How to write an App Store title and subtitle that make sense

Give each field a different job

A useful name is distinctive enough to remember and clear enough to connect with the app. A useful subtitle expands the promise with a feature, audience, or outcome. If both fields say habit tracker in different orders, you may have spent scarce space without adding information.

Choose language based on the intended user rather than the internal feature name. A developer might call a feature recurring event persistence; a user might call it a daily routine. Research can help identify that language, but the final visible text still needs to read like a product, not a search query export.

Write contrasting drafts, not tiny word shuffles

Create two or three genuinely different positioning directions. One might lead with the main task, another with the differentiating workflow. Keep the underlying product promise accurate across all of them. Reject a clever draft if a new visitor cannot tell what the app does.

The following examples are fictional copy exercises, not measured winners. A phrase like reminders belongs in the subtitle only when reminders are available in the app under conditions the user can understand.

Review meaning, fit, and submission constraints

Read each pair at the size someone encounters in a search result. Look for ambiguous claims, jargon, missing context, and repetition. Ask a few people in the intended audience what they think the app does before showing them the answer. That small exercise is qualitative feedback, not a conversion benchmark.

Check the 30-character limits in the final language and in App Store Connect. Avoid unsupported superlatives and unauthorized brand references. Preserve an established app identity deliberately: a more keyword-heavy name can make returning users less sure that they have found the right product.

• Can someone identify the main job from the pair?
• Is the distinguishing benefit actually supported?
• Do the first screenshots demonstrate the same promise?
• Have you checked how the translated text reads, not just its length?

Separate copy planning from outcome measurement

Back My Side can help you inspect the public listing and prepare changes, but it does not publish your metadata in App Store Connect. Saving variants is not the same as running an Apple product page optimization test. Apple’s native PPO tests cover eligible icons, screenshots, and previews, not title or keyword-field randomization.

If you publish a name or subtitle update, log the version, date, storefront, and simultaneous marketing changes. Compare search and conversion evidence over a consistent period, and keep the old draft available. A before-and-after improvement may justify further investigation, but it does not isolate the wording as the cause.

Use feedback from acquired users too. Copy that wins attention by setting the wrong expectation is not a durable growth improvement.

Frequently asked questions