ASO for New Apps: A Launch-Week Playbook for Indie Developers

TL;DR: A new app has no downloads, ratings or history, so it cannot win broad keywords yet. Target specific, low-competition phrases, put the most important one in your app name or subtitle, make your first three screenshots explain the value at a glance, ask for ratings at a real success moment, and adjust your keywords with each early release.

Apple groups the factors behind App Store search into two buckets: text relevance (what your metadata says) and user behavior (downloads, ratings and reviews). On launch day you only control the first bucket. Established apps with years of installs and thousands of ratings own the second.

That has three practical consequences:

• Broad terms are out of reach for now. You will not outrank long-standing leaders for "photo editor" or "budget" in week one, no matter how good your metadata is.
• Specific terms are winnable. Longer, more precise phrases have fewer strong competitors, and the people who search them know what they want.
• Conversion matters more than usual. Without a star rating to reassure people, your icon, subtitle and first screenshots carry the whole decision.

The upside: you start with a blank slate. You can choose your name, subtitle and keywords deliberately instead of working around old decisions. If you want the full framework first, read App Store Optimization (ASO): The Complete Guide.

Find keywords you can actually win

Score every candidate on three things: relevance (does your app truly do this?), popularity (do people search it?) and competition (who already ranks?). Apple's own search guidance makes the same trade-off explicit: popular terms drive more traffic but are highly competitive, especially for a newer or smaller app, while less common terms bring less traffic and less competition.

A quick competition check you can do on any iPhone:

1. Search the term in the App Store of your target country.
2. Look at the top ten results. Note their rating counts and whether they are well-known brands.
3. If every result is a household name with a huge rating count, park the term for later.
4. If several results are only loosely related to the query, that is an opening for a precise, relevant app.

For a habit tracker, "habit tracker" is a head term dominated by established apps, "habit tracker with widgets" is a mid-tail phrase with fewer direct matches, and "morning routine checklist" is a long-tail phrase a new app can realistically target. Apple Ads shows a relative popularity indicator for terms like these; see Apple Ads and ASO for how to use it, and ASO Keyword Research for the full method.

Write metadata that ranks and converts

For the habit tracker above, a keywords field could read goal,planner,checklist,reminder,selfcare,morning,productivity,discipline,journal. That uses 80 of 100 characters and repeats nothing from the name or subtitle. More rules are in App Store Keywords Field: 100 Characters Best Practices.

In App Store search results, people see your icon, name, subtitle, rating and the first three portrait screenshots (or the first landscape one). With no rating yet, those images are your pitch.

• One message per screenshot. The first should state the core benefit in a few words. The second and third should show the two features people search for most.
• Readable at thumbnail size. If you cannot read a headline when the screenshot is the size of a thumbnail on your phone, enlarge it.
• Match your keywords. If you target "morning routine checklist", one of the first three screenshots should visibly show a morning checklist.
• Required sizes. Apple requires 6.3-inch iPhone screenshots for every iPhone app and 13-inch iPad screenshots if your app runs on iPad. Google Play needs 2 to 8 phone screenshots and a 1,024 × 500 feature graphic. See the App Store screenshot sizes guide for the full list.
• Prepare a second set now. Once you have traffic, you will want an alternative for a Product Page Optimization test. Designing it before launch costs little.

A broader timeline, including press and community work, is in App Launch Plan: A 30-Day Checklist.

Ratings are the part of user behavior you can influence earliest, but both stores set firm limits.

• Use the system prompt on iOS. App Store Review Guideline 5.6.1 requires the provided API to ask for reviews; custom review prompts are not allowed. Apple also limits how often the system prompt can appear.
• Use the In-App Review API on Android. Google Play shows its own review card inside your app, and Google controls how often it appears.
• Never pay or reward. Both stores prohibit buying reviews or offering anything in exchange for ratings.
• Ask at the right moment. After someone completes a habit streak, exports a file or finishes a level, not at first launch.
• Reply publicly. Early responses show future visitors that the app is maintained.

For tactics that work within the rules, see How to Get More App Reviews.

On the App Store, the app name, subtitle, keywords field and screenshots change only when you submit a new app version. Promotional text can change at any time. On Google Play you can edit the listing whenever you like, though changes are still reviewed.

1. Change one group at a time. If you change keywords and screenshots in the same release, you will not know which one moved your numbers.
2. Give changes time. Low-traffic apps need at least a couple of weeks of data before you judge a change.
3. Drop keywords that bring impressions but no installs. They are not relevant enough, or your page does not match the intent.
4. Promote winning long-tail terms. If a phrase in your keywords field starts converting, consider moving it into the subtitle.
5. Add languages gradually. Localizing metadata for a few markets where you see organic interest gives you new keyword space with little effort.
6. Start testing once you have traffic. Product Page Optimization and Google Play store listing experiments need enough visitors to reach a confident result.