asoapp-store-optimizationkeyword-research

Title vs Subtitle vs Keyword Field: Where Each ASO Keyword Should Go

The three App Store fields that index keywords behave very differently. Putting the wrong keyword in the wrong field is the most common ASO mistake we see.

RishabMay 15, 20266 min read

Quick answer: The App Store indexes three fields, and each keyword belongs in exactly one. Put your brand plus your one best high-opportunity head term in the title (30 chars), your sharpest long-tail phrase in the subtitle (30 chars), and everything else comma-separated with no spaces or duplicates in the private keyword field (100 chars). Skip plurals and tense variants (Apple matches them automatically), put competitor brand names only in the keyword field, and on Google Play — which has no keyword field — work those terms naturally into the 4000-char long description instead.

Once you've run ASO keyword research and have a shortlist of 10–15 keywords worth targeting, the next question is where each one goes.

The App Store indexes three fields for keyword discovery:

Title — 30 characters, public, weighed most heavily
Subtitle — 30 characters, public, weighed nearly as heavily
Keyword field — 100 characters, private, comma-separated

Each one behaves differently. Putting the wrong keyword in the wrong field is the most common reason teams update their metadata and see no rank movement.

The title is your single biggest lever — spend it carefully

Apple gives the title the most ranking weight. It's also the most visible part of your listing on search results and the home page. Two things follow:

Use the title for exactly one keyword that's worth its weight. That keyword should be the highest-opportunity head term you can realistically rank for — not the highest-demand. "Workout" has more demand than "Home Workouts" but if Nike, Peloton, and MyFitnessPal own the top 5 of "workout", you're not getting there. The opportunity column in the ASO tool is sorted to surface exactly the head term you should put here.

Keep your brand in the title. Pure-keyword titles ("Workout Tracker") rank okay but lose all branded search equity. The format that works for almost everyone: Brand: Keyword Description. So "Strong: Workout Tracker", "Honeybook: CRM for Creatives", "Wanderlog: Trip Planner".

The 30 characters disappear fast. Cut adjectives mercilessly — "Best", "Free", "Easy" don't help ranking and Apple's review will sometimes strip them anyway.

The subtitle is where long-tails win

Apple weighs the subtitle nearly as heavily as the title — and unlike the title, the subtitle should not be your brand. It should be your strongest long-tail keyword from the research.

Pick the subtitle by opportunity, not demand. A specific phrase like "Home Workouts for Beginners" or "Spaced Repetition for Medical Exams" will outperform a generic phrase like "Fitness Tracking & Workouts" by 3–5x on conversion, because the searcher who lands on it has clear intent.

The pattern that works: Specific workflow or audience + outcome. Examples:

Fitness: "Home Workouts for Beginners"
Productivity: "Time Blocking & Weekly Reviews"
Fintech: "Automatic Investing for Beginners"
Dating: "Serious Dating for Professionals"
SaaS: "Invoicing & Contracts for Freelancers"

The subtitle is also where you signal audience. If your app is for a specific demographic ("for women", "for kids", "for ADHD"), the subtitle is the place to say so. The keyword field can't carry the same conversion signal because users never see it.

The keyword field is for everything else

The 100-character keyword field is private — users never see it. That makes it the slot for terms that have search volume but don't make for good public copy.

A few rules:

Comma-separated, no spaces. "workout,fitness,gym,training" not "workout, fitness, gym, training". The spaces cost characters and add nothing.
No duplicates of words already in title or subtitle. Apple indexes across all three fields; repeating words wastes slots.
Skip plurals and tense variants. Apple matches across them automatically. "workout" covers "workouts", "track" covers "tracker" and "tracking".
Use compound matching. If your title has "Workout" and your keyword field has "home,beginner", you'll match "home workout" and "beginner workout" without spending characters on the full phrase.

The keyword field is also where competitor names belong if you're targeting them. Apple allows third-party brand names in the keyword field — "duolingo,babbel,rosetta" is fine. They are not fine in the title or subtitle, where Apple's review will flag them.

Worked examples by category

We have niche-specific keyword placement walkthroughs for the most common app types, each with the exact head term / long-tail / keyword field strategy:

Google Play works differently

Everything above is iOS. Google Play has no private keyword field — it indexes your long description (4000 chars) for keywords, with weighting on the title (30 chars) and short description (80 chars).

That means the keywords you'd put in your iOS keyword field have to live in actual readable copy on Play Store, ideally repeated 3–5 times in natural sentences. Same keyword list, very different writing job.

Our Google Play ASO guide covers the per-category long-description strategy.

The fastest test

Update one field at a time. Title, subtitle, and keyword field index slightly differently and at slightly different speeds — changing all three at once and waiting 2 weeks tells you nothing about what worked.

Better: change the keyword field first (lowest visibility risk). Wait 7–10 days, run the ASO tool again, and check whether your rank on the new keywords actually moved. Then change the subtitle. Then, only if you have a high-confidence head term, change the title.

The saved-projects feature in the ASO research tool stores each run so you can compare week-over-week without re-deriving the math.

FAQ

Where do you put keywords in an App Store listing? Across three indexed fields: the title (30 characters) for your brand plus one high-opportunity head term, the subtitle (30 characters) for your strongest long-tail phrase, and the private keyword field (100 characters) for everything else, comma-separated.

Should you repeat keywords across the title, subtitle, and keyword field? No. Apple indexes across all three fields, so repeating a word wastes slots. Skip plurals and tense variants too — "workout" already covers "workouts," and "track" covers "tracker" and "tracking."

Can you use competitor names as ASO keywords? Yes, but only in the private keyword field, where entries like "duolingo,babbel" are allowed. Competitor brand names in the title or subtitle will be flagged in Apple's review.

Where do keywords go on Google Play? Google Play has no private keyword field. It indexes the title (30 chars), short description (80 chars), and long description (4000 chars), so your keywords need to appear naturally in readable copy, ideally repeated a few times.

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