ASO Mistakes That Are Killing Your App Downloads

The Cost of Bad ASO: Invisible Apps Despite Good Quality

Here is a painful truth most indie developers learn too late: the quality of your app has almost nothing to do with whether people find it.

Apple reports that over 65% of all App Store downloads originate from search. Google Play's numbers are similar. That means two out of every three potential users will discover your app -- or not -- based entirely on how well your store listing matches what they type into the search bar. If your metadata is not optimized, you are invisible to the majority of your potential audience.

The math is brutal. There are roughly 1.8 million apps on the App Store and 3.5 million on Google Play. When a user searches "budget tracker" or "habit builder," the algorithm returns a ranked list. Most users never scroll past the first 10 results. If your listing is not in that top 10 for your target keywords, you functionally do not exist for those users.

Bad ASO does not just slow your growth. It makes your app invisible to the exact people who are searching for what you built. And unlike paid acquisition, where you can throw money at the problem, fixing ASO mistakes is free. It just requires knowing what you are doing wrong.

These are the 10 most common mistakes we see indie developers make, ranked by how much damage they cause. Every one of them is fixable. If you are new to ASO or want a broader overview before diving into specific mistakes, start with our complete ASO guide.

Mistake 1: Ignoring ASO Until After Launch

Most developers treat ASO as a post-launch task. They spend months building, polishing, and testing. Then, the night before submission, they slap together a title, write a description in 20 minutes, and take a few screenshots from the simulator.

This approach throws away the most valuable window your app will ever have. Apple and Google both give new apps a temporary ranking boost during their first days on the store. Apple calls it the "new app effect" -- fresh apps get surfaced more prominently in search results and category listings for roughly 7 to 14 days after launch. If your listing is not optimized during that window, you are wasting your best shot at organic visibility.

Apps that launch with optimized listings see 3 to 5 times more organic installs in their critical first week compared to those that optimize later. That initial burst of downloads also feeds into the ranking algorithm, creating a compounding advantage. More downloads lead to higher rankings, which lead to more impressions, which lead to more downloads.

ASO should start before you write your first line of code. During the ideation phase, research whether people are actually searching for what you plan to build. During development, track competitor listings and identify keyword opportunities. By launch day, your metadata should be polished, your screenshots should be captioned, and your keyword field should be fully utilized.

Mistake 2: Keyword Stuffing Your Title

What Keyword Stuffing Looks Like

You have 30 characters for your iOS app title. Some developers try to cram every possible keyword into that space, producing titles like "Budget Money Tracker Expense Finance Save Planner." This is keyword stuffing, and it backfires in multiple ways.

First, Apple's review team flags titles that read as keyword lists rather than app names. Your app can be rejected or required to change its title during review. Second, even if it passes review, a stuffed title destroys your conversion rate. Users see your listing in search results and subconsciously register it as low quality or spammy. They scroll past.

Compare "Budget Money Tracker Expense Finance Save" with "Pennies - Daily Budget Tracker." Both target the budget tracking category. One looks like spam. The other looks like a real product built by people who care.

The Right Approach to Title Keywords

Your title should follow a simple formula: Brand Name + Primary Keyword. That is it. One or two high-value keywords, naturally integrated with your app's name.

"Headspace: Meditation & Sleep" is a textbook example. The brand name is instantly recognizable, and the two keywords after the colon tell both the algorithm and the user exactly what the app does. It reads naturally. It looks professional.

Readability directly impacts your conversion rate from impression to download. A user scanning search results makes a snap judgment in under a second. If your title looks like it was written by a bot, they will not tap it regardless of what keywords it contains. Rank and convert -- you need both.

Use your subtitle (iOS) or short description (Android) for secondary keywords. Use your keyword field for everything else. Your title is prime real estate, not a keyword dump.

Mistake 3: Using Raw Screenshots Without Captions

Why Bare Screenshots Fail

Your screenshots are the first thing users evaluate after your icon and title. In search results, the first two or three screenshots are visible without tapping into your listing. They need to communicate what your app does and why it matters in a single glance.

Raw screenshots -- just UI captures from the simulator with no captions, no context, no device frames -- force the user to interpret what they are looking at. Most will not bother. Eye-tracking studies on App Store browsing show that users spend less than 2 seconds per screenshot when scrolling through search results. Without a caption telling them what they are seeing, they move on.

Apps with captioned screenshots see conversion rate improvements of 25 to 30 percent compared to identical apps with bare screenshots. That is not a marginal difference. If you get 1,000 impressions per day, that is 250 to 300 additional downloads per day from the same traffic. Over a month, that is 7,500 to 9,000 extra installs -- for free.

