Keyword Library Construction and Management: Building Your Own ASO Optimization Hub

Part One: Cornerstone Chapter - Comprehensive Collection of Keywords "Raw Materials"

1. Core Brainstorm: Deeply Deconstructing Product Value

• What fundamental problem does our product solve for our core users?
• In what specific scenarios do users use our product?
• What are the product's most unique and competitive features?
• What is the core brand image we want to convey to the market?

2. Competitor Analysis: Conducting Precise Competitive Intelligence Analysis

• Metadata deconstruction: Analyze which high-priority keywords competitors have placed in their titles and subtitles (the positions with the highest weight), and which ones are mentioned only in the descriptions. Extract their core value propositions and functional keywords.
• Keyword Coverage Analysis: Using AppFast's ASO keyword tool, comprehensively scan the keyword matrices covered by competing apps, with a particular focus on:
  • They are top-ranked high-traffic keywords (popularity score above 40). Subsequently, you can supplement these into the metadata based on your product specifics.
  • They have not yet formed monopolies in long-tail keywords (popularity 10-40). These keywords have low search volume, but low competition, clear user intent, and high conversion rates.

• User Reviews Mining: Extract words from competitors' user Reviews that users use to describe their strengths and pain points.

3. User language collection: gaining insights into genuine search intentions

• App store Reviews: Whether it's your own app's review section or that of your competitors, they're both rich sources of natural user language.
• Customer service and user feedback: Directly collect how users describe the problems and needs they encounter.
• Search engine auto-suggestions: Enter the core keyword in the app store search box; the dropdown auto-suggestions provide the most direct reference.

4. Tool Extension: Leveraging the Data Engine to Drive Discovery

• Related keyword recommendations and their estimated search volumes.
• Keyword competition difficulty index.
• Relevant long-tail keyword variations and synonyms.

Part Two: Building Section - Constructing a Structured Keyword Hub System

• Remove completely duplicate entries.
• Normalize and standardize singular and plural forms, common variants, and misspellings.
• Initially filter out noisy words that are clearly irrelevant to the product, thereby improving the overall quality of the lexicon.

• Type tags: Identify the basic attributes of keywords, such as brand terms, competitor terms, industry-wide terms, long-tail terms, and scenario-specific terms.
• Intent labels: Classify according to user search intent.
  • Navigational intent: The user is explicitly looking for a specific brand or product, with a clear intent.
  • Informational intent: Users aim to seek answers or learn about a certain type of information, and are in the exploration stage. For example, searching for "how to edit photos" or "the best note-taking app."
  • Transactional intent: Users have a clear intention to download, purchase, or use a product, resulting in the highest conversion value, such as searching for "download stock trading software."

• Priority labels: After comprehensively considering "relevance," "search volume," and "competition level," assign a strategic priority to each keyword.
  • P0 (Core Focus): High search volume, high relevance—these are areas where we can go all-in.
  • P1 (Strategic Cultivation): Moderate search volume and high relevance, or high search volume and moderate difficulty, to be prioritized for growth.
  • P2 (Long-tail coverage): Low search volume, high relevance, used to build defensive barriers and supplement traffic.
  • P3 (Observation and Monitoring): Keywords that are not currently adopted but require ongoing attention.

• Search volume index: Measures the scale of user demand behind a keyword.
• Competition Difficulty Index: Evaluates how easy or difficult it is to achieve a high ranking for this keyword.
• Relevance Ratings: Internal ratings based on the degree of alignment with the product's own features (e.g., 1 to 10 points).
• Traffic Value: A comprehensive evaluation metric provided by some tools, measuring the potential value of a keyword.

Part Three: Management - Driving the Continuous Evolution of the Keyword Database

1. Establish a mechanism for regular updates and audits.

• Quarterly review: comprehensively examine market trends and competitor activities, and update the core keyword list.
• Version synchronization: Before each major app update, update the keyword library according to the new features.
• Tool calibration: Regularly use ASO tools to refresh keyword search volume and difficulty data.

2. Form a closed loop for effect tracking and data feedback.

• Track ranking changes: Monitor the ups and downs of core keywords and nurtured keywords.
• Analyze traffic contribution: Associate keywords with actual conversion data such as download volume and activation volume.
• Mark entry status: Provide feedback on results in the lexicon, for example, marking entries as "High-Performance Words," "Potential Words," "Invalid Words," or "Words Pending Testing."

3. Implement dynamic optimization and iteration strategies.

• Resource allocation: Optimize resource allocation (such as prime positions for titles and subtitles) by favoring verified "high-performing keywords" and "potential keywords."
• A/B test-driven: For keywords with unclear performance, design A/B tests to verify their effectiveness.
• Metabolism: Decisively eliminate "ineffective words" that consistently perform poorly, and replace them with new candidate words from the lexicon.

Concluding remarks: From tactical execution to strategic asset management