Guides
How to get your app found, what your competitors change and what their users write, what your own users ask for, what came after each change you shipped, and whether anyone searches for the next idea before you build it.
New app, and nobody finds it? Start with Why your app doesn't show up in App Store search.
Getting found
How someone searching the App Store finds an app, and what decides where yours appears.
- Why your app doesn't show up in App Store search
A new app goes missing from search because it is brand new, because you searched another country's store, or because its listing gives Apple nothing to match.
- How to pick App Store keywords
Two questions pick a keyword: do people type it, and can you win it. Apple's search suggestions answer the first. The apps already ranking answer the second.
- App name, subtitle and keyword field: what to put in each
Name, subtitle and keyword field hold 30, 30 and 100 characters, and Apple's search reads all three. What goes in each, and five ways characters go to waste.
- How long App Store Optimization takes to move your rankings
New keywords go live with your next version, then positions move for weeks. How to tell a real climb from the two-place wobble every keyword has.
- Why your app ranks differently in every country's App Store
Each country's App Store has its own search results, so a rank at home says little about the next country. Why they differ, and how to check another store.
- What your App Store screenshots should show, and in what order
Your first screenshots show in search results, so for many people they are the whole pitch. Here is what to show first, and the same pictures for social posts.
Your competition
What the apps beside yours change, and what their users write about them.
- What people want from an app like yours, in your competitors' 1 and 2 star reviews
People write down what they expect from an app like yours, in public. The 1 and 2 star reviews say what is missing, the 5 star ones what yours has to match.
- How to track what your competitors change in the App Store
A competitor's listing changes in five places anyone can see: version and release notes, price, title, screenshots and description. Keep a dated record.
Your own users
What the people who already have your app are asking for.
- What your users are asking for in your App Store reviews
Your reviews sit in a separate list for each country. A word that keeps coming back is the ask, and a version or a country can show where a fault lives.
What came after a change
How to tell what followed an update, a price change or new screenshots.
- Did your last app update help? How to read what came after
Ranks, ratings and downloads move for many reasons. Read the stretch from one change to the next, with its dates, and you see what came after each change.
Before you build
How to tell whether anyone is looking for the app you have in mind.
- How to check whether anyone searches for your app idea before you build
The App Store's search box completes what shoppers start typing. Its suggestions, and the apps holding those searches today, show who you would be next to.
Working for clients
How to show a client what was done for their app, in facts they can check.
- How to show a client what you did for their app
A client can check ranks, ratings and reviews themselves. A report of dated changes, each with what came after it, is a report they can check and believe.