What Effective Captions Look Like

Great screenshot captions communicate benefits, not features. "Syncs across all your devices" is a feature. "Never lose your notes again" is a benefit. Users care about what your app does for them, not how it works under the hood.

The anatomy of a high-converting caption: 5 to 8 words maximum, benefit-focused language, and aligned with the user's intent when searching. If someone searches "sleep tracker," your first screenshot caption should address their goal: "Wake up feeling rested" hits harder than "Advanced sleep stage detection."

Look at top-performing indie apps in any category and you will see a pattern. The first screenshot states the core value proposition. The second and third show key features with benefit-oriented captions. The fourth or fifth includes social proof -- a rating badge, a press mention, or a download milestone. This sequence tells a story in 5 frames.

Mistake 4: Duplicate Keywords Across Title, Subtitle, and Keyword Field

How Apple's Algorithm Handles Duplicates

On iOS, Apple indexes keywords from three separate fields: your title (30 characters), your subtitle (30 characters), and your keyword field (100 characters). That gives you 160 characters of keyword real estate total.

Here is what many developers do not realize: Apple deduplicates across all three fields. If the word "budget" appears in your title, you get zero additional ranking benefit from also putting it in your subtitle and keyword field. The algorithm treats it as one occurrence regardless of how many times it appears.

This means every duplicated word is wasted space. If you repeat 5 keywords across your fields, you might be wasting 30 to 40 characters -- roughly 20 to 25 percent of your total keyword capacity. That is 20 to 25 percent fewer unique keywords the algorithm indexes for your app.

Maximizing Keyword Coverage

Use each field strategically to maximize total keyword coverage.

Title: Your 1 to 2 highest-volume, most relevant keywords. These carry the most ranking weight, so put your best terms here.

Subtitle: Secondary keywords that describe your app's core functionality. Do not repeat anything from the title.

Keyword field: Long-tail variations, synonyms, related terms, and competitor brand names (if appropriate). Use commas to separate, no spaces after commas. Do not repeat anything from the title or subtitle.

Here is a practical example for a meditation app:

• Title: "Calm Mind: Daily Meditation" (keywords: calm, mind, daily, meditation)
• Subtitle: "Sleep Sounds & Breathing" (keywords: sleep, sounds, breathing)
• Keyword field: "relax,anxiety,stress,mindfulness,focus,guided,timer,wellness,peaceful,nature,yoga,mental,health,bedtime,routine" (15 unique keywords)

This approach indexes 22 unique keywords across 160 characters. Compare that to a developer who repeats "meditation" and "sleep" across all three fields -- they might index only 14 or 15 unique terms. That is a 40 to 50 percent reduction in keyword coverage.

Mistake 5: Never Updating Your Listing

The Freshness Signal

Both Apple and Google factor update recency into their ranking algorithms. It is not the most heavily weighted signal, but it is real. Apps that have not been updated in six or more months gradually lose ranking position, all else being equal.

Beyond the algorithm, users notice. When a potential user taps into your listing and sees "Last updated: 14 months ago," they make an immediate judgment: this app is abandoned. Even if it works perfectly, the perception of abandonment reduces their willingness to download. In categories where security matters -- finance, health, productivity -- an outdated app looks like a liability.

Apple has also started flagging apps that have not been updated in extended periods, sending developers emails warning that the app may be removed if not updated. Google Play has similar policies. Keeping your listing fresh is not optional anymore.

What to Update and How Often

You do not need a major feature release to refresh your listing. The minimum effective update cadence is every 4 to 6 weeks.

Each update is an opportunity to adjust your metadata. Seasonal keyword adjustments can capture trending search traffic -- "New Year resolution tracker" in January, "back to school planner" in August, "holiday gift list" in November. These seasonal terms see temporary spikes in search volume, and the apps that target them during those windows capture traffic that competitors miss.

Your "What's New" text is free marketing real estate. Stop writing "Bug fixes and performance improvements." Instead, highlight a specific improvement that signals the app is actively maintained and getting better: "New: Dark mode support and faster sync. We also redesigned the settings screen based on your feedback." This tells both the algorithm and the user that someone is home.

Mistake 6: Ignoring Localization Entirely

The Untapped Market Opportunity

Most indie developers optimize for English and stop there. This is understandable -- it is the language they think in, and the US is the largest single app market. But it is also a massive missed opportunity.

