The App Store keyword field: how to use all 100 characters

The keyword field is the one part of your App Store listing that nobody sees. It exists only for search. You get 100 characters per localization in App Store Connect, and how you spend them decides which searches your app can appear in at all.

What Apple tells you

Apple's own guidance for the field is short:

• Up to 100 characters, per localization.
• Separate keywords with commas.
• Use words that describe your app; do not use other apps' names, trademarks or celebrity names. App Review rejects listings that do.
• You do not need to repeat your app name or company name.

Changing the field requires submitting a new version of your app, so it pays to get it right before each release.

Seven rules for packing it

1. No spaces after commas

Write budget,planner,bills, not budget, planner, bills. Spaces count against the limit and add nothing. On a full field that is often ten characters back.

2. Do not repeat words from the name or subtitle

The App Store already indexes your name and subtitle. A word that appears there gains nothing from appearing again in the keyword field, so every repeat is wasted space.

3. Use single words, not phrases

The App Store combines words across your name, subtitle and keyword field to match multi-word searches. So budget,planner can match "budget planner" and "planner budget" and, with the right other words, "monthly budget planner". Writing the phrase out in full spends characters on combinations you already get.

4. Prefer singular forms

Practitioners commonly observe that the App Store matches some plurals to their singular form, so including both "bill" and "bills" usually wastes characters. Test it on your most important words by checking whether you rank for the plural search.

5. Skip filler words

Words like "app", "free", "the" or "and", and your category name, are generally not worth the characters. People rarely search them alone, and the store already knows you are an app.

6. Order does not matter, relevance does

There is no evidence that the first keyword counts more than the last. What matters is that each word is something people search and that it is honest about your app. Irrelevant keywords may get impressions, but people do not download, and that tends to hurt rankings over time.

7. One set per country

Each localization has its own 100 characters. Use them in each country's language, with the words people search there rather than a translation of your English list. Some storefronts are commonly observed to index more than one localization, which can give you extra characters in a market; see our localization guide.

A worked example

Say your app is called "Penny: Budget Planner" with the subtitle "Bills, savings and spending". Those words are already indexed: penny, budget, planner, bills, savings, spending. The keyword field should add new words only:

Together with the name and subtitle, that covers searches such as "expense tracker", "monthly budget", "budget for couples", "debt planner" and "savings goals", without a single repeated word.

Check it before you ship

Before submitting, go through the field once more and ask of each word: is it searched, is it relevant, is it already in my name or subtitle? Then track your ranks after the release to see which words started working. The ones that did not move are candidates for replacement next version.