How to translate App Store and Google Play keywords

Applyra translates the store text you read into your own language. Turn on Translate to in the top bar and every keyword, app name and subtitle written in another language gets its translation in a small pill underneath, with the original left exactly where it was. A French founder working on a German listing reads erinnerungen and sees rappels below it, without leaving the page or pasting anything into a translator. It works the other way too: type a keyword or draft a listing in your language, and Translate to writes it for that market.

Turn translations on

Translate to, with your language and a switch, sits next to Docs in the top bar of every screen. Switch it off and the pills go; your language stays chosen. The setting follows your account, so it is the same on every browser you sign in from.

What gets translated

Nothing shows when there is nothing to add: a keyword already in your language, a brand name like todoist, or a word that reads the same in both languages keeps its line to itself. A translation follows the case of its original. The search box of the Keywords Tracker reads translations too: type rappel and erinnerungen shows up.

Why the original stays on top

The store ranks the words in your listing and the words people type, in their language. A translation tells you what a keyword means. It is not a keyword you can rank on, so the original keeps its place and its link to the Keywords Inspector.

It also decides how to use the feature when you launch in a new market. Translate to read the market: what the top apps are called, what people search, which suggested keywords describe your app. Then build the listing from the local terms you saw searched there, not from a dictionary translation of your English list: people search their own word for the thing. Starting from your own words? The keyword fields write that word for you.

Translations are written for search intent, not word for word: ポイ活 on the Japanese store reads point earning activities, the slang it is, and a name stays a name, so Notion stays Notion.

A keyword with two meanings

When a keyword has a second plausible meaning in that market, its pill carries a small +1: hover it for Can also mean and the other sense. Rechner on the German store reads computer, and can also mean calculator. The Keywords Inspector settles which one matters: the apps that rank on the keyword show the meaning the store serves.

Descriptions and release notes

On the app page, the Store listing tab shows the description and the release notes in your language, with an Original switch for the text the store serves. Paragraphs, bullets and emoji keep their place, so the two versions line up.

Write in your own language

When the store's language is not yours, the fields where you type keywords or a listing offer to translate what you type, with a button named after the store's language: Translate to French for a listing on the French App Store.

Your words become the query shoppers of that market type, not the dictionary word: shared calendar becomes agenda partagé on the French App Store. The note under the field lists what became what, Undo puts your words back, and the field stays yours to edit. In the Metadata Simulator, a field is rewritten as a listing for that market, a name and its tagline staying a name and its tagline, and Undo translation puts your draft back. To read a listing there instead, click the translate icon at the top of the form: every field reads in your language.

When the market also searches the same thing with another word, the note offers it after also searched as: in Track keyword rankings a click adds it to the list, so you track both, and elsewhere it replaces the first one. Open a translated keyword in the Keywords Inspector before it goes into your listing: the apps ranking on it show what the market searches it for.

Choose your language

In Account, from your name at the bottom of the sidebar, the Store translations card offers every language the two stores are published in under Translate into, Simplified and Traditional Chinese apart. Applyra starts from your browser's language. Show translations is the top bar's switch. Set both, then Save changes.

Store translations are on every plan, free included. Your store defaults, on the same screen, pick the market a new app or keyword is added in; translations change how you read and write its words.