Over 70 percent of App Store revenue comes from non-English-speaking markets. Japan alone accounts for roughly 25 percent of global App Store consumer spending. Germany, South Korea, China, and Brazil are all enormous markets where far fewer apps have optimized metadata in the local language.

The data on localization impact is compelling. Localizing to just 5 additional languages can increase total downloads by 30 to 80 percent, depending on the app category. Utility apps and productivity tools tend to see the higher end of that range because the core functionality translates well across cultures. Games and social apps see slightly lower gains because of cultural fit differences.

The competitive dynamic is what makes localization so powerful for indie developers specifically. In the English-language US store, you are competing against thousands of well-optimized listings. In the Spanish-language Spain store or the Portuguese-language Brazil store, the number of apps with properly optimized metadata drops dramatically. You can rank for keywords that would be impossible in English simply because fewer apps are trying.

Localization Beyond Translation

Effective localization is not just running your metadata through Google Translate. Keywords that rank in English may have completely different search patterns in other languages.

In English, users might search "expense tracker." In Spanish, they might search "control de gastos" (expense control) rather than "rastreador de gastos" (expense tracker). The direct translation is not what people actually type. You need to research autocomplete suggestions in each locale's App Store to find the terms real users actually search for.

Cultural adaptation matters too. Screenshots that work in the US might need different imagery for Japan or the Middle East. Captions should be rewritten for the target culture, not just translated. A caption like "Crush your fitness goals" might resonate in the US but feel odd in Japanese, where a more modest "Build healthy daily habits" would convert better.

Mistake 7: Writing Descriptions for Yourself, Not Users

The Developer's Curse of Knowledge

You know every feature your app has. You know the architecture, the framework, the clever algorithms. And because you know all of this, you write descriptions like: "Built with SwiftUI using Core Data for offline persistence, featuring a custom sync engine with conflict resolution and a reactive UI powered by Combine."

Your users do not care. Not even a little.

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias where experts assume their audience shares their context. Developers write descriptions full of technical jargon and exhaustive feature lists because that is how they think about their app. Users, however, need to understand one thing within the first three lines: what problem does this app solve, and why should I care?

Those first three lines are critical because they appear before the "more" fold on both iOS and Android. Approximately 95 percent of users never tap "more." Your entire description might as well be three lines long for most visitors.

Writing Descriptions That Convert

Great descriptions follow a structure that mirrors how users make decisions:

Line 1-3 (above the fold): Hook with a problem statement and your solution. "Tired of forgetting important tasks? [App Name] keeps your to-do list simple, beautiful, and always in sync." This tells the user exactly what the app does and why it exists.

Lines 4-10: Key benefits (not features) with light keyword integration. "Never miss a deadline with smart reminders. Organize tasks by project, priority, or due date. Works offline and syncs instantly when you are back online."

Lines 11-20: Features and details for users who want more information. This is where you can list specific capabilities.

Final lines: Social proof and call to action. "Loved by 50,000+ users. Featured by Apple in 'Apps We Love.' Download free today."

Notice the keyword integration: "to-do list," "reminders," "organize tasks," "works offline" -- these are all terms users search for, woven naturally into benefit-focused copy. This is the intersection of copywriting and ASO, and it is where most developers fall short.

Mistake 8: Neglecting Ratings and Review Management

Why Ratings Are an ASO Factor

Your rating is both a ranking signal and a conversion factor, which makes it doubly important.

On the ranking side, Apple and Google both use rating quality (your average star score) and rating velocity (the rate of new reviews) as inputs to their algorithms. An app with a 4.7 rating that receives 10 new reviews per week will rank higher than an identical app with a 4.2 rating receiving 2 reviews per week, all else being equal.

On the conversion side, the impact is even more dramatic. Apps rated 4.5 and above convert at nearly double the rate of apps rated 3.5 to 4.0 from impression to download. Users check the rating before anything else. A rating below 4.0 is a red flag that causes many users to skip your listing entirely.

This creates a compounding loop. Higher ratings lead to better conversion, which leads to more downloads, which leads to higher rankings, which leads to more impressions. Conversely, a low rating creates a death spiral: fewer downloads, lower rankings, fewer impressions, and the only users who do find you are the ones most likely to leave a negative review because your app is not being discovered by its ideal audience.

Proactive Review Management

The single most effective thing you can do for your rating is to ask happy users for a review at the right moment. Do not prompt on first launch. Do not prompt during onboarding. Do not prompt when the user is clearly frustrated.

