Keyword research for the US App Store is well-documented. There are guides, tools, and enough English-language content about it that most developers at least know where to start.
Keyword research for international markets is a different problem. The tools behave differently, the search behavior is different, and the strategies that work in English often don't translate — sometimes literally.
This guide covers how to approach App Store keyword research specifically for non-English markets, from the tools you need to what to do with the data once you have it.
Why International Keyword Research Is Different
When you research keywords for the US App Store, you're working in a language you understand. You can read the search suggestions, evaluate whether a keyword makes sense for your app, and judge the quality of competitor titles intuitively.
For Japanese, German, French, Korean, or Arabic markets, most developers don't have that intuition. You can use a keyword tool, but you can't always tell if the keywords it surfaces are the right ones, whether a suggested term is actually what users type, or whether the competitor copy you're reading is well-written or machine-translated garbage.
The process requires more verification and more reliance on data signals over intuition. Here's how to do it.
Step 1: Choose a Tool with Per-Market Data
Not all keyword tools support international App Store data equally. The ones that do it well:
AppTweak — the strongest per-market keyword database for most non-English App Stores. You can search keywords by country, see search volume scores, difficulty ratings, and competitor rankings per locale. Paid plans start around $60/month.
ASOdesk — good for European markets and strong Google Play data. Similar pricing to AppTweak.
AppFollow — solid keyword research with market-specific filters. Slightly more affordable entry point.
Astro — lighter tool, better for tracking rankings than discovery. Free tier available. Good for monitoring after you've done the research.
Free tier limits on all these tools are restrictive. For serious international research across 5+ markets, you need a paid plan.
If you don't have budget for a tool right now, there's a manual method — covered below.
Step 2: Don't Start with English Keywords
The most common mistake: taking your English keyword list, translating each term, and using those as your international keywords.
This fails because search behavior doesn't translate. The way a German user describes a productivity app isn't the German equivalent of how an American user describes one. Different vocabulary, different idioms, different level of formality, different category terminology.
Start from the target language directly:
- Open your keyword tool and set the country to your target market (e.g., Japan, Germany)
- Think of your app's core function and search for it in that language — or use the tool's category browse to find terms in that space
- Look at what competitors are ranking for in that locale — not what you think they should rank for
The goal is to find what users actually type, not what you would type if you were German.
Step 3: Evaluate Keywords by Three Signals
For each keyword you find, evaluate it on:
Search volume — how many users search this term per month in this App Store. Tools express this differently (some use raw numbers, some use indexed scores like 0–100). Higher is better, but volume alone isn't enough.
Keyword difficulty — how competitive the term is. A high-volume, low-difficulty keyword is the ideal: lots of searches, few well-optimized competitors. In international markets, these are more common than in the US because fewer apps are properly localized.
Relevance — does this keyword actually match what your app does? A keyword with great volume and low difficulty is useless if your app doesn't deliver what the user is searching for. Irrelevant keyword rankings produce downloads that immediately uninstall, which harms your behavioral signals.
The sweet spot: moderate-to-high volume, low difficulty, high relevance.
Step 4: Run a Competitor Keyword Gap Analysis
This is the most valuable step and the one most developers skip because it takes time.
Pick the top 3 apps in your category for the target market. For each one:
- Look at their title and subtitle — what keywords are they leading with?
- Use your tool's "keywords this app ranks for" feature to see their full ranking footprint in that locale
- Note which high-volume terms they rank for that your app doesn't appear for at all
Those gaps are your opportunity. If the #1 competitor ranks for "Einschlafhilfe" in Germany and you don't even appear in the top 200, that's a keyword your optimized metadata can target — and if it's low difficulty, you can potentially outrank them with a well-placed keyword in your title or subtitle.
Competitor gap analysis in international markets is often more productive than in the US because:
- Fewer apps are properly localized, so gaps are larger
- The top-ranked apps often have English keywords taking up space in their international metadata, which means they're ranking on brand strength, not keyword optimization
- A focused localization can leapfrog established competitors who've never invested in per-market research
Step 5: Map Keywords to Metadata Fields
Once you have a keyword list for a market, map each term to the field where it belongs:
Title (30 characters): Your single highest-priority keyword for this market. The term with the best combination of volume, difficulty, and relevance. Put it as early in the title as possible.
Subtitle (30 characters): Your second-priority keyword. Can be a modifier of the title keyword, a secondary use case, or a high-intent term ("free", "no subscription", a specific feature name).
Keyword field (100 characters): All remaining keywords, space-separated, no commas. Don't repeat words already in your title or subtitle. Apple already indexes those — duplicating them wastes character budget. Fill to as close to 100 characters as possible without going over.
One common mistake: using full phrases in the keyword field when individual words would cover more ground. "habit tracker daily routine" as a phrase wastes characters. "habit tracker daily routine" as individual space-separated words lets Apple combine them in any order, covering more potential searches.
The Manual Method (No Tool Required)
If you don't have access to a paid keyword tool, you can get approximate data manually:
- Open the App Store on your iPhone
- Change your App Store region to the target country (Settings → Your Name → Media & Purchases → View Account → Country/Region)
- Search for your category terms in the local language and observe the autocomplete suggestions — these are what users actually search
- Look at the top-ranked apps in your category. Their titles and subtitles reveal what keywords are working in that market
- Search for those keywords and note how many well-optimized apps appear — this gives you a rough sense of difficulty
The manual method doesn't give you volume data, but it gives you real autocomplete suggestions and real competitor analysis. It's time-consuming but free.
How Often to Refresh International Keyword Research
Apple's search algorithm updates continuously, and search behavior shifts seasonally. A keyword strategy that works in Q1 may underperform by Q3.
For most indie apps, re-running international keyword research once every 6 months is enough to stay competitive. Use a ranking tracker to monitor your positions in the interim — a sudden drop in a market is usually a signal that a competitor has updated their metadata or Apple has shifted the ranking.
The Time Problem
Done properly, international keyword research for one market takes 4–6 hours. For 5 markets, that's 20–30 hours of research before you've written a single character of metadata.
Most indie developers don't have that time. They have an app to build, bugs to fix, user feedback to address. The keyword research either doesn't happen, or it happens badly — a quick translation job that leaves the international keyword field worse than blank.
LocalizeRank does this research for you. Per-market keyword analysis, competitor gap identification, and a ready-to-paste Google Sheet for every locale — starting at $49 for 5 markets.