A new app has little rank history, few ratings, and no clear conversion baseline. That means metadata keywords should be conservative, specific, and easy to measure.
Start narrower than your ambition
You can grow into broad category terms later. At launch, choose keywords that describe the exact job your app does and where the top results are not impossible.
Use the title for the strongest promise
The title should make the app’s identity and main search theme clear. Do not spend the title on vague branding if nobody knows the brand yet.
Use the subtitle for a second intent
The subtitle should not repeat the title. Use it for the second most important cluster: audience, use case, outcome, or category.
Use the keyword field for coverage
The keyword field is for unique words not already covered. Avoid repeats, stop words, and broad terms that do not match the app.
Track before and after
Add launch keywords to a rank tracker immediately. You need history to understand what Apple indexed and what users convert from.
Start narrow
New apps usually cannot win the broadest category terms first. Start with exact-fit and close-fit keywords where the result page has smaller competitors or weak positioning.
Use competitors for candidates
Look at apps ranking for the searches you want, but do not copy blindly. Use their metadata, screenshots, and reviews to find language, then validate each keyword against relevance and difficulty.
Leave room to learn
The first metadata set is a hypothesis. Track rank history, impressions, product page views, downloads, and conversion so the next update is based on evidence.