Prompt after a moment of delight: when they complete a task, hit a streak milestone, achieve a goal, or unlock something new. At that moment, they feel positive about your app, and a gentle prompt via SKStoreReviewController (iOS) or the In-App Review API (Android) will yield a disproportionately high rate of 5-star reviews. We cover timing strategies, response templates, and more in our dedicated guide on how to get more App Store reviews.

Apple limits you to three review prompts per user per year. Make them count.

For negative reviews, respond promptly and constructively. "Thank you for the feedback. We have fixed the sync issue in version 2.3 -- please try updating and let us know if the problem persists." This does two things: it shows potential users reading reviews that you are responsive, and it gives the reviewer a reason to update their rating. Roughly 20 to 30 percent of users who receive a helpful developer response will revise their rating upward.

Mistake 9: Copying Competitor Keywords Blindly

Why Competitor Keywords Often Do Not Work for You

Analyzing competitor keywords is useful. Blindly copying them is not.

Your top competitor ranks for "best photo editor" not just because those words are in their metadata. They rank because they have 2 million downloads, a 4.8 rating, 500,000 reviews, and years of download history building domain authority with the algorithm. Putting "best photo editor" in your keyword field when you have 200 downloads and a 4.1 rating will not make you rank for that term. The algorithm knows the difference.

This is the competitive keyword trap. You copy high-volume terms from established apps, fail to rank for any of them because you lack the authority, and meanwhile you have wasted your keyword capacity on terms that were never realistic targets.

Smart Competitive Keyword Research

Use competitor keywords as a starting point, not a destination. The process should look like this:

Step 1: Identify what keywords your top 5 to 10 competitors target in their titles, subtitles, and descriptions.

Step 2: Filter out the terms where established players dominate and you have no realistic chance of cracking the top 10.

Step 3: Look for gaps -- keywords that are relevant to your category but that competitors are not specifically targeting. These are often long-tail variations: instead of "photo editor," try "photo editor for Instagram stories" or "batch photo editor."

Step 4: Target keywords where your app has a structural advantage. If your app has a unique feature -- say, AI-powered background removal -- target that specific capability as a keyword. You might not rank for "photo editor," but you can absolutely rank for "remove background from photo."

The goal is not to compete for the same keywords as apps with 100 times your download volume. The goal is to find the keywords where you can realistically reach the top 5 to 10 results, because that is where downloads actually happen. For a complete framework on finding these achievable keywords, see our keyword research strategy guide.

Mistake 10: Not Tracking What Is Working

Flying Blind Without Data

Here is a scenario that plays out constantly: a developer reads an article about ASO, makes a bunch of changes to their listing in one afternoon -- new title, new keywords, new screenshots, new description -- and then checks back two weeks later to see if downloads went up.

Maybe downloads increased. Maybe they decreased. The developer has no idea which change caused the movement because they changed everything at once and did not record their baseline metrics. This is ASO by guesswork, and it is remarkably common.

Without tracking keyword rankings, impression counts, and conversion rates over time, you cannot distinguish between changes that helped, changes that hurt, and changes that did nothing. You might even roll back a change that was working because a separate change masked its positive impact.

Setting Up Basic Tracking

You do not need expensive tools for this. App Store Connect and Google Play Console provide the core metrics for free.

Set up a simple tracking spreadsheet with these columns: Date, Total Impressions, Search Impressions, Product Page Views, Conversion Rate (Views to Downloads), Total Downloads, and Current Rating. Record these numbers weekly.

Before making any change, record your baseline: your current metrics averaged over the previous two to four weeks. Then make one change at a time. Wait two to four weeks for the impact to stabilize. Record the new metrics. Compare.

This sounds tedious. It is. It is also the difference between developers who systematically improve their ASO performance and developers who flail around making random changes and hoping something sticks. The data will tell you exactly what works for your specific app in your specific category, which is worth more than any generic ASO advice.

How to Audit Your Listing for These Mistakes

The 10-Minute ASO Audit Checklist

Run through this checklist right now. It takes 10 minutes and will tell you exactly where your listing stands.

