Your app name matters: here’s how to choose it

Your app name does matter.

There you go. The answer you were ready to scroll to the bottom of this post for.

But if you’re a smart developer or marketer, you’re going to want to know more: Why does my app name matter?

Let’s discuss the 2 major reasons your app name matters and break them down into actionable advice:

Step 1: Be memorable

Having a super generic app name makes it harder to get found. For example, there are hundreds of travel planner apps. So, calling your app, Travel Planner, may make sense for your keywords but won’t guarantee that you rank top 10.

Instead of going the generic route, try being memorable. You need something catchy and, more importantly, easy to say and spell.

Here are a few ways to research/test your app name to make sure you’re on the right track:

• Search it in the App Store, Google web and the Google Play Store to check for competition, negative sentiment and copyright infringement.
• Introduce the idea to 10 people and ask how they think it’s spelled (FNDRmag might look cool on a t-shirt but people will certainly type “founder magazine” when asked to find your app
• KISS – keep it simple, stupid. Don’t overcomplicate your name to the point people think your hypothetical virtual reality runner’s app, “RnAr” app is two periodic table elements!  … (Radon and Argon for my science geeks out there)
• Keep it positive – no one likes hearing negative sounding words or worse, ones that invoke a sense of sickness or fear (unless maybe you have a horror game)
• Stay away from caps lock – app names should be legible in sentence case NOT SHOUTING AT YOU IN ATTEMPTS TO GAIN YOUR ATTENTION! Come on, you can be better than that.

Step 2: Money in the rank

The next step is to supplement your phonetically friendly name like “SliceLine” with ASO keyword benefits. Having a unique name is great, but more than likely you’re not getting additional keyword rankings from it. So the key is to utilize the full 30 (50 on Google Play) character limit to maximize visibility. You need to include your target keyword or phrase within your app title on the app stores.

What’s that? Your brand division is screaming at you about diluting your brand equity?

Marketers, don’t fear.

Your brand name can remain untarnished out in the world and on the web. You just need to include extra text on the app store product listing to make sure you have a chance at ranking for your target keyword or phrase.

Take the previous example: SliceLine, a hypothetical pizza delivery app.

While it’s a great rhyme scheme based perhaps on a popular travel search engine, it does nothing in terms of telling the user what the app is for. It won’t show up in search results based off of queries like: “pizza delivery” or “pizza tracker”, the two main functions of the fictional app.

And even if someone did stumble upon old SliceLine, the name doesn’t do much to hint at its functionality.

Instead try something like this: “SliceLine – Pizza Delivery”.

The key here is to create a brand that people love to say, see and hear about all the while optimizing your app name to help get you found in search. Follow these above tips and you’ll be an app name pro in no time!

Need help optimizing your app name and title?

Contact our team of App Store Optimization specialists today!