The slowest way to do ASO keyword research is starting from a blank page — brainstorming terms, guessing what users search, and building a list from nothing. It takes hours and produces a keyword list that's as much guesswork as it is data.
The fastest way is competitor keyword research: find the apps that are already ranking in your category, see exactly which keywords they rank for, and build your strategy around the gaps and opportunities their data reveals.
This process takes 15 minutes if you have the right tool, or 30–45 minutes with the manual method. Either way, you'll end the session with a concrete keyword list grounded in real App Store ranking data.
Here's the exact process.
What You're Looking For
The goal is to find three things:
Keywords your top competitors rank for that you don't. These are gaps in your current metadata. If the #1 app in your category ranks for "focus timer pomodoro" and you don't appear in the top 200 for that term, it's a candidate for your title, subtitle, or keyword field.
Keywords your competitors rank for with low difficulty. High-volume, low-competition terms that established competitors rank for by default are often easier for a new or smaller app to target than the primary category keyword. If the top app ranks #3 for a secondary term and that term has moderate volume and low difficulty, you may be able to outrank them with a targeted metadata change.
Terms your competitors are ignoring. Sometimes the most valuable keywords aren't what competitors rank for — they're what users search that no well-optimized app has targeted. These gaps are rarer but extremely valuable when you find them.
Method 1: Using a Keyword Tool (15 Minutes)
This method works with AppTweak, ASOdesk, AppFollow, or any ASO tool that has a "keywords this app ranks for" feature.
Step 1: Identify your top 3 competitors (2 minutes)
Search your primary category keyword in the App Store (or in your keyword tool). Note the top 3 apps that appear. These are your baseline competitors — the apps Apple already considers most relevant for that search space.
Step 2: Pull their keyword rankings (5 minutes)
In your keyword tool, look up each competitor app. Find the section that shows "keywords this app ranks for" — usually labeled something like "keyword rankings," "organic keywords," or "search visibility." Export or note the full list.
For each competitor, you're looking at every keyword they rank for in the top 50, along with the volume and difficulty score for each term.
Step 3: Cross-reference against your own rankings (3 minutes)
Look up your own app's keyword rankings in the same tool. Note which of your competitor's keywords you also rank for, and which you don't appear for at all.
The terms where competitors rank in the top 20 and you don't appear at all are your gap list.
Step 4: Filter and prioritize (5 minutes)
From your gap list, filter for:
- Volume above your threshold (depends on category, but generally exclude terms with very low search scores)
- Difficulty below your threshold (terms where the competition is weak enough that optimized metadata can realistically rank)
- Relevance to your app (only terms that genuinely match what your app does — irrelevant rankings hurt behavioral signals)
Sort by volume × (1/difficulty) × relevance. The top 5–10 terms are your candidate keywords. The highest-priority ones should be in your title and subtitle; the rest go in your keyword field.
Method 2: Manual Process (30–45 Minutes, No Tool Required)
If you don't have a paid keyword tool, this method uses only the App Store itself.
Step 1: Find your top 3 competitors
On your iPhone, search your primary category keyword in the App Store. Note the top 3 apps. Also look at the "You Might Also Like" section on your own listing — those apps are ones Apple considers similar to yours.
Step 2: Read their titles and subtitles carefully
The title and subtitle are the fields developers invest most heavily in — which means they reveal a competitor's most important keywords. Write down every distinct keyword you see across the titles and subtitles of your 3 competitors.
These are keywords that are working well enough in this category that a top-ranked app chose to spend its limited 60 characters on them.
Step 3: Search each of those keywords
For each keyword you found in competitor titles and subtitles, search it in the App Store. Observe:
- How many results appear?
- Do your 3 competitors appear near the top?
- Where does your app appear (if at all)?
- Are there many other well-optimized apps in the results, or just a few?
A keyword where your competitors rank top 5 and your app doesn't appear at all is a gap. A keyword where only 2–3 apps appear in results with decent optimization is a low-competition opportunity.
Step 4: Check autocomplete for variations
As you search each keyword, watch the autocomplete suggestions. These are related terms users actually search. Some of them may have lower competition than the exact term you started with.
Write down any autocomplete suggestions that look relevant and have different phrasing than terms you already have.
Step 5: Build your list
By now you have a list of terms from competitor titles/subtitles, plus autocomplete variations. For each term, you have a rough sense of competition from how many strong apps appeared when you searched it.
Prioritize the terms where: the competitor ranks well (validating that the keyword converts), but you don't appear (validating the gap), and the search results show relatively few well-optimized competitors (suggesting lower difficulty).
What to Do With the List
Once you have your prioritized keyword list, map each term to the right field:
Title: Your single highest-priority keyword. The term with the best combination of volume, difficulty, and relevance. Put it as early in the 30 characters as possible.
Subtitle: Your second-priority keyword. A term that complements the title keyword — either a related concept, a secondary use case, or a modifier that expands your search footprint.
Keyword field: All remaining candidates, space-separated, no commas, no repeating words from title or subtitle, filling as close to 100 characters as possible.
Submit the update and start tracking the keywords you targeted. Within 2–3 weeks, you'll see which positions you've gained and which need adjustment.
Doing This for International Markets
The same process applies to every locale you want to rank in — but the competitor landscape and keyword vocabulary are completely different per market.
Your top 3 competitors in the US App Store may not be the same apps that dominate in Japan or Germany. The keywords that work in English don't translate directly to German or Portuguese. Each market requires its own competitor analysis, run in that language.
This is where the time investment scales up fast. 15 minutes per market × 10 markets = 150 minutes of competitor research before you've written a single line of metadata. Add keyword mapping, copy writing, and character-limit fitting, and a full international localization project is easily 20–40 hours.
LocalizeRank does this research for you — competitor keyword gap analysis per market, in the target language, with a ready-to-paste Google Sheet for every locale. Starting at $49 for 5 markets.