Head term (ASO)

Head terms bring the largest audiences, so they look attractive. They also tend to have a top 10 full of apps with huge rating counts, which shows as a high keyword difficulty. LocalASO labels a keyword Hard when difficulty is 80 or more and you are not in the top 10. A new app targeting a Hard head term usually spends bytes with little return.

1. Check search volume and difficulty together.
2. Check your own rank. If you already sit at positions 4 to 20 and difficulty is below 80, the term may be worth a push.
3. If difficulty is very high and you are outside the top 10, move on to a neighbor term.

The app name and subtitle are limited to 30 characters each, so a head term there has to be short. In a hypothetical listing, "Streakly: Habit Tracker" puts the head term "habit tracker" in the name, where it carries the most weight with people reading it. The keyword field is better used for less obvious terms.

• Ignoring the head term completely when it is the natural name of your category.
• Using several variations of it across fields. See keyword cannibalization.

Apply the method in the keyword research guide.

A single keyword can be a head term or a long-tail one.