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How to pick ASO keywords (search score, difficulty, relevance)

Steve P. Young's thresholds for choosing ASO keywords — 6–10 relevant terms around search score 30 with low difficulty, no competitor brand terms — plus what search popularity scores actually mean.

Updated 2026-10-23·3 sources·asokeyword-researchsearch-scorekeyword-difficulty

How to pick ASO keywords (search score, difficulty, relevance)

TL;DR

  • Shortlist 6–10 relevant keywords with an Apple search popularity (“search ads”) score of ~30 (25–28 is fine; ≤20 is weak) and low difficulty (ASOMobile complexity < 3).12
  • You only need 2–3 to win; the rest are plan B and C if the first picks fail.1
  • Prefer keyword pairs that rank together (“brown noise” + “brown noise free”, both 35).3
  • Don’t target competitor brand names in ASO — searchers tap the brand; bid on them in Apple Ads instead.4
  • New app with no paid channel → long-tail; if the 30-score plan fails, drop to score-5 keywords and play quantity (The low-volume keyword quantity strategy (search score 5)).4
  • Don’t brainstorm keywords with ChatGPT — Steve found its suggestions often have zero App Store volume.5

Details

What the scores mean. Tools show Apple’s search popularity score; Apple never says how many searches a score equals.4 ASOMobile adds a “traffic score”, its estimate of users searching per day — useful as a barometer, not a count.6 (In late 2025 Apple’s scores were briefly broken — many tools showed 5 for everything — and were fixed by November 2025.)7

Steve’s calibration. Bands: 20–30 = lower traffic but winnable; 40–60+ = competitive.8 Two keywords at score ~30 ranked #1 brought one app to ~100 downloads/day.9 A client launched in 2023 reached ~150 downloads/day and $1,600 in sales in the first 22 days purely from App Store search by ranking #1 for two ignored keywords.10

Selection procedure.

  1. Pull candidate keywords from competitors’ indexed terms (Mining competitors' keywords and listing history (ASOMobile workflow)).
  2. Filter: relevant to what the app does, score ≥ ~30 (or ≥20 when starting out), complexity < 3.128
  3. Verify difficulty manually in the App Store (Checking keyword difficulty by reading the actual search results) — tools are sometimes wrong.11
  4. Place winners in title/subtitle of US + Spanish (Mexico) (Where to put keywords in App Store and Google Play metadata).12
  5. Start with lower-difficulty terms and work up to higher-traffic ones as the app gains authority.8

Dos and don’ts (Feb 2026). Do: relevant, higher-traffic terms if you can find them, in title/subtitle; long-tail when you have no paid traffic. Don’t: competitor brand terms — a Nike searcher downloads Nike.4

Disagreements / caveats

  • Score thresholds are Steve’s own calibration across his and client apps, and depend on category and storefront.
  • Even at score 30 the hard part in 2026 is finding uncontested terms; vibe-coded apps crowd every obvious niche.13

See also

Footnotes

  1. App Ideas That People Are Already Searching For (Steal This Strategy) @ 07:33 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. App Ideas That People Are Already Searching For (Steal This Strategy) @ 08:59 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2

  3. App Ideas That People Are Already Searching For (Steal This Strategy) @ 08:59 — Steve P. Young ↩

  4. App Store Optimization: The Proven ASO Framework for 2026 @ 08:50 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. The Most Important Element of App Store Optimization (ASO Keyword Research) @ 00:00 — Steve P. Young ↩

  6. The Most Important Element of App Store Optimization (ASO Keyword Research) @ 03:55 — Steve P. Young ↩

  7. The Most Important Element of App Store Optimization (ASO Keyword Research) @ 02:23 — Steve P. Young ↩

  8. The Most Important Element of App Store Optimization (ASO Keyword Research) @ 06:42 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. App Store Optimization: The Proven ASO Framework for 2026 @ 06:43 — Steve P. Young ↩

  10. App Store Optimization: The Proven ASO Framework for 2026 @ 05:34 — Steve P. Young ↩

  11. App Ideas That People Are Already Searching For (Steal This Strategy) @ 14:59 — Steve P. Young ↩

  12. App Store Optimization: The Proven ASO Framework for 2026 @ 07:37 — Steve P. Young ↩

  13. App Store Optimization: The Proven ASO Framework for 2026 @ 00:00 — Steve P. Young ↩