ASO on a budget: a low-cost plan for indie apps

ASO on a budget means spending time, not money, on a short phrase list, one to three countries and one listing edit at a time. The research is free, and you pay only for what saves time. This site makes Wow Keywords, a one-time desktop license.

Where to spend your ASO time first

Listing edits cost only time, so order the work by how clearly each field tells a searcher what your app does.

1. Name and subtitle. They carry the clearest wording for search and for people. See how to choose app name keywords and how to write an App Store subtitle.
2. The keyword field. Fill it with supporting phrases that are not already in the name or subtitle.
3. One more market, later. Add a country only after the first one is working and you can support it.

Change one thing at a time and write down the date. A rank change after an edit is a signal, not proof of what caused it.

Free ASO research you can do by hand

Type the task your app does into App Store search and read the autosuggest list. Open the top results and read their names and subtitles. Repeat in each country you target, because wording changes by market.

The free keyword checker adds numbers: Volume and Difficulty for a keyword across countries, plus the top apps behind each result, for the App Store and Google Play. Volume and Difficulty are 0 to 100 estimates, not monthly search counts.

To do the same for a whole phrase list in Wow Keywords:

1. Add your public App Store app. No App Store Connect key is needed.
2. Add your short phrase list to the app's keywords.
3. Run Localize and edit the local wording for each country.
4. Read Volume and Difficulty for each phrase in each country.
5. Open a phrase's cell to see the top apps for that search, with their names, subtitles and ratings.

Keep the keyword list small

Start with 10 to 20 phrases that describe real tasks of your app, in one to three countries you can support. A long list you never act on costs more attention than it returns.

Drop a phrase when its top apps solve a different task from yours. Prefer specific phrases over broad ones; long tail app keywords shows how to narrow a term.

Discard a phrase that is easy only because nobody wants it. App keyword difficulty explains how to weigh the score against fit.

Add one market at a time

Localize only into languages someone can review. The natural phrase in Germany or Japan is rarely the English phrase translated word for word.

Localize in Wow Keywords prepares local wording for each tracked country, and you edit it. Add the next country once the last one has a listing you stand behind. App Store localization covers the workflow.

Track ranks on a budget

Recheck the same phrases in the same countries on a fixed schedule, such as every week or two, and after each listing edit. Write down the edit date next to the result.

By hand, that is a notes file and a lot of searches. Wow Keywords tracks public App Store apps and their competitors with rank history, all stored locally with no cloud account. One license covers two computers with updates, at $89 to $149 once; see pricing. The App Store rank tracker page shows what it records.

What is free and what paying adds

When paying for an ASO tool is worth it

Pay when manual checks take more time than the tool costs. Pay when you track more phrases or countries than the checker handles one at a time. Pay when you need rank history to judge an edit.

For tool-level choices, read free vs paid ASO tools and how to evaluate ASO tools. For the full routine from research to release, see ASO for indie developers.