Opportunity Score

Understanding the Opportunity Score

The opportunity score is a number from 0 to 100 that answers the most important question in keyword research: "Is this keyword worth targeting, here?" It turns keyword popularity and keyword difficulty into the one thing you actually care about: the downloads the keyword would bring you.

A keyword with enormous popularity but extreme difficulty can score close to 0, because a new app would land so far down the search results that almost nobody scrolls that far. A keyword you could rank for easily also scores low when almost nobody searches for it. The score is high only when both are true at once: people search for the keyword, and apps like yours rank where the taps are.

How the Opportunity Score Is Worked Out

RespectASO takes three steps, the same in every App Store storefront:

1. Where apps like yours land. Difficulty measures how strong the apps already ranking for the keyword are, and your app is measured on the same scale in that storefront: its ratings, how fast it gains them, its average stars and its age. How far it falls short, or clears the difficulty, says where apps like it land, and RespectASO measured that on 309 real App Store searches, recording where 5,846 apps with the keyword in their title actually ranked. Apps land all over the results. A brand new app, with no ratings yet, typically lands around #37 on a very easy keyword, #99 on a middling one, #123 at difficulty 75 and #135 at 90. On the very easy keyword about 1 in 5 reaches the top 10; at 90, fewer than 1 in 100 reach it. The few that reach the top get most of the taps, so the score averages the downloads over where apps like yours land. An app with ratings of its own does better, and an app that already ranks higher is scored at its real rank.
2. What that pays. The downloads where apps like yours land, averaged over all of them: how many searches the keyword gets in that storefront, how many searchers tap each rank, and how many of those install, taking the cautious end of the range.
3. The score. Those downloads on one scale, where 50 means about one download a day and every tenfold change moves the score 20 points.

Because the score is downloads, it means the same thing in every country. That is what makes it the right number for comparing storefronts, and why popularity on its own cannot do the job: popularity is a relative index, so the same popularity of 48 is about 220 searches a day in the United States and about 7 in Argentina.

Opportunity Score Ranges

One tag sits outside the score. When even #1 brings under one download a day in that storefront, the keyword is Low Volume, whatever its score, for every app and at every difficulty.

Opportunity Score in Keyword Classification

RespectASO's five tags are each one range of one number on the row, so a tag never disagrees with the numbers beside it. Sweet Spot, Good Target and Supporting read the opportunity score and say the keyword is worth targeting now, and how much. The other two say whether to target it and climb or skip it, and the Downloads at #1 column decides which:

• Worth Climbing: below the Supporting bar at the rank you can expect today, but #1 brings a download a day or more.
• Low Volume: even #1 brings under one download a day in that storefront, whatever the score.

The distinction matters because the two problems have different answers. A Low Volume keyword is not worth its space in your metadata; a Worth Climbing keyword is worth targeting now: it pays more as the app climbs, and a title with it also ranks for longer searches that contain it. That is why RespectASO shows Downloads at #1 beside every opportunity score: the score is what the keyword can be expected to bring the app you track it for, or a brand new app, and Downloads at #1 is what it brings whoever holds the top spot.

Real-World Opportunity Patterns

The International Arbitrage

Scores reveal real differences between markets. Take "expense tracker": in the United States it might show popularity 60 and difficulty 82, where a new app typically lands around #123 and the average is effectively nothing, which scores 0. It is still tagged Worth Climbing, because #1 there brings well over a download a day. In Brazil the same keyword might show popularity 62 and difficulty 12. There are far fewer searches, about 290 a day, but a new app typically lands around #42, about 1 in 7 reaches the top 10, and the average is about one download every 6 days, which scores 34: a Supporting keyword.

The Country Opportunity Finder ranks the App Store storefronts you pick for any keyword, so you can see exactly where it pays.

Niche Keywords Beat Generic Keywords

Broad keywords such as "fitness" or "photo editor" usually score 0 for a new app despite huge search volume, because at difficulty around 90 a new app typically lands around #135, where almost nobody scrolls, and fewer than 1 in 100 reach the top 10. More specific terms such as "hiit timer" often score far higher: with popularity 55 and difficulty 12, a new app typically lands around #42, about 1 in 7 reaches the top 10, and the average is about one download every 3 days, which scores 40.

Common Mistakes with Opportunity Scores

• Sorting keywords by popularity alone: popularity says how sought after a keyword is, not what it would bring you. A popularity-sorted list puts keywords you cannot rank for at the top.
• Comparing countries by popularity: the same popularity means very different numbers of searches in a large and a small storefront. Compare countries by opportunity.
• Reading a new app's score as your app's: the score is for the app you track the keyword for, from its ratings, stars and age in that storefront. A keyword that scores 0 for a brand new app can score 63 for an app with 50,000 ratings, and RespectASO shows each app its own number.
• Treating opportunity as a filter: an opportunity of 30 for a keyword that describes your app perfectly can still earn its place in the keyword field. Use the score to prioritize, not to rule keywords out.

How RespectASO Uses Opportunity

Every keyword scored in RespectASO receives one opportunity score from 0 to 100, and every table says above the Opportunity column whose score it is: the app you track the keyword for, or a new app. Hover a score for what it means for that app, in downloads a day. Downloads at #1 and the Insight tag sit on the same row. The Country Opportunity Finder ranks storefronts by it, and the multi-keyword search lets you score and compare a whole list at once. The full method is on the Methodology page.

Put it to work: how to find App Store keywords for your iOS app, step by step.