1. Title keywords: Does your title contain 1 to 2 high-value keywords naturally integrated with your brand? Pass: yes. Fail: no keywords, or more than 3 stuffed keywords.
2. Subtitle/short description: Does it contain different keywords from your title? Pass: no duplicates. Fail: repeats title keywords.
3. Keyword field (iOS): Is it fully utilized (close to 100 characters)? Are there any duplicates from title/subtitle? Pass: 90+ characters, no duplicates. Fail: under 80 characters or contains duplicates.
4. Screenshots: Do your first 3 screenshots have captions? Pass: yes, with benefit-focused text. Fail: raw screenshots or feature-focused captions.
5. Description first 3 lines: Do they communicate your value proposition clearly to a non-technical user? Pass: problem and solution are clear. Fail: starts with features or jargon.
6. Rating: Is your current rating 4.0 or above? Pass: 4.0+. Fail: below 4.0.
7. Last update: Has the app been updated in the last 3 months? Pass: yes. Fail: no.
8. Localization: Is your metadata localized for at least one non-English market? Pass: at least one. Fail: English only.
9. Keyword duplicates: Are you repeating the same keywords across title, subtitle, and keyword field? Pass: minimal repetition. Fail: significant overlap.
10. Review prompt: Does your app prompt for reviews at an appropriate moment? Pass: yes, after a positive action. Fail: no prompt or poor timing.

Count your passes. 8 to 10: your listing is in good shape. 5 to 7: significant room for improvement. Below 5: your listing is actively hurting your downloads.

If you want a more thorough, data-backed assessment, tools like StoreLit can automate this audit and benchmark your listing against real competitor data, showing you exactly where you stand relative to the top apps in your category.

Interpreting Your Audit Results

Not all mistakes are equally damaging for every app. Context matters.

If you are building a game, screenshot quality is paramount. Games live and die by their visual appeal, and bare screenshots without captions are more damaging in that category than almost any other mistake on this list.

If you are building a utility or productivity app, keyword optimization carries more weight because users search for specific functionality ("PDF scanner," "habit tracker," "expense manager") and your metadata needs to match exactly.

If your app serves a global audience, ignoring localization is your biggest miss. A productivity app that localizes to Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, and French can double its addressable market with a few hours of work.

Prioritize fixing the mistakes that matter most for your specific category and competitive landscape. A blanket "fix everything" approach sounds good but usually results in half-done improvements across the board rather than meaningful progress on what matters most.

Quick-Fix Priority List: What to Fix First

High Impact, Low Effort (Fix This Week)

These fixes take less than an hour each and can have immediate impact on your downloads:

Remove duplicate keywords. Open your title, subtitle, and keyword field side by side. Eliminate any word that appears in more than one field. Replace duplicates in the keyword field with new, relevant terms. Time: 15 minutes. Impact: 20 to 40 percent more indexed keywords.

Add captions to your first 3 screenshots. Even simple text overlays with benefit-focused captions will improve conversion. You do not need a designer. White text on a dark overlay or dark text on a light overlay works fine. Time: 30 to 45 minutes. Impact: 15 to 25 percent conversion rate improvement.

Rewrite your first 3 description lines. Replace technical jargon or feature lists with a clear problem-solution statement. Make sure a non-technical user understands what your app does and why it matters within three lines. Time: 15 minutes. Impact: improved conversion for the 5 percent of users who read the description, plus keyword benefits.

High Impact, Medium Effort (Fix This Month)

Localize your top 3 to 5 markets. Research which non-English markets have the most search volume for your category. Translate your metadata -- title, subtitle, keywords, description, and screenshot captions -- for those markets. Use autocomplete research in each locale to find the right keywords, not just direct translations. Time: 3 to 5 hours total. Impact: 30 to 80 percent increase in total downloads.

Implement a review prompt strategy. Add SKStoreReviewController (iOS) or the In-App Review API (Android) triggered after a positive user action. Monitor your rating trajectory. Time: 1 to 2 hours of development. Impact: gradual rating improvement that compounds over weeks and months.

Rewrite your full description with keyword optimization. Follow the structure outlined in Mistake 7: hook, benefits, features, social proof. Integrate your target keywords naturally. Time: 1 to 2 hours. Impact: improved conversion and keyword indexing.

Ongoing Improvements (Build the Habit)

Monthly update cadence. Set a recurring calendar reminder to submit an app update every 4 to 6 weeks. Even a minor update with a well-written "What's New" text keeps your listing fresh.

Weekly tracking. Spend 5 minutes every Monday recording your key metrics. Over time, this data becomes your most valuable ASO asset because it tells you exactly what works for your specific app.

Quarterly screenshot refresh. Every 3 months, review your screenshot conversion data. If conversion is flat or declining, test new captions, new layouts, or new social proof elements.

These are not one-time fixes. They are habits. The apps that grow consistently are not the ones that optimize once and forget about it. They are the ones that treat their store listing as a living document and iterate on it month after month, using data to guide every change.