“But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you.”
Keywords are how people will find your app when you aren’t featured in the NEW AND NOTEWORTHY or the top lists…I know, it is hard to believe, when you have such an awesome app that everyone should be downloading. Trust me, it happens. There are just so many apps on the app store, with new ones added every day. So you want to make sure you are using the RIGHT keywords so people will find your app.
1)Pretend you are your audience.
You know your app is awesome, and everyone who likes XXXX will want it…so if they want it, how would they look for it? You know how to find it. But they won’t. So you have to think like a customer who is looking for XXXX…what words will they use to search? Again, you should enlist the aid of someone you know will give you honest answers, or complete strangers who could care less about your success.
2)Don’t use copyrighted/trademarked names or terms.
NEWB MISTAKE ALERT!!!!!
Putting Instagram in your keywords sounds great right, because every photographer knows it and wants it right? WRONG. I put it in…and when I searched it and went through the lists of INSTA-this and INSTA that apps…none of my apps showed up. When I was chatting with an apple support person on a different issue, I asked about the keywords and why my app wasn’t showing up. That’s when I was told that since it was trademarked, it wasn’t being picked up. Now, my app contains tips on using Instagram, but that didn’t matter. It’s a trademark, so it didn’t work. PERIOD.
Oops. So my update is going to have INSTA as a keyword, which should pick up when INSTAGRAM is searched.
3)Don’t use keywords that aren’t relevant to your app.
When you submit the app, a real live person at Apple reviews it…it’s not a robot. So they may wonder why you are putting “William Shatner” as a keyword when your app has nothing to do with him, Star Trek, TJ Hooker, Priceline.com, or Shat-oetry. It’s obvious you are just trying to use something popular to try to get people to go to your app.
Who doesn’t love William Shatner? Well…maybe Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!! But don’t use him as a keyword if your app has absolutely nothing Shatner-esque in it. Not cool.
4)Think of variations on your keyword terms…
One of the main users for this app are people who take part in Photo 365 challenges (take a photo every day for a year). People run out of ideas pretty quick, that’s where the app comes in. And most people start them on January first, so there should be a ton of people searching the app store at that time
For keywords I put “photo, 365, photography, learn, photo 365, scavenger…..etc”
And when you search “photo365” what do you get?
NOT MY APP. Even though the it has “photo365” in the app name.
If you look up “photo 365” it will come up…buried under a bunch of other apps.
So for my latest update, I switched up the keywords to “photo365, photo 365, photo, 365….” and now it comes up! Awesome.
Oh, and BTW-YOU ONLY GET ONE CHANCE TO PUT IN YOUR KEYWORDS
That’s something many of you many not know. When you create a new app in the iTunes Connect, it will ask you to put in keywords…and that is the only time you can do this. Once you hit complete, they are set. You CAN NOT EDIT THEM from that point on.
Well, unless you update your app. But doing an app update solely to update keywords won’t be appreciated by your customers.
So if you messed up your keywords, fix them when you add more cool stuff to your app. Or fix things that don’t work. Preferably it’s the first reason.
So that’s my newbappdeveloper advice. Choose your keywords wisely my friends…because if you dont…
you could end up like this guy who chose…POORLY.
Noel
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