RankASOBlog
I'm Sam. I make Escape, an adult content blocker that ranks number one on its terms in the App Store and sits above established brands like Quittr. People kept asking how, so I built RankASO and started writing the method down here: real ranks, real keyword fields, real numbers, with the date.
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Best ASO tools for indie developers in 2026
What the best ASO tool for a one-person studio has to do every day, where the usual dashboards fall short, and the iPhone app we built to close the gap.
November 4, 2026The ASO app for iPhone: App Store ranks on your phone
RankASO checks your App Store keyword ranks, rivals and keyword field every morning on your iPhone, with no account. What it does, and why the phone is the right place for the daily check.
November 4, 2026Free ASO tools that are actually free in 2026
How to run a complete ASO loop for an indie app without paying anyone, from your own App Store Connect numbers to a free daily rank tracker on your iPhone.
November 4, 2026Mac app or iPhone app for keyword tracking?
Where a desktop keyword tracker still wins, where the phone wins, and why the daily check belongs on the device you are holding at 8 a.m.
November 4, 2026ASO for one app: the setup that takes ten minutes
The exact ten-minute setup for an indie iOS app's ASO, from the first keywords to the first verdicts, so that tomorrow morning you already know what moved.
November 4, 2026A cheap ASO tool: what it must still do
Cheap is fine, cut is not. The six things an ASO tool has to do for an indie developer at any price, and the one that most low-cost tools quietly drop.
November 4, 2026ASO for a one-person studio: the weekly loop
The weekly ASO routine that fits around shipping an app alone: a Monday read, one field change per version, a baseline, and a two-week review. With our own app's numbers.
November 4, 2026What an ASO tool should cost, and when to pay
The pricing an indie developer should expect from an ASO tool: free until a real limit, paid at the point the work scales, no timer and no trial tricks. How RankASO's plans are built.
November 4, 2026ASO without an account: why RankASO collects nothing
RankASO has no sign-up, no server and an App Store privacy label of Data Not Collected. What that means for your keyword list, what leaves your iPhone, and what it costs us.
November 4, 2026How to get above your competitors in App Store search
A method for outranking competitor apps on the keywords that matter: read their rank beside yours every day, find the terms they own and you do not, pick the fights the top 10 says you can win, and defend what you hold.
November 4, 2026How to check your App Store keyword ranking, free
Two ways to check where your app ranks for a keyword, why the App Store app on your own phone can mislead you, and the three habits that make rank numbers mean something.
November 4, 2026App Store keyword research: how to pick keywords you can win
The three numbers that decide whether a keyword is worth your characters, popularity, difficulty and your current rank, and the verdict they produce. With one app's real terms.
November 4, 2026The App Store keyword field: what counts and what is wasted
Apple's 100-character keyword field, the rules that decide which words earn a rank, and one app's real field before and after, with the characters it got back.
November 4, 2026How to find your competitors' App Store keywords
A competitor's keyword field is private, but the terms it ranks for are public. The gap method: read their ranks on your terms, list the terms they hold and you do not, and read the words in their name and subtitle that do the work.
November 4, 2026Rank tracking after a metadata update: week by week
What happens to your App Store ranks in the days after you change the name, subtitle or keyword field, when to read the result, and how to record a baseline so the comparison is real.
November 4, 2026App Store ranking dropped? A three-check diagnosis
When a keyword rank falls, it is one of three things: you changed the listing, a rival changed theirs, or the term itself moved. How to tell which in a minute, and what to do for each.
November 4, 2026App not showing in App Store search: check these in order
Your app is live but a search does not find it. Five checks in order, from the storefront you are searching to a term the store filters, and how to see where you actually rank.
November 4, 2026App Store keyword ideas: five sources that are free
Where App Store keyword ideas actually come from: the store's own completions, your rivals' ranks, your reviews, your listing's own words combined, and the terms you rank for by accident.
November 4, 2026ASO keyword difficulty: how to read the top 10 before you fight
Keyword difficulty is the apps that hold the top 10 today. How to read their rating counts, the giants, and the words in their names, and turn that into a yes or no before you spend characters.
November 4, 2026App Store title and subtitle: the words that earn ranks
The name and subtitle carry the most weight in App Store search. How to find out which of their words earn a rank and which are idle, with our own app's name and subtitle as the worked example.
November 4, 2026Dead keywords: find the words in your field that earn nothing
A dead keyword is a word in your App Store keyword field that earns no rank on any term. How to find them with a field report, what to replace them with, and the three words we removed from our own field.
November 4, 2026Keywords for a first Apple Ads campaign: start from the terms you rank for
The best first keyword list for Apple Ads is the terms your app already ranks for organically, because the page is already proven to convert for them. How to export that list and what to leave out.
November 4, 2026Apple Search Ads cost for an indie app: how to set a ceiling
What Apple Search Ads costs is the wrong question; what you can afford per install is the right one. How to derive a cost-per-install ceiling from what a download earns, per country, before the first bid.
November 4, 2026Is Apple Ads worth it for a small app? The arithmetic
Whether Apple Ads pays for an indie app comes down to three numbers: what a download earns, what an install costs on your terms, and the organic lift you get for free. The worked arithmetic.
November 4, 2026Negative keywords for Apple Ads: the list that stops the waste
Most wasted Apple Ads spend goes to searches that share a word with your app but mean something else. The five categories of junk queries, with examples from our own campaigns, and how to build the list in an hour.
