Common Keyword Mistakes: iTunes Connect

The 100 character keyword field is one of the most powerful App Store Optimization tools. A well-researched keyword list can be the difference between 3 and 3,000 daily downloads. The keyword list helps some apps and cripples others. Let’s review some of the most common iTunes Connect keyword mistakes.

Less than 100 characters:

iTunes Connect allows developers 100 characters of keywords, use them! If you’re not using all 100 characters, that’s your first (major) mistake. Make sure to fill out as many keywords as you possibly can (while keeping them relevant to your app).

Title, Repeats, and Spaces:

For this, let’s use an example. Say we have a diet app, and we call it:

Cool Carb Diet

and we use the following keywords:

best diet, carb diet, healthy diet, fast, weight loss, low carb, no carb, healthy, foods, quick, the

There are some issues with this… Firstly, the spaces. By eliminating spaces, we’ve freed up 10 more characters to use. Next, the repeats. This is the most common mistake we’ve seen from developers. If it’s in your title, don’t use it in keywords, if it’s a keyword, don’t use it in your title. To free up even more room room in the keywords field, try adding a keyword or two into your app’s title. Let’s give it a try:

Cool Carb Diet – Fast, Healthy Weight Loss

We no longer need to use “carb”, “fast”, “healthy”, “weight” and “loss” in our keywords. Now, let’s rewrite our keyword list excluding repeats, and those in the title:

best,low,no,foods,quick,the

Our new list is 27 characters. We have an additional 73 characters of keywords to maximize our search visibility.

Keyword Relevancy:

Use keywords that apply to your app. Just because a keyword has no search results, or only 2 other apps, doesn’t mean people want to find your app. If people are looking for something unrelated to your app, just because you’re first doesn’t mean you’ll get downloads. The real key to good keyword optimization is finding the keywords that are highly searched, and low competition.

Hopefully, this guide helps you to avoid common keyword mistakes. Keyword relevancy and finding those “hidden” keywords is the hardest part of ASO. The good news is that here at The ASO Project, we’ve developed technology that does exactly that. Our proprietary technology and algorithm allow us to find those keywords that are heavily searched and underutilized by your competition. Interested in learning more about how we do this, and how we can produce organic downloads for your app? Contact us for a free consultation or read more about app store optimization.

If you’re attending Casual Connect in San Francisco, be sure to check out the presentation by our CMO, Blake Pollack, when he speaks on the topic “ASO or Bust!: When Discoverability is Everything” on Thursday, August 13th at 2:00 PM.