How to Find Niche Keywords for ASO

I found the keyword the exact keywords we're looking for around search score traffic 30 and then I built the app all right and I'll give you the exact numbers now do me a favor you want this template we're going to show some ASO stuff we're going to break down this too hey everyone this Roman from tangent welcome to another edition of Roy yon one today our guest is Steve p young the founder of EP Masters Steve few words about yourself a few words well than the d man good to be here Roman few words about myself I'll give you the short version how about that 2011 started making apps started a podcast in 2013 to see if I could turn this little side business of apps into a full-time business because I was only making at the time about like $500 $2,000 a month Roman and so nothing to really live in California but it was a good nice little

side hustle interviewed my heroes in the app space in 2013 to try to see if I can learn from them and then turn this little side hustle into a full-time business when I started doing that the game completely changed I got to really build an audience who then started coming to me for marketing help app launch marketing help Roman I didn't know anything about app marketing back then but enough started coming to me that I've had the courage and ultimately I think that's what entrepreneurship is all about just courage and Having the courage and the confidence to then go out on my own and do this full-time and so 2014 is when we left when I left that company and I still love those guys but I left that company to do this full-time and now we have a team of close to 20 people where we really help clients with I would say our bread and butter is Aso Apple search ads and conversion rate optimization and then now we're getting really good getting really good at meta ads and Google ads too Google I feel like really good at but like meta we're getting really really good at too so watch out we're coming coming baby

yeah and uh the Youtube channel uh is like five 50,000 subscribers right so this is like amazing man thanks man yeah it was YouTube chang the game in 2015 I decided to focus more on the YouTube side of things and that has completely changed the game too yeah yeah we'll leave all the links in the description thanks man um yeah and you mention ASO abor optimization and this is our topic today and I I wanted like to discuss something specific like I hope everyone knows what ASO is maybe we can do a quick intro of what it is sure Steve oh okay to me thank you ASO this is a way I like to explain it it's like SEO for the App Store that's it as people search for certain keywords they find your app and then

download the app obviously there's more a little bit more things to it but the simple explanation SEO for the App Store right so for example I'm not sure if this is a real search query something like what we discussed jetl in if someone searches it in the App Store and your app is helping with a jetl you then uh this is your ASO work if you want to be on the first position yes I get that that's right I'm literally looking up jet lag right now jet lag yeah yeah time shifter jet lag app yeah there's one right there yeah specifically that Roman like it is I mean I use meditation as an example because everybody has a meditation app but yeah like meditation you search for meditation obviously common headspace show up frequently and that's a hard Niche to really go after but jet lag is the perfect one where there's only one app that shows up they don't even have jetlagged in the title and so if you're building an app or solution you know

what I typically say from an ASO perspective too if you're trying to build a nap build a painkiller rather than a vitamin jet lag painkiller right but meditation may be a vitamin but if you underneath meditation you see you know anxiety relief or sleep that's a painkiller because everybody needs it whereas meditation is more like all right I want to feel better and stuff like that and so when we work with a lot of D different types of meditation apps it's like look build for the if you're just starting out build for the painkiller features first get that product Market fit right and then slowly move up channel right go towards meditation and helping people feel better about themselves but ultimately build a painkiller feature first and foremost because then you can start having those revenues and then turning those revenues into something that you can scale later on and I think too many times People app developers that I work with they try to do they try

to go broad too soon whereas you know even with our YouTube channel we were talking specifically about ASO for the longest time Roman right and then we started slowly adding on ASA okay cool Sorry talking about that and getting good at that and then talking about monetization and started getting really good at that and then I'm like okay cool now Facebook like I'm learning that's what the podcast allows me to do and this is great way for you guys too it's like we learn from other people and then I'm like okay cool take those learnings Implement them and then slowly start sharing out more of our content if we start feeling like okay here's what I've learned here's how this is a trick I learned from Marcus Burke as an example who's the Facebook ads expert or here's the thing I got from somebody else and I'm like cool now I've sort of integrated and made it my own and even the ASO templates and some of the things we'll be sharing were like things where I created it but I also learned from a lot of people so I got a lot of inspiration from other people and I sort of incorporated into one full you know gameplay or Playbook so to speak yeah yeah but product Market f is a

