Free ASO Keyword Tool

How to read the three scores

Popularity tells you how much a term is searched relative to others. It comes from where Apple places the term in its own search suggestions, which is the closest public proxy for demand. It is a comparison scale, not a monthly volume, and it is deliberately shown that way rather than dressed up as a precise number.

Difficulty measures the apps already holding the term. Four things drive it: how many rank with the keyword in their title, how many reviews they carry, their average ratings, and whether recognizable publishers sit in the top slots. A term with three title matches and a median of 400 reviews is winnable. The same term with a median of 200,000 reviews is not, whatever the demand.

Opportunity multiplies demand by the room left: popularity discounted by difficulty. It is there to sort a list of candidates against each other, nothing more. When either input is missing it shows n/a rather than a zero, because an unknown term and an easy term are not the same thing.

Why keyword difficulty beats volume on the App Store

App Store Connect gives you one hundred characters of keywords, plus a name and a subtitle. That is the entire budget. On the web you can publish a hundred pages and chase a hundred terms, but here you get maybe five real bets, and every one you spend on a term you cannot win is a bet you do not get back.

This is why chasing the biggest number is the common mistake. Ranking twentieth on a high-demand term sends you nothing, because App Store search traffic collapses after the first few results. Ranking third on a quieter term with a clear intent sends real installs. A new app should be filling its field with terms under 35 difficulty and growing into the harder ones as its review base builds.

Look at who ranks before you commit. If the top ten are all apps with six-figure review counts, the keyword field will not move you, and the work belongs somewhere else: a sharper subtitle, a category with less pressure, or the screenshots that decide whether the people who do find you actually tap install.

Where to put the keywords once you have them

The app name carries the most weight, then the subtitle, then the keyword field. A term in your name is already indexed and does not need repeating in the field, which is the single easiest way to waste characters. Separate the field with commas and no spaces, since a space after a comma costs you a character for nothing.

Apple also combines your words. If you have "habit" and "tracker" in the field, you have a shot at "habit tracker" without spending the phrase itself. Singular and plural are handled, so pick one. Your category name and your developer name are indexed too, and do not belong in the field either.

Each country has its own field. A term that is impossible in the US store can be wide open in France or Korea with the same app, and the tool switches store per country for exactly that reason. Localizing metadata into markets where the competition is thinner is usually a bigger win than fighting for one more position at home.

Keywords get you seen, screenshots get you installed

Ranking is only the first half. Once someone finds your listing, the decision happens in the first two screenshots, before any scrolling. The industry average conversion from a store view to an install sits in the low tens of percent, which means most of the traffic your keywords earn walks away at the visual.

That is worth checking before pushing harder on keywords. If your listing converts at half the rate of the apps above you, doubling your visibility just doubles the number of people who bounce. Fixing the screenshots first makes every keyword win worth twice as much.