Keywords in ASO: Track and Optimize Your App’s Visibility

Keywords in ASO.dev is a powerful tool for analyzing and optimizing your app’s visibility in the App Store.

This screen collects and displays key metrics for all important keywords, including their positions, difficulty, search popularity (SAP - Search Ads Popularity), and the number of apps competing for these keywords.

Data visualization in the form of tables and charts makes it easy to evaluate the performance of keywords across different countries and time periods, allowing you to make informed decisions to improve your app’s rankings and attract more users.

How it works

Time range selection

ASO.dev allows you to select different time ranges:

7 days
30 days
60 days
week - current week
month - current month from the 1st

Row selection and bulk actions

In each keywords table, you can select one or multiple rows using the checkboxes on the left side of each row.
This allows you to perform bulk actions with the selected keywords, such as exporting selected rows to Excel, adding selected keywords to your project’s Keywords List, or removing them.
This greatly simplifies the handling of large datasets.

Search and filter

ASO.dev provides the ability to search and filter data by various parameters such as ranking, difficulty, popularity, and the number of apps.
Filters and sorting options are located in the header of each column.
You can resize the columns, rearrange them, or hide them for more convenient work.

Main data

The table contains a lot of data, but when you hover over any value, a tooltip will appear.

Keywords

Each keyword in the table is highlighted in color based on your app’s metadata, considering Cross-localization:

Green: Keywords in the title
Orange: Keywords in the subtitle
Yellow: Keywords in the keywords field
Red: Missing ranking for keywords

Under each keyword in a language unfamiliar to you, a machine translation is displayed.

Top apps by keyword - chart button

The chart button next to each keyword opens the ranking of apps for that keyword in the search results.

Keywords List - flag button

The flag button next to each keyword allows you to add the keyword to your project’s Keywords List or exclude it.

The button on the “Keywords” column works as a filter and allows you to quickly check positions based on your Keywords List.

Suggestions - lightbulb button

The lightbulb button shows the number of suggestions for that keyword.
This is useful for filtering out branded keywords or rarely used search terms.
By analyzing the number of suggestions, you can determine how often this word is used by users and adjust your strategy accordingly.

High number of suggestions: This means the keyword is frequently used by users in search queries. Such words may be important to include in your strategy as they have high traffic potential. However, be mindful of branded keywords, which can generate many suggestions but may not be relevant to your app.
Low number of suggestions: This indicates that the keyword is rarely used in searches. These words may be less competitive but should be justified—if they match your app’s content and target audience, you can include them in your strategy to attract niche users.

Search Ads Popularity (SAP)

Search Ads Popularity (SAP) reflects how often users search for a particular keyword.
The higher the popularity, the more traffic that keyword can generate, but competition for it will also be higher.

Tapping on the SAP value opens an alert with the complete history of Search Ads Popularity for selected keyword.
This allows you to track keyword performance trends over time, giving you valuable insights to refine your ASO strategy.

Search Ads Popularity can also indicate how often advertisers use a particular keyword in their ad campaigns.
It shows how frequently app developers bid on this keyword in paid ad networks, such as Apple Search Ads, to increase the visibility of their apps.
High popularity may indicate that the keyword is in demand among advertisers, increasing the competition for it in paid campaigns.

High popularity: From 61 to 100. High traffic, but also high competition; best suited for well-known apps with sufficient resources for promotion.
Medium popularity: From 21 to 60. A balance between traffic and competition, suitable for steady app growth.
Low popularity: Up to 20. Suitable for niche keywords with less competition but lower traffic.
No data: Below 5. Popularity is unknown.

Difficulty

The difficulty metric measures the level of competition for each keyword.
This helps you understand how hard it is to achieve a higher ranking for a specific keyword compared to others. A higher difficulty score indicates more competition.

Number of apps

The total number of apps metric shows the number of apps currently ranking for the relevant keyword.
This gives you an idea of the competition and how many apps are targeting the same keyword.

Trend

Trend is the difference between the average value over the selected interval (excluding drops from rankings) and the current value.
Blue indicates an increase, while red shows a drop in rankings.

It shows how the keyword’s ranking in search results has changed compared to its average position over a specific time period, helping to assess whether its performance is improving or declining.

Keyword rankings

The ranking shows the position of the keywords in the search results in the app store.
Next to it, at the top of the table cell, is the difference from the previous day: a blue arrow indicates growth, and a red arrow shows a drop in positions.
A gray dot and a red number in the date column represent the SAP popularity value.

Average keyword ranking

This metric shows the average ranking position for a keyword.
The chart displays how your app’s position for a specific keyword has changed over time, allowing you to quickly assess trends and determine if your search visibility is improving or declining. The chart shows the minimum, maximum, and average positions for each keyword.
If a keyword drops out of the rankings, a ”?” is displayed instead of the minimum position.

Data display options

Table by country (for all dates and keywords)

In this view, the columns represent dates, and the rows represent keywords for one country.
This allows users to analyze the performance of keywords in different countries over time.

Chart by country (for all dates)

The chart shows the distribution of keywords by search positions in the App Store for all keywords on each date for one country.
It also shows the change in the number of keywords in each category over the entire period.

Top 1 - 1st position
Top 5 - positions 2 to 5
Top 10 - positions 6 to 10
Top 20 - positions 11 to 20
Top 50 - positions 21 to 50
Top 100 - positions 51 to 100
Total number of keywords

With a mini-chart for each keyword category, showing the change in positions over time.
Red indicates a decline, blue an increase, and gray no change in keyword count.
The chart shows the minimum, maximum, and average number of positions for each keyword category.

Hovering over the chart displays the exact number of keywords in each category, as well as the change in quantity compared to the previous day.

Table for a specific date (for all countries and keywords)

In this view, the columns represent countries, and the rows represent keywords.
The table provides insight into the performance of keywords in different countries on a specific date.

Chart for a specific date (for all countries and keywords)

The chart shows the distribution of keywords by search positions in the App Store for all keywords by country for a given date.
It also shows the number of keywords in each category and the change compared to the previous day.

Top 1 - 1st position
Top 5 - positions 2 to 5
Top 10 - positions 6 to 10
Top 20 - positions 11 to 20
Top 50 - positions 21 to 50
Top 100 - positions 51 to 100
Total number of keywords

Table by keyword (for all countries and dates)

In this view, the table shows columns representing dates and rows representing countries.

You can also rotate it so that the columns display countries, and the rows show dates.
This view allows users to evaluate keyword performance on different dates for a specific country or vice versa.

Chart by keyword (for all countries and dates)

The chart shows changes in keyword rankings for several countries over time.
This allows you to compare how keywords performed in different countries and how their effectiveness changed over time.
Each line on the chart shows how the ranking of a keyword changed in a specific country over time.