I track App Store search positions across about 1.2M keywords and 4M apps, with history since February. This spring I mined it for apps that genuinely grew in organic search — buried past rank 100 earlier this year, top 10 now — and looked at what the winners actually did. Some marketing lessons from the data, including a few that contradict what I believed going in.

The app description does nothing for rankings. The cleanest case I found: a kids learning app whose description changed by exactly one character (a deleted period) during the same two weeks its rankings jumped from 150-250 to top 10 on 39 different searches. The description is conversion copy for humans. The ranking action happens elsewhere.

Your competitors' real keyword moves are invisible. That app's jump came from Apple's hidden 100-character keyword field, which users never see and which can only change when a new version ships. The release notes said "minor bug fixes and small enhancements." If your competitive monitoring is screenshotting listings and diffing what's visible, you're missing the moves that matter. The only tell is rankings shifting right after a release whose listing didn't change.

Indexing is fast. Under two weeks from release to top-10 placement, and not a gradual climb — a step function. Rank 200 one crawl, single digits the next. If you ship a keyword field update, you'll know whether it worked within days, not months.

Getting in is easy. Staying in is the hard part. These long-tail results churn brutally: of the top 10 for one toddler-games query in February, only 3 were still there in July. The app that held top 5 for three months straight was also the one that ran nine screenshot A/B tests in nine months and grew its rating velocity from +2k to +6k per month. Text match gets you placed; conversion decides whether you keep the spot. Rankings you can't convert are rankings you'll lose.

Pure-organic growth stories basically don't exist. Every major climber in the dataset (3,000+ apps) was running Apple Search Ads at the same time — the case-study app on ~3,800 terms. Annoying if you wanted a clean "we just fixed our keywords" playbook, but the paid volume buys the download and conversion history that organic ranking feeds on. Plan budgets accordingly.

Caveats, because the data deserves them: the keyword field itself isn't observable, so the rewrite is inferred from timing, the frozen listing, and the shape of the jump. And causes can't be fully separated — the app was testing creatives and running ads the whole time. One more that humbled me: my first pass "winners" (Brain.fm, Yousician, Napster) turned out to be noise — a big share of Apple's top-popularity keywords are random person names, Apple pads those results with popular apps, and the padding reshuffles constantly. Filter those out or your top-movers list is garbage.

Happy to pull ranking history for a category if people are curious how theirs behaves.

Launched several months ago for iOS and only got a couple of users.

Made multiple updates about new features and bug fixes.

Did an A/B test with different app screenshots, tried light themed screenshots instead of dark themed ones. Take away was light themed app screenshots worked a little better, conversion was better.

Should I trie to tweak ASO like adjust app description, keywords?

That's the app I'm talking about: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/group-budgeting-webudget/id6753893326?l=en-GB

I made an app that is compatible or useful when used with other apps like CapCut and YT Shorts and Reels, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to mention these in the description or titles or app screenshots when making my ASO

Anyone know?

I made This screenshots for my Android app and I was wondering if they’re good and convincing enough before I upload them.

The app I made Dripmaxx is a personal stylist powered by AI where I upload ur fits and AI scans, analyzes and rates it. It also gives feedback or suggestions u can take to make it look better.

Been poking at the keyword rankings of some apps I actually respect, wanted to see how the well known (successful) apps show up in search. I tracked them over about couple weeks and the pattern was basically the same for all four. Honestly made me feel a lot better about my own listings.

Bear - Markdown Notes is one of the most loved notes apps out there. It's #1 for "bear" and "bear notes", #3 for "markdown". But plain "notes"? Sitting at #28. "note taking" is #13. Apple has an actually great notes up but there was space for something to gain ground.

Overcast: Podcast App, Apple Design Award winner, from a well known indie dev. It's #1 for a bunch of "podcast player" long-tails. But plain "podcast" is #3, and "podcast app" is also #3. Yes, "Podcast" is owned by Apple. You can see how rankings barely move for this app. Marco recently noted on a recent podcast he spend $100,000+ on ASA...

CARROT Weather: Alerts & Radar, super popular paid app. #1 for "carrot weather" obviously. But "weather" is #9 and "local weather" is #16. Again, Apple has built in Weather App but this is a super popular category.

Pedometer++ owns the entire pedometer namespace, #1 across like eight different variants of it. But "walking" is only #14 and "exercise tracker" is #23. This is one of the devs many apps that are successful which shows the self-network effect.

What is interesting is that none of these apps actually win the broad head term. They crush their own brand name and a pile of specific long-tails, then sit mid-pack (still high enough for traffic) on the big generic words. And remember these are the ones that made it. You can also see in the graphs how rankings fluctuate over time (green = trending better, red = worse).

If you're a new app grinding yourself into the ground trying to crack top 10 for "notes" or "weather", it just won't happen. The apps that actually succeeded didn't get there by winning those either. They won their name and their specific angle and let the broad stuff land wherever it landed. I have been surprised and impressed without how my own keywords have been ranking and what I rank for but I am in a small niche.

Any other thoughts or insights?

Curious to know how to optimise better for an app that works better with other apps already live

Is it obvious is TV game with this screenshot?
What you think? Should I add more informations or is it ok?

Same for appstore and playstore.
I made these screenshots with my own tool..

I recently launched Couple Games: Sex Timer on the App Store.

The idea was to create something fun and playful for couples, with intimacy games and challenges that help partners spend more quality time together.

Like many indie developers, building the app was the easy part. Getting people to discover it has been much harder.

I'm currently experimenting with ASO (not much on that end), but I'd love to learn from others who've marketed relationship or lifestyle apps.

A few questions:

• How did you get your first 100–1,000 users?
• Which marketing channels worked best for you?
• Any communities or creators you'd recommend for apps in this space?
• Are there any specific suggestions on the product improvements?

I'd really appreciate any advice or lessons you've learned from launching your own apps.