Most indie ASO is one person’s gut feel about what users type. That works until a competitor opens AppTweak, looks at your title, and copies the same vibes-based keywords back at you. AI will not replace a paid ASO tool, but it does the structured first pass well: cluster terms by search intent, flag the obviously hard head terms, and draft three title/subtitle options that each carry keyword weight inside Apple’s hard character limits.
TL;DR
- Feed an LLM (Claude Opus 4.7, GPT-5.5, or Gemini 3.1 Pro all handle this) your live store listing, one locale, 5-10 competitors, and two personas.
- Get back a 20-30 keyword shortlist tagged by intent and a low/med/high difficulty band, plus three title + subtitle combos.
- Apple caps the title at 30 characters, the subtitle at 30, and the keyword field at 100 (commas, no spaces). The AI must write to those limits, not around them.
- AI guesses difficulty from linguistic priors, not install data. Verify your top 5 keyword bets in a real tool before you commit a title.
The Apple fields you are optimizing
App Store search combines individual words from your title, subtitle, and keyword field. It does not index phrases as-is, and it counts each word only once even if it appears in two fields. So you never repeat a word across fields, and you spend your scarcest characters (the title) on the term with the highest ranking weight.
| Field | Limit (as of June 2026) | Ranking weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| App name / title | 30 chars | Highest | Spaces and punctuation count |
| Subtitle | 30 chars | High | Shown under the name across the store |
| Keyword field (iOS) | 100 chars | Medium | Comma-separated, no spaces; users never see it |
| Promotional text | 170 chars | None (not indexed) | Updatable without review |
| Description | 4,000 chars | None for iOS search | Conversion copy, not keyword fuel |
Because each word indexes once, the title and subtitle should hold your two highest-weight terms, and the 100-char keyword field absorbs the long-tail and synonyms. That allocation is the whole game, and it is exactly what the prompt below forces the AI to respect.
When this is the right job for AI
- You have your live store description and one specific locale (en-US, ja-JP, zh-CN — one per pass).
- You have a real list of 5-10 competitors by App Store name.
- You can describe your two clearest user personas in one sentence each.
- You will validate difficulty against Sensor Tower or AppTweak afterward. AI estimates from language priors, not download data.
- You want the title and subtitle to read like English, not like a keyword field.
What to feed the AI
- App description (the actual current store listing, not a marketing tagline)
- Locale (en-US, ja-JP, etc.) because keyword behavior is locale-specific
- 5-10 competitor app names with one-line positioning
- 2 personas in one sentence each (
ADHD adult who forgets meds,indie iOS dev planning their first launch) - Current title and subtitle, so the AI does not re-propose what you already ship
- The 3 keywords you most fear losing: your brand, your category, your hero feature
Copy-ready prompt
You are an ASO analyst. Locale: en-US, App Store.
App description (current):
"Daily — a one-tap habit tracker for ADHD adults. No streaks, no leaderboard, no shame. Pick one habit and check it off in under 3 seconds a day."
Current title: "Daily — Habit Tracker"
Current subtitle: "Calm, one-tap habit tracker"
Personas:
1. ADHD adult who has tried 4+ habit apps, hates streak pressure.
2. Therapy-seeking adult tracking a single mood or medication.
Competitors:
- Streaks (premium, streak-heavy)
- Habitica (gamified, RPG aesthetic)
- Way of Life (long-time tracker, dated UI)
- Done (clean, but streak-driven)
- Productive (broad, feature-heavy)
Keywords I cannot lose:
- "habit tracker"
- "adhd"
- "daily"
Output:
1. A keyword table with 24 rows. Columns:
- keyword
- intent: problem-aware / solution-aware / brand / accessibility-modifier
- difficulty band: low / med / high
- rationale in 6 words max
Mix in long-tail (3-4 word) phrases that match the persona language, not just head terms.
2. Three title + subtitle combos. Constraints:
- Title 30 chars or fewer (count spaces and punctuation).
- Subtitle 30 chars or fewer.
- Each combo must carry "habit tracker" and at least one persona-specific term.
- No keyword stuffing — read each one out loud.
- Show what each combo trades off, and print the exact char count after each line.
3. A 100-char iOS keyword-field string (commas, no spaces) that does NOT repeat
any word already used in either title or subtitle. Print the char count.
4. Five risky keywords I should NOT chase, with a one-line reason each.
5. Two locale-specific tweaks I would miss if I only thought in en-US terms
(synonyms, slang, App Store search-suggest behavior).
Rules:
- Do not invent install volume numbers. Difficulty is a band, not a precise score.
- The App Store indexes each word once across title + subtitle + keywords, so
never repeat a word between fields.