king and um yeah everyone this is a kind of things that I haven't seen so much with ASO um I really want to dive deep in a more systematic approach and I I guess the best way to start with this is to see the kind of the tools the templates that people are using so this is what we're going to talk about today Steve you prepared uh some templates that you use in your day-to-day activities um maybe show us the first one and what it does but Roman yes let's break it down into a very systematic approach for the small India apppp developer out there and I'm gonna with ASO look the big guys will ignore it so that's good for you Indies because the big guys are running UA campaigns and all they care about are like creatives and optimizing for the creatives and right finding the right and the hooks

and all that junk right let them focus on that they're not going to care about ASO but obviously they have an advantage that we don't because they're driving so much UA and so many downloads they can rank better for certain keywords and so when we bring on a big client that's got this focusing just on the UA aspect ASO becomes a lot easier for them like we can do everything we do for a smaller client and see way faster results when clients are running UA okay so I want to start off with that but I'm going to really break down the numbers for you guys using a real case study that we helped our client launch last year okay and so I'll start off with this I'm gonna present my screen so if you guys there's no audio only podcast right it's video all video yes it's video only you're stuck with our faces Okay cool so here it is Boom number one do research okay I'm only

talking to the Indie developer and I'm talking the big guys same thing right number one do research and here's what I mean we I worked with a client that was a competitor okay we didn't work with endle but it was a competitor to endle and you can see the revenues so when I when people do competitive analysis and here this is like a focused s sounds type of app all right Roman the this is a niche right and you can see that they're making $200,000 a month according to app magic and then it's really good and I've seen these this is revenue per download the the more Niche you can be long as there's traffic and I'm going to break down what type of traffic scores you should be looking for the higher the revenue per download number is the more Niche you are the higher the revenue down per download is right because you don't need a lot of downloads to make money from this and I'm going to break down exactly the keywords and the keyword traffic score you should go after and how what potential each keyword level has all

right here we go so I was working with a client and here's the full story so he said Steve I got this idea for an app and I said that's the dumbest app I've ever heard like maybe jetl right right we came up with this we're like what about an app that helps you with jetl maybe it's the dumbest idea right so he told me that and I was like I don't know and I started doing keyword research and so I'll give you the tool I like to use for keyword research it is called appf follow. ATF follow. and I can break down how to do keyword research but I just want you guys to know here what you got to find is when I did keyword research I found two keywords so just think ATMs one word ATMs two words with the space and this is what this data is and I told him hey man I think I can rank you number one for these keywords all I knew was a search traffic score of 30 and 28 and I had an app that was making 8 to $110,000 a month ranking number one for two keywords that were around the same search score so I was like dude I don't know what I don't know right now but I think that's enough for us to build a 10

fig business one and two I can get you number one because when I did the research when I actually looked for these specific keywords nobody had in the title kind of like jet lag for us right now so I was like do you want to call your app that he said okay let's do it so we called the app that now doing what we do best we got the app to number one for those two keywords right before I we even built the app I was like I'm pretty confident I get you number one and we were able to do it right within the first week of launching the app and here are here's the data he's get so he launched March 2023 March boom we were able to get within the first month 145 downloads now you don't believe me that's all organically I'll break it down even more March 22nd 145 App Store search 143 downloads right so all of it coming through organic because of these two keywords which those are the only two keywords were focused on the first month

here's how much you're able to make he made $1,600 now according to revenue cat only 17 that's 17 177% of all apps in the App Store that Revenue cat is tracking make at least $ thousand doll a month that is the golden Milestone and Roman I felt it talking to because I work with a lot of Indies we work with a lot of big companies too but we work with a lot of Indies and I can feel it internally talking to these guys because some of they're just trying to findet prod Market fit there spending money they're trying different things and just not making money so I felt it I didn't have a number in place so when I say $1,000 people are like that's nothing Steve I get it I get it but you need to be somewhere you got to start somewhere before you can get to you can't get to $10,000 or $100,000 a month without getting to $1,000 a month first so we were able to make $1600 in 22 days pretty much for absolutely free because why we did the keyword research we only need to focus on those two keywords that have this much traffic that's all you

