Title and subtitle: how to split 30 + 30 characters

In the App Store the title and the subtitle are 30 characters each and both are visible to the user. That makes them the only dual-purpose fields in ASO: they feed the search index and they influence the install decision. Writing them for only one of those jobs steals from the other every time.

The weighting is clear: the title is the most heavily indexed field, the subtitle comes next, the keyword field third. So moving a word upward is the strongest single move available on that word.

Nobody is suggesting you drop your brand name; but giving half of 30 characters to the brand is an expensive choice for most apps. In a period when nobody is searching your name, the brand is a pile of characters that indexes nothing.

The practical test: if your brand searches are smaller in volume than your category searches, putting a category word next to the brand in the title almost always wins. When your brand search grows, that choice reverses on its own.

Apple indexes the title, subtitle and keyword field together and combines words across them. With “budget” in the title and “tracker” in the subtitle you are already indexed for “budget tracker”. Writing the same word into two fields only spends the second field's characters.

This rule pays most in the keyword field: delete from your 100 characters every word that already appears in the title or subtitle. In a typical field that single edit opens room for two or three more keywords.

Leaving the subtitle empty, or filling it with a line like “Make your life easier” that indexes nothing, throws away 30 characters of indexing. The subtitle is the best place to add a keyword without disturbing the title.

A good subtitle does two jobs at once: it carries the words you are targeting and it says what the app does at a glance. A line like “Habit tracking, streaks and reminders” indexes three words and informs the reader.

The title, subtitle and keyword field are version-scoped; changing them means submitting a new version. This is the slowest feedback loop in ASO, and it has two consequences.

First: change one variable per version. Change the title, the subtitle and the screenshots at once and when the ranking moves you will never know which one did it.

Second: make the change from measurement, not from instinct. The cost of shipping a version is higher than the half hour it takes to choose the right word.