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Keyword research and metadata course · Lesson 1 of 10 · 40 minutes with practice

ASO Keyword Research: Define Your App, Audience and Locale

Write a research brief that ties keyword decisions to one audience, a released product and a specific store locale.

An ivory research brief next to one graphite phone and a folded map, a single red focus ring selecting a small region and one audience card.

Download your lesson workbook · Open the assignment tool →

Your ASO learning objective

Write a research brief that ties keyword decisions to one audience, a released product and a specific store locale.

  1. Step 1Confirm released capabilities
  2. Step 2Choose one audience, store and locale
  3. Step 3Define the decision and evidence gaps
The lesson workflow

Define the product job before collecting terms

Keyword research starts with the job a person expects the app to do. List the released capabilities, the audience that can use them and the outcomes they support. Separate these facts from the roadmap. A planned navigation feature cannot justify targeting people who need directions today. Ask a product owner to resolve uncertain capabilities before treating a term as relevant.

Write a one-sentence scope: “For weekend hikers in the US English App Store, investigate language for remembering walks using photos and notes.” This is more useful than “find hiking keywords” because it constrains the meaning of relevance. In the fictional Trail Notes project, a personal memory is the job; route discovery and safety guidance are different jobs.

Keep locale, storefront and language explicit

Choose one store and locale for the first working set. Language labels alone do not tell you whether product availability, audience expectations or the research source match your market. Record the storefront in your source notes when it matters. Do not mix estimates from different stores or dates into one unexplained ranking.

The Workbench keeps a locale on each candidate and on the overall project. If they differ, an approved candidate is flagged for review. This is a completeness check, not a localization judgment. For a second market, export the first project and start a separate scoped project so its decisions remain traceable.

Name the decision, owner and evidence limits

Decide what this research must produce: a candidate shortlist, an approved title and subtitle, or a complete metadata proposal. Record the owner and review date. Also list what you cannot currently observe, such as search demand, conversion by query or product retention. Missing data should change the strength of your conclusion, rather than disappear from the brief.

Worked example: Trail Notes

This fictional hiking-journal app and its review samples are the teaching project. Treat the example as a reasoning exercise you can adapt to your own evidence.

  1. Original draftFind the biggest hiking keywords and add them to the listing.
  2. Revised proposalInvestigate personal hiking-journal language for en-US; keep navigation terms out unless the released product supports that expectation.
  3. Why it changesThe narrower scope makes relevance testable. A term can be popular and still attract users the app cannot serve.
From a weak draft to a defensible proposal

Your ASO assignment

  1. Open the Workbench and set the app, store, locale, audience, research owner and review date. Use your own app or the fictional example.
  2. Write three supported product jobs and three tempting but unsupported jobs in your workbook. Name the screen or behavior supporting each included job.
  3. Record the intended handover and two missing evidence sources. Ask who can supply each source and by when.

Work on your app project

Your handover and assessment criteria

Your work is ready for review when each deliverable below can be understood without a verbal explanation. Include the source or product reference, the decision owner and any unresolved evidence gap. If a reviewer cannot verify a claim, record the missing evidence before treating the proposal as approved.

  1. Deliverable 1Scoped audience and store-locale brief
  2. Deliverable 2Released-capability references and exclusions
  3. Deliverable 3Decision owner, review date and evidence gaps
Three deliverables to include in your handover

Check your understanding

A high-demand term describes a feature on next quarter’s roadmap. Should it be approved now?

Read the interpretation

No. Keep it pending or reject it for the current release, with a reason tied to the unsupported expectation. Revisit it after the capability ships and is verified.

Record your progress

Mark this lesson complete after checking your assignment against the handover criteria. Progress stays in this browser, separately from your tool project.

Sources and further reading

Platform references checked 30 September 2026.

App Store keyword research guide · Check final metadata fields