Localizing for the European App Stores: country by country

You already have an English listing and want more installs from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the Nordics and neighbors without translating everything at once.

• Too many languages. Which two or three give the most reach for your category?
• Shared languages, separate ranks. German is used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the top 10 can differ in each.
• Required localized fields. Keywords are a required property that can be localized, and the name is localized too, so every language you add is a separate piece of work.
• Time. Rank checks for many countries are slow, because Apple limits public search.

1. Add your app and rivals that are strong in Europe as Competitor.
2. Open localization and select a first batch of countries: for example Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Keywords are adapted to local phrases and checked in each store.
3. Let the sweep run. For 15 keywords in 30 countries LocalASO documents about 15 to 20 minutes; the cells you look at are checked first.
4. On the board, rank markets by how many Push keywords you have and how Hard the rest are. Expand where Push keywords cluster.
5. Use Optimize for the winners. Each language is handled separately, with name, subtitle and keyword field.
6. Have a native reader check the text, then paste or upload as a draft.

The which languages guide and the App Store localizations tool help pick the language list, and the locale codes tool maps countries to App Store Connect locales.

• No translation service for screenshots and app text. It proposes metadata; creatives are separate work.
• No legal or privacy review for each country.
• Estimates, not Apple search counts for volume and difficulty.
• No Google Play.

Put the countries you checked in a short table with three columns: how many Push keywords you have, how many keywords are Hard, and how many ratings the apps ahead of you carry in the Losing to list. A country where you already rank 4 to 20 for several terms needs a small text change to move up, while a country where every keyword is Hard needs a different angle or a later start. Treat the result as a ranking of effort, not a forecast of downloads, because volume and difficulty are estimates. Write the table down with the date, so a later re-check shows what your first batch of changes did.

Choose one language group, check two countries in it, and ship. Download LocalASO or see pricing. If one market stands out, read the single-country routine for Germany. Marketers who brief developers can follow the marketer workflow, and Mac developers the Mac app routine.