| Source | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlg84BvEyaA |
|---|---|
| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01kw1eyxnf3wynsvww4c41wgyn |
| Readwise ID | 01kw1eyxnf3wynsvww4c41wgyn |
| Author | Adam Lyttle |
| Category | video |
| Site | YouTube |
| Published | 2025-04-18 |
| Saved | 2026-06-26T07:57:55.759000+00:00 |
| Tags | adam-lyttle, app-development |
Readwise Summary: Adam helps app creators fix low keyword rankings to boost downloads. He suggests using keywords that actually rank, like “spending tracker” instead of “expense tracker.” He also improves app screenshots to attract more users and increase reviews.
Over the past 5 years, I’ve built an app portfolio that generates five figures every month by creating apps that rank well in the app store. Now, I’m helping you fix your underperforming apps. I asked, “Do you have any underperforming apps that you need help with?” Turns out a lot of you do, and this one stood out. Hey, my name is Nikolai. I’m the creator of Cash Compass Expense Tracker app. Please check out my app and let me know how it can boost downloads and revenue.
Cash Compass was built by Nikolai Terasov. It’s an expense tracker app that lets you take photos of receipts and automatically organize your expenses. You can see just how much work has gone into building this. So, Nikolai sent me the stats for his app, Cash Compass, and these downloads are low. I mean, like really low. In the past 30 days, it has only had eight downloads with no sales. I can see here it’s not
ranking at all for keywords. This expense tracker keyword is in the title, so it should be ranking somewhere in the top 200. The app store listing itself is pretty solid. Screenshots look vibrant, they stand out, and they’re framed nicely. They could do with a few changes. These images feel a bit accounty. I try to put myself in the shoes of the user. What do they think when they see the listing? I don’t want
to be looking at a spreadsheet. These screenshots kind of remind me of doing taxes. I want to track my money easily and I don’t want to have to think about it. But those small details shouldn’t be impacting the app store ranking. So, what’s going on? The only time I’ve ever seen something like this is when I’ve seen apps targeting the words free or app or game. If you use these words in your app title, like if you put free
currency converter, the app store seems to ignore the keyword free and will only rank for the keyword currency converter. If you want to check whether your app is in this situation, the easiest way is to do a search in the app store. Have a look at how many apps in the top 10 are ranking in the keyword that you’re targeting. Let’s have a look at Nikolai’s keyword expense tracker. That’s interesting. There’s no other app in the top 10 ranking here. If we scroll down past the top 10, we find six apps
in the top 20 targeting the exact same keyword. That suggests this keyword is for some reason or another being ignored by Apple. I built plenty of tracker apps in the past and these all ranked well. So, it wouldn’t be the word tracker. The culprit must be the primary keyword expense. Let’s check the keyword expenses and see if that has the same issue. Yep. Uh, same problem here. Not a
single keyword ranking in the top 10, but there are 233 apps being listed in total. Big lie. It looks like I found your issue with the downloads. You’ve come to the right place. I’m going to do a 15-minute app store makeover. If you want me to make over one of your performing apps, let me know in the comments below. First, I’ll be researching alternative keywords, finding keywords that you can actually rank for. Then, I’ll revamp these
screenshots to make it look less like a bank balance. This shouldn’t take long at all. Let’s get the timer started. First thing I want to do is brainstorm new keyword ideas and then check whether apps are actually ranking for them. Here’s some good keywords to look at. Money manager, spending tracker, budget tracker, and cash tracker. These keywords have good popularity and medium competition. They’re all within that perfect ratio.
Now, let’s check whether it’s even possible to rank for these keywords. Cash Tracker. Yeah, I can see it’s the same problem here. Not a single app ranking in the top 10 with a direct match for the keyword cash tracker. The first one to rank is number 15, cash tracker, spending budget. We know expenses is a word that won’t work, but what about spending tracker? Spending tracker looks promising. In the top 10, only three are ranked. That tells me two
things. One, it’s possible to rank for spending tracker. And if we do target that keyword, two, we can expect to be ranked in the top 10 at some point. We want the app to be displayed in the recommended search list. So when someone types spending tracker into the search bar, Nicholas’s app will be displayed in there. To increase the chances of being recommended, an app has to have a good volume of reviews. Have a look at the
first result here. Spending tracker budget. It has 470 reviews. 8 minutes left. Where does the time go? Another good keyword to consider is budget tracker. It has a much more consumer focused feel to it. A popularity of 33 and difficulty of 57. That’s a good mix. Looking at the results, there’s no apps currently ranking in the top 10 for budget tracker, but apps targeting budget are
ranking. This keyword could go either way. Possibly no one is targeting this exact keyword, or it’s the same issue as expense tracker, which is not showing any exact matches in the search results. There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to run a few experiments and to see what works best. Check this out. Budget management app here ranks number one for the budget tracker keyword, and they have
72,000 reviews. That shows there’s big demand for these types of keywords if you get it right. If you’re not asking for reviews inside your app, then you really should be. A good place to prompt to review is after positive action has been completed within your app. In this case, when a transaction has been successfully and effortlessly logged. If you want to supercharge the number of reviews, add a prompt for review in the
onboarding process before the user has even used your app. But this is not for the faint-hearted. Be prepared for a few star reviews. Now, I’m going to enhance these App Store screenshots. I’m loving this vibrant yellow and the phone frame that Nicholas has put in there, but the text at the top is just too heavy. I like to have a single word statement in bold on the top line and a subtitle underneath. Nikolai has kind of done
that, but we can enhance it a little bit more with some better wording. I just don’t know what financial command center even means. that’s got to go. The adjectives that come to mind are things like easy and secure and track and then simply work from there. With these screenshots, I want to make the phone bigger, bigger, bigger. This is the hero shot. And right now, there is a lot of context on the screen. So, I want to
highlight the part of the screenshot that communicates best to the user. The best way to do that is to make part of the screen pop out. It’s simple yet effective. Because we’re dealing with finances, one of the most important features is security. The credibility of the app is important. Cash Compass has a five-star rating. So, let’s highlight that in the screenshot here. That’s it. Nikolai’s screenshots and branding were already on the right path. I just gave
them a push in the right direction. But the most important change we’ve made is changing the keyword from targeting expense tracker to spending tracker. And with that simple change, Nikolai’s app has already started to rank. Let’s check in with him in a few weeks time to see how it goes. Last time I helped Wed with his black and white filter app. He added the changes, made the screenshots better, updated the keywords, and updated the icon. Let’s see the results in the app store. Yep. Currently ranking
18 for keyword black and white filter. That’s up from 48 before the changes were made. Even the keyword black and white got a pretty good boost from 76 to 44 at its peak. I’ll be checking in from time to time with the progress of these apps. Be sure to subscribe to check their progress. If you want me to help out with one of your apps, let me know in the comments below.