Keyword Popularity
Keyword popularity is a score from 1 to 100 that estimates how frequently users search for a specific term in the App Store. Higher scores mean more search traffic potential.
Understanding Keyword Popularity
Keyword popularity is a score from 1 to 100 that estimates how frequently users search for a specific term in the App Store. A popularity of 5 means almost nobody searches for that term (roughly 1 search per day). A popularity of 50 represents approximately 200 daily searches. A popularity of 100 corresponds to around 32,000 daily searches, territory reserved for the most searched terms in the store.
Popularity is one of the three core metrics in keyword research, alongside keyword difficulty and the opportunity score. It answers the fundamental question: "Is anyone actually searching for this?"
How Popularity Maps to Search Volume
The 1–100 popularity scale is not linear: it follows a logarithmic distribution, meaning each step at the higher end represents a much larger increase in actual searches than steps at the lower end.
| Popularity Score | Estimated Daily Searches | What This Means |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | ~1 | Virtually no search traffic |
| 15 | ~5 | Minimal: only worth targeting if extremely relevant |
| 25 | ~20 | Low but real traffic. Can be valuable in niche markets |
| 40 | ~90 | Moderate traffic in the US. Far less in a small storefront, where the same popularity stands for fewer searches |
| 50 | ~200 | Solid traffic. Good target for most apps |
| 65 | ~550 | Strong traffic. Worth competing for if difficulty allows |
| 80 | ~2,000 | High volume. Usually high difficulty too |
| 100 | ~32,000 | Maximum. Extremely competitive, dominated by top apps |
Why Popularity Alone Is Insufficient
A common mistake is targeting the highest-popularity keywords available. Popularity without context is misleading because it ignores competition. A keyword with popularity 80 sounds great, but if it has difficulty 85, ranking for it is nearly impossible for most apps.
This is why the opportunity score exists: it combines popularity and difficulty into a single metric that identifies keywords where traffic potential justifies the competitive challenge. It turns them into the downloads the keyword would bring at the rank a brand new app could realistically reach, in that storefront, so high difficulty pushes you down the results until the keyword pays nothing, and a small market counts for what it is.
How Popularity Affects Keyword Classification
RespectASO's five tags are read off the opportunity score and the Downloads at #1 column, not off popularity alone, because popularity is a relative index: the same 48 is about 220 searches a day in the United States and about 7 in Argentina. Popularity still drives the tags through the searches behind it:
- Sweet Spot: needs enough searches in that storefront to bring 10 or more downloads a day at the rank the app can expect. For a brand new app in the US that means popularity around 75 or more on a very easy keyword.
- Good Target and Supporting: fewer searches than a Sweet Spot, but still worth targeting now: 1 to 10 downloads a day, or one every 10 days to 1 a day. A modest keyword with low difficulty, what ASO guides call a hidden gem, lands in one of these two.
- Worth Climbing: enough searches that #1 brings a download a day or more, but little at the rank the app can expect today.
- Low Volume: so few searches in that storefront that even #1 brings under one download a day. The same popularity can be Low Volume in a small market and worth targeting in a large one.
Popularity Varies by Country
The same keyword concept has different popularity scores across countries. An English keyword might score popularity 60 in the United States but only 30 in the United Kingdom, not because British users don't search for it, but because the UK has a smaller market. Conversely, a localized term in Japanese might show popularity 45 in Japan while the English equivalent only scores 10 there.
The Country Opportunity Finder uses popularity as one of its core inputs, ranking markets where a keyword's popularity-to-difficulty ratio is most favorable.
Practical Guidelines for Popularity
- Keywords below popularity 15 rarely justify metadata space. With fewer than 5 daily searches, even ranking #1 produces negligible downloads.
- Keywords between 25–50 are often the most productive for indie developers. They have real search volume but frequently have manageable difficulty.
- Keywords above 70 drive significant traffic but almost always come with high difficulty. These are best targeted by established apps or through long-tail variants.
- Don't chase popularity 100 keywords. At ~32,000 daily searches, these are dominated by the biggest apps in the store. Unless your app is already in the top 50 for your category, the effort is better spent on lower-popularity, lower-difficulty terms.
How RespectASO Measures Popularity
RespectASO scores popularity on the 1-100 scale for every keyword across all 175 App Store storefronts. Search a whole list of keywords at once to compare popularity scores, then cross-reference with difficulty to identify the keywords where traffic volume meets achievable competition. The Insight tag flags a keyword as Low Volume when even #1 brings under one download a day in that storefront, whatever its difficulty, so you don't waste metadata space on terms that won't generate meaningful downloads.
Put it to work: how to find App Store keywords for your iOS app, step by step.
Put This Knowledge Into Practice
Use RespectASO to research keywords and optimize your App Store metadata.