really need and so these keywords what I found too the more Niche you can get Roman the more the bigger guys are not going to pay attention to these keywords calm and headspace are not going to pay attention to keywords that endle might be focused on so it gives you the blue ocean gives you a clear pathway into finding product Market it and the coolest thing Roman a year later this is now the client's biggest app from a pure downloads perspective Revenue numbers getting close to his other app but other app's more of a painkiller this one's more of a a vitamin you know but anyways it's getting very close but it's doubled the downloads from a download perspective it's it's doubled the the other app that's been around for a long time so it's one of his best performing apps right now as an IND developer wow this is great especially with the amount of course the re research like means a lot but it's not like I don't know like grunning UA campaign and risking your budget you

know yes but quick question do you know stories where like people don't have an app they do a keyword research and they see like some sort of problem and based on that they develop an app and then they uh start dominating or at least like getting those keywords like you I I yes the answer is yes and it's bro so what I've been saying is I did this and I I'll break down the the exact numbers for you so we I've been saying is if you're an indie developer and you're trying to not compete with the big guys in the world just do keywords first you see that first slide Roman was mate do research I was in London so I said mate okay but since I'm back in California I was like dude do research first right that's these are the only numbers you need and let me break down the numbers for you right now and I have it's not App Store

connect but I can share the App Store connect data later on so we'll be sharing this clip and do me a favor guys I'm looking down I'm looking at the RO Roman's gonna BR add my slides here boom screen boom there you go so these are exact numbers from our app Roman I found the keyword and then I built the app let me rephrase it one more time I found the keyword the exact keyword we're looking for around search score traffic 30 and then I built the app all right and I'll give you the exact numbers now do me a favor you want this template we're going to show some ASO stuff we're going to break down this too you go here file make a copy then you can have it you can have my exact numbers right file make a copy that's all you got to do and I'll share this out but if you ask me for edit requests I'll know you're a big dummy so don't add don't be like oh give me edit request nope don't do it you're a big dummy file make a copy and then

it's yours okay here here's the exact numbers we were able again remember that $1,000 we're able to make $1,000 just from doing keyword research first and then building the app and so this is the exact thing like if you know a little bit about monetization and pay walls and what's a good pay wall do keyword research first because Roman I got tired of just thinking about like oh this would be a great idea right let's build the app no now I'm like budget let's do the let's make sure their keywords there's enough traffic for those keywords and then let's build the app for for me instead of trying to build an app that makes let's just use $100,000 a month let's just use 10,000 that's more attainable let's use $10,000 a month right six figures you can live off of that pretty good all right well you can build one app that makes six figures or you can build three or four apps that makes six figures ultimately it's as you scale bigger there's more problems there's more stuff there's more

things that you got to deal with customer support and all that stuff and so for me I was trying to make $100,000 a month it's like rather than trying to big one big app that makes $100,000 a month where I'm gonna have to probably spend a lot of money on UA as well why can't I just build 10 apps or even 15 20 apps that make five to10 th000 a month and I don't have to pay attention so this app like we've been running Apple search ads basic too so we can get into this if you want to break it down Roman let me pause here you want me to continue with apple search chats and breaking down this app or do you want me you want to stop and ask me other things let's stop and focus on ASO and if you guys want Steve to continue on the Apple search ad please let us know in the comments and then we'll let him go on on a rant for the Apple search all right cool so the net net I'll just finish the don't sleep on Apple search ads basic it's working well for us and this is purely automatic for

us right now okay so just keep that in mind all right I'm going to share a different tab Roman so you're going to have to I'm going to keep asking you to bring my slides up and so here is let me just share this whole entire window really quick with you uhhuh all right cool perfect let me see do you see all this stuff I do okay awesome so here is my my ASO favorite tool to use so let's pick in jet lag right jetlagged I think that's how you spell it jet lag okay good jet lag so this app follow don't fail me now okay we're live all right so you see jet lag you you don't see too many apps having it in title this is what I saw before too I was like hm there's not that many keywords there's not that many apps with the that keyword in the title so here's what I like to do I like to

