Zero-Click Search Is Killing Your Traffic — Here’s How to Adapt (2026)
Your rankings are fine, but your traffic is falling — zero-click search is why. In 2026, most Google queries end without a…
Free Tool
ASO Keyword Planner
Plan your App Store and Google Play listing — keyword placement, density, character limits, and platform-specific tips, scored against ASO best practices.
Fill in your title, subtitle, primary keyword and description to see your ASO analysis.
App Store Keyword Research: Score Your Listing Before You Publish
An app with excellent features and a badly optimised listing does not grow. Users find apps by searching, and the store matches those searches against your metadata — your title, subtitle, keyword field, and description. Get those wrong and your app is invisible regardless of quality.
This ASO keyword planner scores your listing against documented best practices before you publish, so you are not resubmitting every three weeks to test a guess.
What It Checks
Keyword placement. Where your primary keyword appears across title, subtitle, and description. Title placement carries the most weight on both platforms.
Character limits. App Store title and subtitle are 30 characters each; Google Play allows 50 for the title. Exceeding them means truncation in the exact place users are reading.
Keyword density. What percentage of your description is your primary keyword, targeting the 1–3% range. Above that risks tripping spam filters; below it wastes ranking potential.
Readability. A Flesch Reading Ease score on your description, because easier descriptions convert better.
Analysis updates in real time as you type, so you can test phrasings without submitting anything.
iOS and Google Play Work Differently
Select App Store, Google Play, or both, and the scoring adjusts — because the two platforms index differently.
iOS has a hidden keyword field separate from your visible text, and weights title and subtitle heavily. Repeating a keyword you have already placed in the title wastes characters in that field.
Google Play has no hidden field and indexes the full visible description, leaning more on engagement signals alongside it.
Writing one listing and pasting it to both platforms wastes the advantage each one offers.
Finding Keywords Worth Targeting
Start with what users actually type, not what you call your product internally. Check competitor apps in your category. Use store search autocomplete — it reflects genuine search behaviour.
Then balance breadth and intent. Broad two-word terms carry volume and heavy competition. Long-tail terms of four or more words have lower volume and considerably higher conversion intent, because someone searching that specifically knows what they want.
A good listing covers both: broad terms in the title, long-tail in the description.
A Realistic Example: A Fitness App Before Launch
An indie developer is publishing a workout tracker. His title is the app name alone, and his description mentions "fitness tracker" eleven times in 200 words.
He runs it through the planner with the platform set to Both. The score flags two problems: the primary keyword is absent from the title entirely, and the density is far above the healthy range.
He rewrites the title to include the keyword, spreads mentions naturally through a longer description, and uses the iOS keyword field for secondary terms rather than repeating what is already in the title.
Same app, same features, published with a listing that can actually be found.
Results Take Weeks, Not Days
Setting expectations correctly matters. After you update a listing, stores re-index within hours to a few days, and ranking movement often shows within a week — but the full effect usually takes two to four weeks.
Ratings, reviews, and download velocity also feed ranking, so keyword optimisation is necessary rather than sufficient. Do it properly, then keep asking satisfied users to rate the app.
Who Uses It
Indie developers preparing a first launch. Product managers updating a live listing. Growth teams testing keyword strategies. Freelance ASO consultants showing clients a before-and-after score. Name the app with the App Name Generator, write the listing with the App Store Description Generator, and prepare assets with the App Icon Generator. Our mobile app development team builds and launches apps end to end.
Score Your Listing Now
Publishing an unoptimised listing means waiting weeks to learn it was wrong. Paste your title, subtitle, and description above and fix the placement before you submit.
