App Store Keyword Research Checklist

1. Write the problem and the solution in the words a user would type, not in your internal language. See finding keywords for a new app.
2. Add phrases from search hints for each seed word.
3. Add phrases from your reviews and competitors' reviews; see keyword ideas from reviews.
4. Add the name and subtitle words of the three closest competitors; see finding competitor keywords.
5. Optionally run an AI brainstorm and filter it; see AI keyword ideas.

6. Search each phrase and read the top 10. Drop phrases that return a different kind of app.
7. Note rating counts in the top 10 for each phrase.
8. Get an estimate of demand: popularity from Apple Ads, or a tool's volume score. Both are estimates, not search counts.
9. Check the phrases in each country you target; one storefront is not all of them.
10. Remove competitor names, trademarks and irrelevant terms. Apple prohibits them in the keyword field. See avoiding keyword stuffing rejection.

11. Score the survivors on relevance, volume, difficulty and current rank; see prioritizing keywords.
12. Name: up to 30 characters, brand plus one phrase; see name keyword strategy.
13. Subtitle: up to 30 characters, new words that read well; see subtitle keyword strategy.
14. Keyword field: up to 100 bytes, comma separated, no spaces after commas, each keyword longer than two characters, with no words already in name, subtitle or category; see what to put in the keyword field.
15. Count bytes, not characters, especially for non-Latin text; see using every byte.

16. Record the date, the old and new text, and a control keyword in a change log.
17. Submit the change. Apple says updated app information may take up to 24 hours to appear.

18. Record rank daily for the changed and control keywords for at least two weeks; see tracking keyword rankings.
19. Compare with App Analytics search downloads; see measuring in App Analytics.
20. Review after a month: keep Push keywords, replace dead ones (spotting dead keywords), and add the next candidates.

Keep these in front of you while you work. The free keyword field checker and metadata limits cheat sheet check them for you.

Run the checklist again after each release, and once per new country. The research is not a one-time task: competitors change their text, ratings change and new phrases appear.

If you work alone, split the checklist over three sessions: collection and checks in the first, choosing and placing in the second, and the log and tracking set-up in the third. If a designer or writer helps with the listing, give them phases 3 and 4 only, with the final keyword list and the limits table. This keeps the research in one head and the text work with the person who writes best.

LocalASO covers phases 2, 3 and 5 on one board: rank, volume, difficulty, verdict and daily history for every keyword and country. Numbers are estimates from public search results and rating counts. See the keyword research docs, Optimize and the full keyword research guide.