Preparing Mobile App Metadata for ASO
App metadata — everything the store search algorithm sees: name, subtitle, keywords, description, category, rating. App Store and Google Play algorithms work differently, and one metadata set copied to both stores is suboptimal for both.
Indexing Differences Between App Store and Google Play
App Store indexes only three fields: Name (30 characters), Subtitle (30 characters), Keywords (100 characters). Total — 160 characters of semantics. Every character counts.
Google Play indexes Title (50 characters), Short Description (80 characters), and Full Description (up to 4000 characters). Semantic space is 25+ times wider, fundamentally changing strategy.
App Store Metadata Fields
Name: Task Tracker — GTD Planner (29 characters)
Subtitle: Project management and tasks (30 characters)
Keywords: gtd,planner,to-do,tasks,projects,kanban,
productivity,organizer,timemanagement (98 characters)
In Keywords, only what's not in Name and Subtitle. Duplicating words from Name in Keywords wastes space. Apple doesn't index duplicates.
Commas without spaces in Keywords save characters. Hyphen splits "timemanagement" into "time" and "management," indexed as two separate words.
Google Play Metadata
Title must contain main keyword and brand. Not keyword stuffing: "Task Tracker GTD Planner Task List" violates Play policy.
In Full Description, target keywords should appear 3–5 times in different forms, different parts. Google Play understands morphology: "task," "tasks," "tasking" is one cluster.
Choosing Category and Subcategory
Category affects visibility in thematic collections. Overlooked: App Store lets you specify primary and secondary category. A health utility can be Health & Fitness (primary) and Productivity (secondary) — appears in search for both.
In Google Play subcategories are limited. Category affects Content Rating and editorial collection visibility.
Age Rating
Underestimating rating to reach audience is common mistake. A finance planning app with investment section → minimum 17+ in App Store due to potential risk. Incorrectly filled Content Rating questionnaire in Google Play → IARC assigns wrong rating → visibility issues in family search or overly restrictive by country.
Tools for Analysis and Metadata Collection
| Tool | Focus |
|---|---|
| AppFollow | Position tracking, competitor analysis |
| AppTweak | Keyword research, ASO score |
| Sensor Tower | Traffic and rating data |
| MobileAction | Keyword suggestions, A/B tracking |
| data.ai (AppAnnie) | Market analytics |
For starter work, AppFollow or AppTweak suffices. Sensor Tower relevant for mature ASO strategy with analytics budget.
Process
Analyze competitors in target categories: which keywords top-10 use.
Collect semantics: target queries + long-tail + competitor brand queries.
Form metadata fields for App Store and Google Play separately.
Prepare localized metadata versions for priority markets.
Timeline Estimates
Full metadata set for one language (App Store + Google Play) — 1–2 days with competitor analysis. For 3–5 languages with full localization — 3–5 days.