hit this little I icon now follow is having some server issues but it's free so I'm not going to complain this is all free to use at follow. this is my favorite way to do keyword research so I'll click on that keyword and this is what I did with the other client I was like he's like I was like give me a keyword that people were searching for he gave me some keywords I search for it and I hit this little I icon and then app follow will give me uh it's not working a list of keywords like a 100 plus keywords with their search traffic scores and so when I found that I found these two keywords with search traffic of 30 and that gave me enough and just like what I saw with jet lag there's not a lot of apps using that so let's say we found something else like fly kit for example I would come back in here and I'll be like fly kit I'm like oh okay I found there's not that many keywords going after that there's not that many apps going after that keyword hm I have confidence that I can if you're building a jet lag app that I can get you number one for jet lag and maybe get to definitely number

two and eventually beat this guy right I I could beat it right so like this guy I could probably beat him if he was working with us I could probably get to number one for this app now here's my ASO template that I've had for years and here are the sources that I like to use it has sensor Tower but I'm going to change this to app tweak or app radar the tools and we've got some data on this now the two tools I like to use two tools because here's what I found mobile action is a little bit cheaper so that's why I had these are the more affordable tools out there has really good search traffic scores app radar fortunately especially for AI related keywords the new keywords that are trending at follow has accurate data from a keyword perspective if this school was working let's see if it works nope it would have that good search traffic score so mobile action is very similar search traffic scores to app follow okay but app radar doesn't always especially for the new AI related keywords that are trending okay but app radar has the best difficulty

score so mobile action this is actually chance this is an old template we have internal templates that we use but this one difficulty app radar has better difficulty scores so again if you're a new app developer without a big UA budget you're going to have to try to find keywords that are low difficulty what are low difficulty around 40 and under is good but again it doesn't matter what the difficulty score is ultimately if nobody has it in the title and that's what I found with this keyword right that's why we're able to get to number one so diff lower difficulty the better that means just to confirm uh the title when you say the title is it the name of the app or there is some field that is title right here this is what I'm looking for this is the title so skip lag flight booking that's the title fight kit is the title time jet lag time zone title does it matter if the keyword is the first word in the title uh it does ultimately it does and it

matters more on Google and apple I haven't seen that big of a difference on it and Roman that's a great idea because you know for my app when I built this I literally called it what keyword I was going after so it's I named it by that the app name is the keyword that I'm trying to go after there's no brand it's just exactly if I was building meditation app I would just call it the meditation app meditation yeah yeah yeah got it okay thank you you so what you do is the template what this says is just a v lookup you put the keyword and you copy and paste from mobile action you copy and paste from App radar and then boom now you have this template and what we try to do is we try to Source I don't want to show you real client data and there's no keyword there's no since this is live I don't want to show any of my apps either but we sort by just think of this as it's complete filled out so here I'll show you this we sort by apps too because that's the number of apps that show up for that particular key and then keyword link is just when we're

running out of because the on just iOS you have 100 characters here so you want to put the best keywords in the title or app name and then the subtitle the secondary keywords and then the keywords so what we have found is having keywords to the left here so let's say jet Dash lag right let's say you have something else so let's pick on this this very poorly optimized a app so this is jet sky this is blank right so let's say I wanted to go after jet lag well we have found that best place to put jet lag is up here right right after your brand second best place right here second best place and then the last best is to the very left of all the keywords so now you can go flights or time zone right and don't put when you're pulling out these keywords in the keyword field do not put spaces so don't put like time comma

space Zone that's just wasting a character yep so kill that and do that and then moving it to the left helps so if you're after going after fly time zone as an example put time zone to the very left and that helps too makes sense yeah great you want me to keep F going on this and that's pretty much I had it you any questions on this one yeah yeah so it's straightforward right you I've been doing this forever yeah you expert just I just want to explain how to use a template just to reiterate sure expert the data from the tools is that you see here in the tabs just copy paste them and because there is already a we look up you'll see on the main tab um the data per keywords and and

then you can sort it by uh difficulty I guess right yep you can go yep and this is how you find those Niche keywords First Step One is go once app follow Works they will work again go here do keyword research I found that it's the best way to do keyword research so when you click this little icon you'll give you guing a lot of keywords here you copy those keywords take those same keywords and throw them into Mobile action app radar and then put that export that data and copy and paste here copy those keywords here and then they'll because it's all V lookup it'll get populated here and then everything else and then the target is how we start doing Target so let's say this was jet lag as an example I might this is definitely a keyword I want to go after right so I'll put X so I will sort by traffic first

