30 characters, twice

Your App Store title and subtitle

Thirty characters for the name and thirty for the subtitle. These two fields carry more search weight than everything else on the page combined, and most apps spend half of them on a brand nobody is searching for yet.

BRAND ONLYPocket Chef11/30 · 19 characters unused, and it ranks for one word nobody has heard yetBRAND, THEN THE JOBPocket Chef: One-Pot Meals26/30 · Full, still reads like a product, and now it can be found

The same app, same 30 characters. The second one is searchable because the words after the brand are words people actually type.

The short version

If you read nothing else.

  1. 01

    Brand, separator, job

    "Pocket Chef: One-Pot Meals" beats "Pocket Chef".

  2. 02

    Subtitle carries real terms

    Not a mood. The words people type.

  3. 03

    No word twice

    Name, subtitle and keyword field are indexed as one set.

  4. 04

    Front-load the name

    Assume it gets cut at twenty characters.

  5. 05

    Read it out loud

    If it sounds like a list, it will convert like one.

The name is the strongest field you have

Apple weights words in the app name above words anywhere else. That makes the 30 characters the most valuable space in your listing, and it is why a name that is nothing but a brand gives away your biggest advantage.

The usual shape is your brand, a separator, and the job the app does: "Pocket Chef: One-Pot Meals". The brand still leads, so the page reads like a product rather than a keyword list, and the words after it are the ones people type.

A name that is only a brand wins only searches for that brand.

The subtitle is a second line, not a tagline

The subtitle carries real search weight, second only to the name. Spending it on something atmospheric like "Simply better" throws away the second most valuable field on the page.

Use it for the terms that did not fit in the name, written as a phrase a person would say. It sits directly under the name in search results and on the product page, so it is read by humans as well as indexed.

Do not repeat a word between them

Apple indexes the name, the subtitle and the keyword field together. A word in the name is already counted, so repeating it in the subtitle buys nothing and spends characters you cannot get back.

Check the three fields as one set. Every word should appear exactly once across all of them.

One word, one place. Repetition across the three fields is pure waste.

Watch what gets cut off

Search results truncate long names on narrow screens, so the most important words should come early. Write the name so that the first twenty characters still make sense on their own, because on some screens that is all anybody sees.

What people ask

Questions.

Should I put keywords in my app name?

Put the one or two search terms that matter most, phrased so the name still reads like a product. "Pocket Chef: One-Pot Meals" is a name. "Recipes Cooking Food Meal Planner" is a keyword list, and it reads to a shopper as an app that will be full of ads.

Does the subtitle help App Store ranking?

Yes. It is indexed and weighted second after the name, ahead of the keyword field. It is also shown to people, in search results and at the top of the product page, which makes it the one field that does both jobs well.

Can I repeat words between the name, subtitle and keywords?

You can, but there is no benefit. Apple indexes the three together, so a repeated word is counted once and the characters spent on the second copy are wasted. Treat all three as one pool and use each word exactly once.

The rest of it

Everything else on the listing.

When you want the numbers

Check your listing against your category.

The App Rating checker scores any App Store app out of 100 against the leaders in its own category. Free, no account, no card.