App Store Keywords for Photo & Video Apps: Editors, Collages and AI

Estimated volume / estimated difficulty (0-100). Phrases are English in every storefront.

Unlike most categories, the head term "video editor" is not just a US problem: its difficulty stays between 53 and 88 in every one of the six storefronts. That is a global arms race. "Camera" is the reverse puzzle: Japan scores 52, well above the 22 to 40 seen elsewhere, which suggests the phrase is a more contested search there. The Japan column also shows how English-phrase measurements can mislead, since a Japanese user may well search a Japanese word.

Queries in this category returned a mean of 20.5 apps out of a possible 25, the smallest result set in the basket (the median category returned about 22.5). A thinner result list means fewer apps compete for the phrase, but it also means the top 10 is a larger share of everything on offer, so each slot carries more weight. In the US, 10.0% of results were Utilities apps, which fits phrases such as "video downloader" that sit on the border between categories.

• Pick a lane, not the whole category. Moving from "video editor" (62.5) to "slideshow maker" (25.0) cuts mean difficulty by more than half, though its mean volume falls too, from 76.8 to 39.3. A narrow function is easier to describe in a name or subtitle; see choosing keywords you can rank for.
• Screens decide what ranking is worth. In a category where a user compares several similar apps, the first screenshots do much of the converting; screenshots that convert is the companion read.
• AI wording is competitive already. "Ai photo" scored difficulty 47 on average, and over 50 in the US, Japan and Brazil. It is a recent head term, so check it before you build a title around it.
• Mind the neighbours. A logo or sticker tool may fit Graphics & Design better than Photo & Video, and an organiser or scanner may belong in Productivity. Apple asks you to select the most appropriate category (Guideline 2.3.5), and it may change the category if yours is far off.

None of this implies that a keyword causes the rating counts around it. The table records what the top 10 looked like for each phrase on one day.

We queried the iTunes Search API for 936 category phrases (entity=software, limit=25) and analysed the top 10 results, which gives 36 queries and 360 slots for Photo & Video. The category mapping is approximate; see the research methodology, the research hub and how we measure. Data: category CSV.

LocalASO is a Mac app that computes the same kind of volume and difficulty estimate for any keyword in 52 storefronts, in each storefront's own language. It is a one-time $29 purchase, and the free download needs a license key to run. See pricing.