RankASOApp Store title and subtitle: the words that earn ranks
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The App Store name and subtitle are the sixty most valuable characters you own, because the store weighs them above the keyword field and shows them to every searcher. Every word in them either earns a rank somewhere or takes up space, and the field report in RankASO tells you which, word by word, from the ranks it already tracks. For our own app Escape, the name and subtitle alone hold six number-one terms, and exactly one word in the subtitle earns nothing. Here is how to read your own.
The name: the category phrase, once
Escape's name is "Escape - Adult Content Blocker". The brand word is first, the category phrase after it. The category phrase is doing the work: "adult content blocker" ranks first in the US, "content blocker" ranks first, and the combinations with the subtitle's words rank first too. The brand word on its own competes with a games genre, which is why we track a distinctive brand phrase separately.
The rule: brand, then the phrase a user would type to find an app like yours, in the words they would use. Not a tagline, not a second category.
The subtitle: the outcome and the second phrase
Escape's subtitle is "Quit Corn. Block Every Site." Four of its five words earn ranks: "quit" and "corn" carry "quit corn" at 11 and "corn blocker" and "block corn" at number one with the name; "block" and "site" carry "site blocker" at 17 and the "block adult" phrases. "every" earns nothing on any tracked term. It is the only idle word in sixty characters, and it stays only because the sentence reads better with it. That is a conscious trade, visible in the report.
The rule: the outcome a user wants, plus the second phrase you want to own, in words that combine with the name. Avoid words the store ignores ("app", "free", "best"), which cost characters and earn nothing.
How to read your own, in RankASO
- Track one term for each word in the name and subtitle, and the two-word phrases they make together. Thirty terms covers most listings.
- After the first daily check, open Studio. The field report lists every word with the tracked terms it earns a rank on and the best rank among them.
- A word with no term under it is idle. Either track a term that uses it, to be fair to it, or replace it next version.
- Change one thing per version: one word in the subtitle, or one in the name. Record the baseline, review at two weeks.
What a title change can and cannot do
The name and subtitle move ranks more than the field, and they also change conversion, because they are what a searcher reads. A phrase that earns a rank but reads like a keyword list loses the tap it earned. Escape's conversion from page view to download is about half, which is unusually high, and the name reading like an app rather than a search query is part of why. Read the field report for ranks and the product page views in App Store Connect for conversion, and change the title only when both say yes.
Where the field comes in
Once the name and subtitle carry the two phrases you most want, the keyword field is for the next fourteen words: the gaps rivals hold, the reviewers' vocabulary, the store's completions. The field, with Escape's real one.
Download on theApp StoreFree to start. No account. Data Not Collected.
Questions
Which matters more for ASO, the title or the keyword field?
The title (name) and subtitle. The store weighs them above the field and shows them to every searcher, so their words earn ranks and taps at once. The field adds the words that do not fit.
How do I know if a word in my subtitle is working?
Track terms that use it and read the field report: it lists each word with the tracked terms it earns a rank on. A word with nothing under it is idle.
Should I put keywords in my app name?
The one category phrase a user would type, after your brand. Not a list; a name that reads like a keyword list ranks and then fails to convert.