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ASO Best Practices for App Titles
September 19th, 2025
by David Quinn
VP of Strategy & Partnerships at Gummicube, Inc.
70% of app downloads are attributed to search, meaning the keywords you include in your app listing metadata are crucial for your app’s visibility. An app title is one of the most influential elements of your app store presence, shaping how potential users find, perceive, and engage with your app. Within both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, the title carries significant weight in App Store Optimization (ASO). When crafted thoughtfully and strategically, it can improve your app’s discoverability, strengthen user trust, and help you stand out in competitive app categories.
In this week’s Tips and Tricks, we will explore best practices for app titles through the lens of ASO best practices. We will discuss platform-specific guidelines, the importance of keyword research, how to approach A/B testing, and the role competitor analysis can play in shaping your strategy. While no single method can guarantee a boost in your app’s success, following ASO best practices can create opportunities for stronger visibility and higher conversion rates over time.
APP TITLE GUIDELINES
Across both app stores, the space for an app title is intentionally limited. Apple App Store and Google Play Store restrict the official app title field to 30 characters or fewer. Beyond the character count cap, both stores have metadata rules that need to be considered. Avoid stuffing promotional phrases, ranking claims, or non-relevant keywords into your app’s title. Those behaviors can trigger review flags and potentially reduce user trust. Apple App Store and Google Play Store both expect app titles to be accurate, readable, and relevant to the app's actual functionality.
Practical implications of the 30-character limit:
- Prioritize high-volume keywords that matter most instead of working to fit your entire brand name alone.
- Implement a compact headline that balances your brand, app’s core function, mixed with one or more high-volume keywords. These high-volume keywords will be what could set your app up to populate in search results.
The 30-character limit means that crafting app titles is less about cramming in as many descriptive terms as possible and more about making strategic placements. Effective app titles tend to balance brand recognition with terms that could help boost their app’s visibility. Including one or two high-volume keywords in the app title can help align with user search intent without sacrificing readability. A title should look and feel natural, make sense to a user at first glance, and inspire trust in the app’s functionality as your app appears in search results.
APP KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword research lies at the core of ASO and directly impacts app title strategy. Identifying high-volume, relevant keywords allows developers to align their titles with user search behavior.
Identifying App Keyword Optimization Opportunities
Effective keyword research begins with understanding how potential users will search for your app. This can involve analyzing:
- App Keyword Search Volumes: Keywords with higher search volumes could increase your app’s visibility, but be mindful of the strong competition in trying to rank for high-volume terms.
- App Keyword Relevance: A keyword may be popular, but if it does not align with your app’s capabilities, do not use it in your app’s metadata. Including irrelevant keywords could deter new users or cause lapsed users once they download and realize the app doesn’t showcase the features it originally stated in the app listing.
- Competitor’s Use of App Keywords: Observing your app’s competitors can reveal patterns in keyword adoption in your own listing. While copying should be avoided, analyzing how competitors can highlight terms worth considering implementing in your app title.
Competitor Analysis
App competitors can provide valuable insights and perspectives on what similar users expect from certain categories. While the goal should never be to copy and paste a competitor’s title and use it as your own, analyzing how top-performing apps structure their titles can reveal impressive strategies.
The goal is not to copy competitor titles, but to understand the language that resonates within your app’s category. Once you identify relevant terms you want to try and rank for, adapt them to fit into your app’s unique strengths throughout your metadata. A distinctive, yet relevant title can help you capture attention in a crowded field while staying true to your brand.
ASO Tools for App Keyword Research
ASO tools can provide insider access to keyword trends and competitor rankings. These tools can help guide your decisions by showing which terms your app should aim to rank for. Leveraging ASO tools can help to provide a clearer view of the keyword landscape and show developers which changes they should make next in their ASO strategy.
DATACUBE delivers detailed, real-time insights into both Apple Store and Google Play Stores. When developers surface accurate and current data, they can apply those results to achieve measurable app listing improvements. Having real-time visibility into how keywords perform, how competitors are optimizing their listings, and how app stores crawl and index apps allows teams to focus on making impactful growth opportunities
Keyword trends and shifts over time with trends, new markets, and seasonality. A disciplined keyword review process ensures that your app title and the rest of your app listing reflect what the user is searching for.
A/B TESTING APP TITLES
Research alone cannot predict which app title will perform best. A/B testing is a valuable tool that can give visual results and data-driven insights on what your target audience is looking for and positively responding to.
A slight change in an app title's word order, keyword placement, or emphasis on app functionality can shift how potential users interact and perceive your app. A/B testing can help move your optimizations from educated guesses to data-driven decisions.
ASO tools can help streamline this process. With no native testing available, your hand is forced to release the new titles and monitor conversion rates, which can be risky. ASO tools help simplify this process by centralizing data collection and offering a visual representation of performance trends.
For example, ASO tools like Splitcube allow you to A/B test creative assets without making changes directly in the App Store or Google Play Store. This capability can help validate ideas in a controlled environment before pushing updates live. By simulating user interactions, Splitcube can provide actionable insights that could support organic growth and potentially improve performance in paid marketing campaigns. Leveraging platforms like this can help teams refine their title and other creative elements in their app listing with efficiency.
FINAL THOUGHTS
App titles are an element that plays into a user’s first impression of your app. Developers can create app titles that improve visibility by aligning with platform guidelines, leveraging ASO tools for strategic keyword research and data-driven A/B testing, and drawing inspiration from your app’s competitors.
User search behaviors evolve, seasons change, competitors adapt, and app stores update their guidelines. Treating app title optimization as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task allows your app more opportunities to grow and adapt alongside any changes that may arise. By regularly reviewing your app listing’s performance and refining your approach, you can give your app the best chance of being discovered by the right audience..
LET’S CHAT!
Optimizing an app title requires careful consideration of keywords, branding, and user intent. If you are looking for guidance, Gummicube’s ASO services can help to strengthen your app’s metadata and overall app store presence to position your app for long-term success.
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