How to optimize an App Store listing

Optimizing an App Store listing means spending the three text fields Apple indexes, the app name, the subtitle and the 100 character keyword field, on words people search and on nothing else. Applyra does the reading: the ASO Health tab breaks your live listing down word by word, and the Metadata Simulator gives any draft the same breakdown before you submit it. You need a tracked iOS app and thirty minutes. Everything runs on the free plan, ten simulations a month, except the AI listing writer, which is part of Unlimited (see pricing).

Optimizing an App Store listing, in short:

1. Give Applyra your keyword field.
2. Open the breakdown of your live listing.
3. Work the findings, red first.
4. Replace every word that earns nothing.
5. Keep the terms you cannot win out of your title.
6. Score the draft in the Metadata Simulator, or let the AI writer propose one.
7. Ship one change, and decide on day 14.

The three fields that rank

The limits are per localization, and the counting rules are in metadata fields. The effects come from our study of real metadata changes: the title is the whole game, and the keyword field is insurance, since adding a word wins almost nothing and removing one costs real positions. Apple also reads the words on your screenshots, which screenshot captions covers.

1. Give Applyra your keyword field

Apple never publishes your keyword field, so until you provide it your listing is scored on two of its three indexed fields, and the ASO Health tab says Your keywords field is missing.

On an iOS app page, an App Store keywords card sits at the top until the field is set, and again when a new version makes the saved copy stale. Paste the field and save, and it is badged Manual. Or, under Import from App Store Connect, press Connect, give the dialog a Team key with the App Manager role (Issuer ID, Key ID and .p8 file) and press Verify & import: the field is badged Verified, and Applyra never writes anything back. Details in connecting App Store Connect.

2. Open the breakdown of your live listing

On the app page, open the ASO Health tab. It scores your live listing out of 100, with its band, and splits it into three sub-scores: Keyword coverage, Targeting fit and Store appeal. Your words move the first two. It is exactly what the Metadata Simulator shows for a draft, so everything below reads the same in both places.

Under the Simulate changes button there is often a line like "Or let our AI write it: 62 today, up to 81 from the text alone." The second number is the ceiling, the most any wording could reach on this listing. The gap between the two is what this guide can win; the rest sits in your rating, your screenshots and how recently you shipped, as ASO Health explains.

3. Work the findings, red first

Click a sub-score and What to do about it lists its findings, most severe first. Each card names the problem, what it costs, the words involved, and the fix in bold. Hover the icon for the priority: Fix this first on a red triangle, Worth doing next on an amber bulb, Good to know on a grey mark.

The findings that decide an App Store rewrite:

A finding about words still being measured asks nothing of you: the score sharpens on its own as data for that storefront comes in.

4. Replace every word that earns nothing

Keyword coverage opens on The detail behind the score: a card per indexed field, with the characters used, a nudge when there is room for another term, and the field's own score. Every word gets its Search demand and a Status:

Work the fields in store order: the title is credited first, the subtitle takes the next terms, and the keyword field gets what is left, as single words with no space after the commas. Apple recombines words across fields, so habit in the title and tracker in the keyword field already cover "habit tracker". Fill that field to the last character: nobody sees it, so every empty character is reach left on the table.

To find a replacement, press the magnifier at the end of a row. It opens the word in the Keywords Inspector on the same market, where Related Keywords lists the neighbouring terms with their scores. With no shortlist yet, start from choosing the keywords to target.

What good looks like: every word reads Earning, apart from your brand.

5. Keep the terms you cannot win out of your title

Targeting fit starts from your app's stage (Emerging, Growing or Established) and says how many of your terms are winnable at that stage today. Each searched term gets a verdict:

The finding to act on is Your title aims above your weight class. Trade the head term for a more specific variation you can win now, and move up as the app grows. A stretch in the keyword field costs far less, which is why the line above the table says whether the out of reach terms sit in your title.

6. Score the draft

Press Simulate changes. The Metadata Simulator opens on that app and market with your live text in the form and The app behind the listing underneath: rating, screenshots, last update, age. Each field counts characters the way the store does, and a draft App Store Connect would refuse, such as one with an emoji, is flagged before it is scored.

Make the changes from steps 3 to 5 and press Score this listing. The chip under the score gives the points gained or lost against your live listing, and each sub-score shows its own movement. Change a word, Score again, and stop when the red icons are gone. Every run is kept under Your scored listings. More in the metadata simulator.

On Unlimited, Write my listing with AI drafts for you: three listings (title, subtitle and keyword field), each scored on the same engine, and only the ones that beat your draft are shown, with Searches it wins that yours does not. The keyword field is filled by arithmetic, with the cheapest searched words your title and subtitle left behind. Use this one puts a proposal in the form and scores it. When none beats yours, it says so and shows your score next to the ceiling: if the two are close, the words are done and the next release is a screenshot set.

What good looks like: a green chip, Keyword coverage up, Targeting fit no lower than before.

7. Ship one change, and decide on day 14

Submit in App Store Connect, and change one thing per release: ship a title and a screenshot set together and you will never know which one did anything. If the keyword field changed, paste the new one into Applyra or press Re-sync on the app page.

A keyword entering an iOS title makes most of its gain by the first daily reading. Reading it is slower: track twenty keywords and, on an uneventful day, one or two move five places or more on their own. So look without acting for three days, read the whole set at day 7, decide at day 14. The release shows as a dot on the visibility chart of your app page, and hovering it names the fields that moved (release history). The full cycle is in preparing a release, and if positions fall, run diagnosing a ranking drop before you rewrite anything.