November 4, 2026Bidding on competitor keywords in Apple Ads: when it pays
Advertising on a competitor's brand name is allowed in Apple Ads, unlike using it in your listing. When it pays, when it burns money, and how to read the organic side of a brand term before you bid.
November 4, 2026Apple Ads by country: separate campaigns, separate ceilings
Why one global Apple Ads campaign loses money in the countries you cannot see, how to set a cost-per-install ceiling per country from your own proceeds, and how organic ranks per storefront tell you where to advertise at all.
November 4, 2026Product Page Optimization: your first screenshot test
How to run a first Product Page Optimization test on the App Store with two screenshot sets, what to vary, how long to wait, and the two sets we built for our own app, feature-led and outcome-led.
November 4, 2026App Store screenshots that convert: a seven-rule method
The seven design rules we settled on for App Store screenshots after rendering seven options for our own listing: phone lower, titles centred and large, one detail per frame, a ribbon across the first three, and no other app in sight.
November 4, 2026The seven-day cliff: a new app's ranks after launch
New apps and new versions get a short boost in App Store search, then fall back to where their listing earns. What the cliff looks like day by day, why it happens, and how to make the week count.
November 4, 2026Keyword goals: how to set a rank target you can hit
A keyword goal is a rank target with a date and a plan. How to pick terms where a goal is realistic, what the distance from 17 to the top 10 actually takes, and how to watch it close.
November 4, 2026A competitor left the App Store: what to do that week
When a rival app disappears from the store, its searches keep happening and its ranks go to whoever is next. How to see it the day it happens, which of its terms to claim, and what not to do.
November 4, 2026Localizing the keyword field: what each storefront reads
A storefront reads more than one locale's keyword field, which means a second locale is a second hundred characters in the same country. Which locales the US and Canadian stores read, and the ranks our own app earns through them.
November 4, 2026Which storefronts to track first, out of 175
The App Store is 175 storefronts and your ranks differ in each. How to pick the two to track on day one, how a World Check finds the surprise storefront, and why our own app's best market was not the one we assumed.
November 4, 2026How often to check App Store ranks, and why daily is honest
Ranks checked at random hours drift with your schedule; ranks checked weekly miss the week that mattered. Why once a day at the same hour is the cadence that makes a rank mean something.
November 4, 2026What is App Store Optimization? The indie version
App Store Optimization is choosing the words in your listing so that the store shows your app for the searches that matter, and measuring whether it did. The short version for a developer with one app and no marketing team.
November 4, 2026ASO checklist before you ship a version
Fifteen checks to run on the name, subtitle, keyword field and screenshots before every version that touches the listing, in the order they catch the most wasted characters.
November 4, 2026How App Store search works: what is indexed, what is not
The App Store indexes your name, subtitle and keyword field, matches them in combination, and ranks by relevance and performance per country. What is not indexed, and what that means for where your words go.
November 4, 2026Why your rank differs from what you see in the App Store app
The App Store you see on your own phone is personalised, so your app often looks a place or two higher than it is. What a tracker reads instead, and which of the two numbers to trust for a decision.
November 4, 2026Missed days and missing data: why a rank is never faked
A day without a check is a gap, not a number. Why a rank tracker that fills gaps lies politely, what a missed day looks like in RankASO, and what to do when the store does not answer.
November 4, 2026Two kinds of popularity numbers, and how RankASO labels them
Every keyword's popularity in RankASO is either the app's own estimate or Apple's figure from your Apple Ads account, and the badge says which. What changes when you connect, and why the two are never mixed.
November 4, 2026A year of rank history on your phone
Where RankASO keeps your rank history, how it gets to a new iPhone, how to take it with you as CSV or JSON, and why a year of daily checks is small enough to live on the device.
November 4, 2026Reading a top-10 wall: what the apps above you tell you
The ten apps holding a term today are the most useful data in ASO. How to read their ratings, names and churn to decide whether a term is open, held, or a wall, in one minute per term.
November 4, 2026Brand, generic and intent keywords: a vocabulary for ASO
Every App Store search term is one of three kinds, brand, generic or intent, and each kind is won differently. The three families with our own app's terms as examples, and where each belongs in a listing.
November 4, 2026The keyword mixer: phrases from the words you already own
The App Store matches any combination of the words in your name, subtitle and keyword field, so fifteen words cover dozens of phrases. How to find the phrases you already own, the one word that unlocks ten more, and the ones to track.
November 4, 2026Review phrases: what your reviewers tell you to rank for
Your reviews are written in the vocabulary of the people who have not found you yet. How to mine them for keywords, which phrases to keep, and the three words our own reviewers gave us.
November 4, 2026The release-impact view: one version against the last
The only honest way to judge a listing change is seven days of ranks before the version beside seven days after, term by term. What the release-impact view shows, how to read it, and the three outcomes it produces.
November 4, 2026ASO glossary: thirty terms, one line each
The vocabulary of App Store Optimization defined in one line each, from keyword field and storefront to difficulty, verdict, gap and the seven-day cliff, with a link to the post that goes deeper.
November 4, 2026The visibility score: one number for how much demand you hold
Thirty ranks across two storefronts is too many numbers for a morning. The visibility score folds them into one, weighted by each term's demand, so a glance says whether the listing is gaining or losing. What it is, what moves it, and what it is not.
November 4, 2026Escape, in public: one indie app's ASO, month by month
A running case study of our own app's App Store Optimization, with the real ranks, the real keyword field and the real decisions, updated as the versions ship. Every number here is tracked in RankASO and dated.
November 4, 2026