How to find long tail app keywords

A long tail app keyword is a specific multiword phrase for one task, audience or situation. It usually has a smaller audience and fewer strong apps competing than a broad term. Find them by narrowing broad terms, then check the results country by country.

What counts as a long tail keyword on the App Store

A head term is short and general: "budget app". A long tail phrase adds the detail a real person has in mind: "budget app for couples" or "budget app for irregular income".

Most long tail phrases follow one of a few patterns:

• the task plus the person: "habit tracker for students"
• the task plus the situation: "meal planner for one person"
• the task plus a feature: "workout log with rest timer"
• the problem the app fixes: "stop forgetting to drink water"

A narrow phrase only helps when the apps it returns solve the same task as yours. A phrase nobody competes for is not an opportunity if searchers who type it want something else.

How to find long tail app keyword ideas

Write down the task your app does in plain words, the way a friend would describe it. Then add one modifier at a time: who it is for, when they use it, a feature they ask for, the problem it solves.

Next, read the name and subtitle of the apps at the top of the App Store for your broad term. Their wording shows how people phrase the task. How to find competitor app keywords covers this step in more detail.

Search each idea in the App Store of every country you target. Results and wording change by market, and the natural phrase in Germany or Japan is often not a translation of the English one.

Wow Keywords keeps this in one list. Add a phrase, then use Localize to get a local phrase for each tracked country and edit it. The in-app researcher suggests related phrases tied to what your app does. Keep alternatives as separate keywords so each gets its own Volume and Difficulty.

Check a long tail keyword in Wow Keywords

Each narrow phrase needs the same check before it goes anywhere near your listing. In Wow Keywords:

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

Volume and Difficulty are 0 to 100 estimates built from App Store results. They are for comparing phrases with each other, not monthly search counts.

For a quick look at a single phrase in several countries, the free keyword checker is enough. The desktop app is the better fit once you track many phrases and want them scored side by side.

How to tell if a long tail keyword is worth targeting

Run each candidate through four checks:

• Relevance: does your app do what a searcher expects from this phrase?
• Results: do the top apps solve the same task as yours? If they are unrelated apps that share one word, drop the phrase.
• Compared with the broad phrase: in the same country, put the narrow phrase's Volume and Difficulty next to the broad phrase's. Expect lower Volume. The question is whether Difficulty drops enough that your app could reach the top results.
• Wording: does the phrase read naturally in that language?

A low Difficulty score on its own proves nothing. A phrase can be easy because nobody wants it. App keyword difficulty explains how to weigh the score against fit, and App Store keyword search volume covers how to read demand.

Keep the phrases that pass and discard the rest. A short list of phrases you can defend beats a long list of guesses.

Where to use long tail keywords in your listing

Give each phrase you keep a job. Put the main phrase in the name or subtitle, where it also has to read well to a person. Use supporting phrases in the remaining metadata fields.

Do not stuff the name with every variation, and do not repeat synonyms of the same idea. A repeated word adds nothing, and a cluttered name puts off the people who see it. How to choose app name keywords and how to write an App Store subtitle go through both fields.

After the new listing is live, check the rank of the same phrase in the same country again. A rank change is an observation. Other things, such as competitor updates and seasonality, move ranks too, so treat it as a signal to keep testing, not proof of what caused it.