App Name & Subtitle Optimization: The ASO Fundamentals Most Teams Skip
Your app name is the single heaviest-weighted ASO field. Here's how to use every character without getting rejected.
App Store gives you 30 characters for the name and 30 for the subtitle. Play Store gives you 30 for the title and 80 for the short description. In both cases, keywords in these fields outrank keywords anywhere else in the listing.
What to put in the name
Brand first, one qualifier after. "Notion — Notes, Docs, AI" is the pattern. Pure-brand names waste the ASO slot entirely.
Subtitle ≠ tagline
Treat the subtitle as a secondary keyword field, not a brand line. It needs to read like English, but every word should be doing double duty as a search term.
Avoid rejections
- No competitor names.
- No "best", "#1", "top rated" — Apple rejects superlatives.
- No emojis in name (rejected since 2020, still rejected now).
Iteration cadence
You can change name/subtitle with every release. If you're not revisiting them every 2–3 releases, you're leaving ranking on the table.
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