ASO for an app with no reviews and no downloads

Your app is published. It has zero reviews, a few dozen installs, and shows up in no search. Every ASO guide you will find assumes otherwise: they talk about screenshot A/B tests, retention cohorts, acquisition budgets. They address apps that have already taken off.

Here is what our measurements say for the opposite case — starting from nothing.

The one number that decides everything

With zero reviews, the question is not “how do I optimize my listing” but “is there a keyword where an app as small as mine already sits in the top 10”. If yes, that keyword is your way in. If no, no optimization will change anything in the short term.

On “conjugaison”, the least established app in the top 10 has ten reviews. On “code de la route”, eleven. On “épargne”, thirty-five. A brand-new app can literally get in — not through some feat, simply because nobody bigger cares about that query.

The method fits in one sentence: open the top 10 for every keyword that describes your app, find the one with the FEWEST reviews, and keep the keywords where that number is in the same range as yours. The thresholds by category are here — and they vary by a factor of 90,000 depending on the keyword, which means searching really pays.

Search narrower — but not just any narrower

If no obvious keyword is within reach, the long tail is the right move — provided you know what works. Our measurements are unambiguous: adding “free” to your keyword changes nothing (zero median gain), because the apps dominating the keyword also dominate its “free” variant.

A qualifier that narrows the use, however, divides the entry ticket by five at the median: “note taking” demands 6,471 reviews, “voice note taking” only 1,205. Every word you add should exclude competitors, not describe a business model everyone shares. The detail of the 24 variants measured.

Text is your only lever — and it is almost unclaimed

Large apps rank without textual effort: 47% of top-10 listings never mention the keyword they surface on. Their popularity speaks for them. You do not have that popularity — so text is the only signal you fully control.

And that is good news, because the ground is nearly empty: only 18.3% of ranked listings have a density inside the recommended band. Four out of five ranked apps have not worked on their text. So you do not have to beat them on their own ground — you only have to occupy the ground they left.

In order of payoff: the short description first — 70% of ranked listings do not put their keyword there, even though those 80 characters carry weight and changing them costs no recognition. Then long-description density, between 1.5 and 3%, meaning four to six occurrences per 500 words. The density measurements.

The title last, and only if the top 10 shows the ground is open there: on 7 of the 30 keywords measured, none of the ten ranked apps carries the phrase in its name. There, placing it gives you a signal ten competitors lack. On a keyword where nine out of ten already have it, you will pay the brand cost without standing out. The title measurements.

What will not work

Targeting your category's head keyword. It is the mistake that costs the most months: fourteen of the thirty keywords we measured require more than 10,000 reviews to enter their top 10. No perfectly written listing bridges that gap.

Repeating the keyword beyond 3.5% density. 10.7% of ranked listings do it and survive, so it is not instantly disqualifying — but Google's policy explicitly forbids keyword stuffing, and an app with no track record is the most exposed to a penalty.

Finally, buying reviews. Beyond the suspension risk, it does not address the problem: what you lack is not a displayed number, it is the real usage signal Google observes behind it — installs that last, repeated opens. An inflated counter does not produce that.

The sequence, in practice

List ten keywords that honestly describe your app. Measure the entry ticket of each. Keep the two or three whose ticket is closest to your current review count — not the most searched, the most reachable. Put them in the short description, then in the long description at 1.5–3%, and in the title only if the top 10 there is empty.

Then write down the date of the change and track your positions. Without that date you will never know whether a movement came from your work or from the market — and that confusion is what makes people repeat useless actions for months.