right and then I'll just put X's by all the keywords I want to focus on and then I'll sort by then I'll take all that and I'll be like okay because there's obviously some keywords that don't belong and I'll take that and then I start sorting in by difficulty nice right and then I'll be like okay which one should I go after first so obviously if the traffic score is around 30 great and lower difficulty great I definitely want to put them in phase one of my lach got it got it got it so that's the the the template that you use for uh kind of keyword research right this is myop now but how do you keep track do you use the same one for example I'm jetl I I created an app and then you created an App right and we're rivaling I have number one you have number two but maybe in a month you have number one do you keep track of it on a regular

basis you can yeah I mean yes if I yes I do because for my apps the ones that I showed you right here that were making money the I'm only there's only a few select keywords so ultimately the more Niche you become because for my app to Roman I I couldn't get my app to be number one for the main for the whole reason why I built the app right so I found different keywords that were able that I was able to get to number one and that's why we're able to make $1,000 with no ad spend pretty much right I had no ad spend no nothing right and I was able to get there and the screenshots were butt ugly they were literally screens of the app yeah right so when people say like you need all these perfect thing nope this is and what I've stumbled upon too Roman is yeah so I forget what your question was but anyways what we recently did with another app where same exact stry right found the keyword first I got it to rank for the keyword onboarding was ugly pay wall is there so

what are the essentials you need an onboarding even if it's ugly pay wall even if it's ugly screenshots even if it's ugly if once we got the we were able to get it ranking for number two and three for both like let's just say meditation app and then meditation app free we were number two and three for those three keywords now I'm like cool let's finish it up let's make this onboarding good let's make the pay let's clean up the pay let's start cleaning it up because we're able to drive revenues by ranking for those by ranking two and three we're starting to get some sales it's just not a lot right like here and there like 60 100 bucks I was like cool good enough for me now let's optimize everything so when people say like you need the perfect screenshots you don't need any of that crap you need a rank you need downloads that's the you know when we when we look at this template and I have this the most important number is downloads if you have downloads even if it's just $2,000,000 downloads a month every

everything else could be man like everything else could be really bad I can fix those problems and I think people try to make everything so pretty they focus on all these crap before all this unnecessary crap without getting the downloads fix this problem first and then once you have this problem fix this so can you get this Tri activating 5% this should be around 3 30 to 40 5 to 10 is good 30 to 40 is good these is on average cool now how much can you charge okay maybe you can only charge 30 bucks for your app right I can fix everything else but if you don't this is this if you have the downloads it becomes a when I think about algebra and math problem it becomes an X problem right but if you don't have the downloads it becomes a XY problem and then that's when people start focusing on the dumbest things thinking they need to spend more money to right now like you know I was talking to a client earlier he was getting about 30 downloads a day now I showed him like my app I was

only getting about 45 downloads a day I already did the math right here 14 right I was like look I made 1,000 you're getting a little bit less but you're barely making any money so we have we have we don't have a downloads problem right now we have a trial activation problem because this is like 0 point yes I'm not even saying zero point it's less than 1% right now so I'm like we got to fix this right now this is the whole right because they think hey let me here's what the problem is they think they can and this is me oh oops this is my app that I had right so I'm going to copy and paste this so they think if I just bring in why why Steve why can't get to 100 so why can't I get this to like 10,000 downloads I'm like cool but you've made $450 and how much did you have to spend to make up for the additional 9,000 downloads right and it's just a simple math problem man like you if you have at least a thousand downloads a month close to it and you look at your numbers and you're still not making money what's getting more downloads what's that going to do it's going to ultimately just have

you spend money for no particular reason you just end up wasting more money and so I talked down I was he's like Steve let's run ads let's run ads I want more downloads I'm like you don't need more downloads right now man you have enough you need to fix the app let's figure out why people aren't subscribing it's a good app we have all the best things in there too Roman he's been working with us right like we have a good pay wall we have good screenshot we have good everything I'm like look there's a reason why they're not doing it I think that know why the reason is based off the data that we have so let's let's see give me more data to make sure I'm on the right path and then let's bring in the 90,000 so if we can fix this to let's say 5% go on this is way better numbers when you put in more downloads right now you're making now you've just 10x everything now this makes sense yeah it's like a final basically right it's a yes that's a best way of putting it yeah yeah um then you're talking