- Mark anything that requires real ASO-tool data as [verify in ASO tool].Sample output structure
Keyword table (24 rows). Highlights:
habit tracker adhd(solution-aware, low-med, persona match),one tap habit(solution-aware, low, differentiator),no streak habit(problem-aware, low, niche but high intent),habit tracker for adults(solution-aware, med, broad bridge),medication reminder(adjacent, high, [verify in ASO tool]).Title combos.
- Title:
Daily: ADHD Habit Tracker(25 chars) / Subtitle:One-tap, no streaks(19 chars). Trade-off: leads with ADHD, may scare off non-ADHD users searching general habit.- Title:
Daily Habit Tracker(19 chars) / Subtitle:Calm, one-tap, ADHD-friendly(28 chars). Trade-off: broader top funnel; ADHD intent buried in subtitle.- Title:
Daily — One-Tap Habit(21 chars) / Subtitle:ADHD-friendly tracker(21 chars). Trade-off: leads with the differentiator; weaker on the head term.Keyword field (100 chars).
streak,routine,reminder,focus,calm,mood,medication,checklist,goals,minimal,simple,wellness— no word here repeats the title or subtitle.Risky keywords to skip.
habitalone (too broad, dominated by Productive).trackeralone (no intent).self-care(broad, off-positioning).routine(high difficulty, weak conversion).discipline(high competition, off-brand for an ADHD-friendly app).Locale tweaks. en-US users search
for adultsmore thanfor grown-ups; match that. App Store search-suggest in en-US auto-completeshabit tracker for+ persona, so align the subtitle to land on those completions. [verify in ASO tool: search-suggest data forhabit tracker for adhd].
How to refine
- Keywords are all head terms: require
at least 8 long-tail 3-4 word phrases. - Difficulty bands are uniform: demand
explain each band in 6 words; if everything is med, you are not trying. - Titles are stuffed: require
read each title aloud; if it sounds like a list, rewrite. - Persona language ignored: repeat
use the words the persona would type, not category jargon. - No trade-off named: enforce
each title combo names what it loses, not just what it gains. - Words repeated across fields: paste the title and subtitle back and ask it to
remove any keyword-field word that already appears above.
Common mistakes
- Optimizing for a head term you cannot rank for, so you win neither the head nor the long-tail.
- Putting the differentiator only in the description. App Store search ignores the description for ranking and weighs the title and subtitle highest.
- Repeating a word across title, subtitle, and keywords. Apple indexes it once, so you wasted the slot.
- Ignoring locale. en-US winners are often the wrong picks in en-GB or en-IN, and a Japanese user searches
効率化 アプリ, not a translation of your English head term. - Changing the title every two weeks. Apple re-indexes metadata in roughly 3-7 days, but rank takes 2-4 weeks to settle. Pick a combo and live with it 6-8 weeks.
Free first pass, paid verification
The AI pass costs you nothing beyond your existing chatbot subscription. The verification step is where money enters: AppTweak’s entry ASO Intelligence plan starts around $69-99/month (as of June 2026), while Sensor Tower is enterprise-priced (typically $25,000+/year, annual contract, no public monthly tier). For one app you do not need either right away. Run the AI shortlist, then use Apple’s own App Store search-suggest (type your head term in the store and watch the autocompletions) and your App Store Connect impression/conversion data as the free ground truth. Buy a paid tool only when guessing starts costing you real installs.
FAQ
Is the AI’s keyword difficulty accurate? Directionally yes, absolutely no. It estimates from language priors, so it reliably tells you US productivity is a red ocean, but whether a specific long-tail can actually rank must be checked against Sensor Tower or AppTweak download data.
Should I cram every candidate keyword into the subtitle? No. Apple penalizes stuffing and users cannot read it. Put 2-3 core terms in the title and subtitle, then route the rest into the 100-char iOS keyword field (or the Play short description on Android), never repeating a word.
Is multi-locale just translation? No. A Japanese user searches local phrasing like 効率化 アプリ, not a translation of your English term. Run the prompt once per locale. Also note Apple’s cross-localization trick: for the US, the App Store also indexes the Spanish (Mexico) keyword field, giving you a second 100-char slot for more English keywords.
iOS keyword field versus Play short description? Different mechanics, so run the prompt once per platform. The intent table transfers; the exact title/subtitle does not, because Play weighs the short and long description for ranking while iOS does not.
Will adding ADHD to the title cost me general traffic? It narrows you, and that is the point if retention from broad traffic is poor. Targeted installs that stick beat a wide top funnel that churns.
Related
- AI App Store Copy
- AI App Store Screenshots Copy
- AI App Review Reply
- AI Product Launch Copy
- AI User Persona
Tags: #AI writing #aso #App Store #app-product-ops #Indie dev