where weight is highest — the title and subtitle (Apple) or short description (Google) — then fill Apple’s keyword field with exact terms or weave keywords naturally into your Google long description. Use each term once in its highest-value spot; never repeat or stuff.

A quick worked example

Say you built a focus timer for students. The head term “timer” is hopeless — it’s owned by system apps and mega-brands. So you go specific:

• “study timer” — moderate popularity, medium difficulty. Borderline.
• “pomodoro for students” — lower popularity, very low difficulty. Worth a slot.
• “focus timer no ads” — moderate popularity, low difficulty, clear intent. Your best bet.

You check “focus timer no ads” in live search, see the top apps are cluttered and poorly rated, and confirm the phrase isn’t in their metadata. That gap is your opening. The keyword goes in your subtitle, and you have a realistic shot at page one.

Beginner mistakes to avoid

• Chasing head terms. “Fitness” or “budget” feel important but are nearly impossible to rank for early. Specific phrases win.
• Ignoring search intent. A rankable keyword that brings the wrong users inflates impressions and tanks installs.
• Keyword stuffing. Repeating terms or cramming irrelevant words reads as spam and can get your update rejected.
• Wasting Apple’s keyword field. Don’t repeat words already in your title — every character should add a new term.
• Changing metadata blind. Track rankings and conversion before and after each update so you know what actually worked. AppNiche’s explore and analytics view makes that before/after easy to see.

How AppNiche helps beginners

Doing all this by hand across both stores is tedious, and that’s exactly the loop AppNiche is built for. It covers the Apple App Store and Google Play across 760,000+ tracked apps and gives indie founders, app marketers, and ASO teams the kind of intelligence usually reserved for enterprise tools — at an indie-friendly price. With AppNiche you can:

• Run keyword research with difficulty, popularity, traffic, and opportunity scores so you can filter for beginner-friendly terms in seconds.
• Spot competitor keyword gaps — pre-validated demand your rivals already rank for.
• See transparent download and revenue estimates with the input signals shown, not hidden in a black box.
• Monitor reviews for sentiment and recurring topics, discover untapped niches with AI “Hot Ideas,” and export to CSV/JSON or pull data via REST API and MCP tools for AI agents.

You can explore most of this on a free preview with no card required — see the pricing page for Pro and Founding Lifetime options.

Your next step

Pick three keywords from your seed list, score them, and verify the live results today. ASO keywords aren’t a one-time task — they’re a loop of research, placement, and measurement that compounds every time you ship an update. The sooner you start, the sooner those free installs begin to add up.

Start finding your first ASO keywords with AppNiche →