Optimising App Store Localisation

Storefronts, localisations and custom listings

The two stores organise international listings in slightly different ways, and mixing up the terms leads to wasted work.

On iOS, many ASO practitioners have observed that some storefronts take search keywords from more than one localisation. For example, the US storefront is commonly reported to use a Spanish (Mexico) localisation as well as English (US). Apple does not publish a complete list, so if you rely on this, treat it as something to test with your own ranking checks rather than a fixed rule.

The fix, step by step

Common localisation mistakes

• Translating the English keyword list. The result is usually a list of correct words nobody searches. Research each language from scratch.
• Forgetting text length. Translations into languages such as German or Finnish are often longer than the English, which can break screenshot captions and push iOS name and subtitle text over the character allowance. Write for the limit in each language, and confirm current limits in App Store Connect and the Play Console.
• Leaving stale screenshots. A localised listing showing an old English interface looks neglected. Update localised screenshots whenever you update the English ones.
• Using one Spanish or Portuguese for every market. Spanish for Spain and Spanish for Mexico, or Portuguese for Portugal and for Brazil, differ in vocabulary and tone. Both stores support separate regional variants.
• Ignoring local reviews. Reviews in a new language need replies in that language, or a clear route to support. Unanswered complaints hurt a new market more because there are fewer reviews to balance them.
• Launching too many markets at once. Every localisation needs updating with each release. Ten half-maintained listings are worse than three good ones.

Managing metadata for many languages

Once you support several languages, editing each field by hand in two consoles becomes slow and error-prone. Many teams keep listing text in version control and upload it with fastlane, whose deliver action handles App Store metadata and supply handles Google Play. The files are organised by locale:

fastlane/metadata/
  en-GB/
    name.txt
    subtitle.txt
    keywords.txt
    promotional_text.txt
    description.txt
  de-DE/
    name.txt
    subtitle.txt
    keywords.txt
    description.txt
  android/
    en-GB/
      title.txt
      short_description.txt
      full_description.txt
    de-DE/
      title.txt
      short_description.txt
      full_description.txt

Keeping text in files makes it easy to review changes, run a simple script that counts characters against the limits you have confirmed in each console, and spot languages that have fallen behind. Check the fastlane documentation for the current folder names and options before setting it up.

A simple character check

import pathlib
LIMITS = {"name.txt": 30, "subtitle.txt": 30, "keywords.txt": 100}  # confirm in App Store Connect
for f in pathlib.Path("fastlane/metadata").glob("*/*.txt"):
    limit = LIMITS.get(f.name)
    n = len(f.read_text(encoding="utf-8").strip())
    if limit and n > limit:
        print(f"{f}: {n} characters, limit {limit}")

Update the numbers in LIMITS to whatever App Store Connect currently shows before relying on the script.

A worked example

Stitchbook, a fictional knitting pattern app available only in English, found in its analytics that Germany and the Netherlands produced a steady stream of impressions but converted far below the UK. Several reviews were in German. The team chose those two markets and a listing-only localisation first, because the app's interface was simple and largely visual.

1. A German-speaking knitter searched the store and found that local users often searched for the German word for knitting patterns and a common term for knitting instructions, neither of which was a direct translation of the English keywords.
2. The team wrote German and Dutch names, subtitles, keyword fields and descriptions around those terms, and stated in the description that the app interface was in English.
3. They translated the captions on the first three screenshots and swapped an example pattern priced in pounds for one priced in euros.
4. They logged the launch date and compared each country's conversion against its own previous months.

The point of the example is the process: evidence from the team's own data, native keyword research, an honest note about the interface language, and measurement per country.