After working on ASO for PlayDoz for a few weeks, I discovered that there are many more nuances in app store optimization than I initially thought. This article discusses keywords: why you shouldn't fill all 100 characters with big words, why new apps can never rank in the top 200 for big keywords, how to find smaller keywords from big ones, how to use Custom Product Pages and Apple Ads to help the store recognize you, and why the text in screenshots also counts as keywords.
Both the iOS and Android versions of PlayDoz are live, the number of games has increased from 6 to 13, and traffic is slowly picking up. During these three weeks, I spent most of my time not coding, but doing ASO, selecting keywords, creating share links, managing leaderboards and gift cards, and buying ads. This post documents the real discoveries of an independent developer in the AI era: creating the product is no longer the challenge; the challenge is how to get people to find you and stick around.
My puzzle game collection PlayDoz finally passed App Store review. Google Play is still sitting on the same submission. Along the way I upgraded to an organization developer account, launched the web version at playdoz.com, and set up an AI-assisted pipeline that ships one or two new games every week. Here's what happened, plus screenshots of the ten games in the works.