geeky marketing terms I just say it's a ma everybody can everybody can understand it's a math problem it's a simple math problem but that's actually what my this is the last question uh we're running a bit out of time but talking about the X problems the downloads I heard the opinion that the ASO doesn't work unless you do UA so the the download is such a strong factor that it kind of push pushes your app up to the top yep do you agree or uh there is more to it I will vemi if that's the right term I will vehemently violently aggressively disagree because here's what I've been saying you probably just don't know enough I don't if it's like me saying hey Roman you know Facebook

ads don't work without whatever I'm like you just don't know enough so here's the real data right right here did I do any big Roman do you see any big like spikes this is when it launched do you see any big spikes anywhere in December febr and then this is all days by the way this is the this is when the app launched right wait actually I'm sharing the wrong screen let me reshare it again I felt like it was a rhetorical question but I saw like 22,000 like my bad man here bring it back uh bring it back okay let me make sure you're looking at the right thing I thought you were yeah here I don't see big spikes Ste exactly so like tell me Roman how am I able to get to number one like I said you just don't know enough now yes the the answer is I don't I disagree

they don't know enough people the experts and I'm G to call them out I don't give a crap all the experts that you've heard people say that ASO is dead without a big boost they don't know ASO as well as I do done period I'm calling you out Bros secondly the the other thing I would say is of course it helps it helps it's just not necessary is it preferred Absol freaking lutely I would prefer you be like super Rive with your UA and I can come in there and fix your ASO that those clients are easy it's easy you want you're a big client and you've never focused on ASO and you need our help no problem I could fix it like that no problem it's the harder ones that are just launching where I got to get super creative and that's why I like working with all the biggest and the smallest companies because they help me stay sharp I have to think through I have to be way more creative when it's the smallest companies when it's the tiniest startups I got to get creative and so how do I get creative that's how I find out these different strategies that I

have right now yes boosting it does help it's part of what we do meaning like how do you drive UA campaigns so like one of my favorite campaigns is to run an app advice campaign by doing a lifetime offer for free and that boosts the downloads that boosts the ratings that boosts the keywords so it's one of my favorite strategies to boost a new app and get some ratings get some keyword optimization all that stuff but obviously I've done it is it is this way easy no right it's not always easy but it's not impossible either I see and um do you think it's like the niche thing so you this is so for some niches it won't work like let's say like some casual match three where they like crazy competition yes this is where you're red ocean right you were talking about blue ocean but is also a otion right yes well I mean Roman when I when

we started this whole thing again right was what's the number one thing do research dude do research dude do research find the right keyword traffic find the right difficulty the difficulty doesn't matter I mean difficulty matters but what also matters is how many people are using the keyword in the search results right right so along as this keyword now I don't know what the traffic score of jet lag is but if that keyword is close to what you're seeing right here with 30 because there's two volumes right like there's jet lag and then there's jet lagged and so maybe long as there's maybe there's a one word version jet lag that people are searching for and as long as those two keywords have this search traffic score then that's enough for you to start building this is what we did with our app that was making this is what I this is why I show these templates is like like and I they're always like Steve what is this me column let me just make

sure you're seeing the right thing yep what is this me column I was like this is one of our apps that we used to have not part of that partnership anymore either but like anyways we only had about 100 downloads a day we're converting because it was a painkiller 12% of the people who activ 35% increase we're charging them $60 boom8 to $10,000 on automatic why just by ranking for two keywords that were right this chch traffic so that's what I'm saying is like you don't need that much to make a pretty decent living in the App Store got it it's a it's a mic drop it's a mic drop where's the M mic drop okay do you have it uh let me see I don't have it it's a h it's a Applause about that yeah it is a micop I I just dropped it any Ovation really and um most importantly guys don't ask to share this template leave a link copy it or will be

very very angry um thanks a lot I I'm sure this was like very helpful I also learned a lot I would go and do my keywords research for my side hustle now give us a like if you like it comment um yeah and have a great one thank you Roman can I do a plug go to atm.com that's our website but go more importantly I don't want you to guys sign up and work together if you like this go check out our YouTube video masters.com youout 50,000 Subs there it is thank you so much Roman