The ASO audit checklist for an app that stopped growing

Your downloads climbed for a few weeks, then the chart flattened and you have no idea why. The reflex is to blame the algorithm or to reopen the ads manager. Audit the listing first, because that is what the stores read when they rank apps. Here is the checklist I run when one of my apps stalls: one evening, no paid tools.

Search your main keyword on a real phone. Type the phrase your users would type in the store app, and count how far you scroll to find yourself. If you are not on the first screen, write down your position. That number is your baseline.

Read your title the way the algorithm does. The first words of a title carry the most weight. If your app name is a clever brand word nobody searches, you rank for that word and nothing else. Put the searchable term first, the brand behind it. You have 30 characters, use them.

Open the App Store keyword field. You get 100 hidden characters. Check that they are full, comma separated, with no spaces after the commas, and no words already in your title. Most stalled listings waste half that field on brand words, plurals the store already handles, or nothing.

Read the first two lines of your description as a stranger. On Google Play only the first 80 characters show before the fold, on the App Store the first sentences. If those lines talk about your journey instead of what the app does and for whom, rewrite them.

Look at screenshot one as if it were an ad. It is the ad. A splash screen, a login page or a pretty image with no words sells nothing. It should state the main benefit in legible text over a real screen.

Count the languages your listing actually lives in. This is the check most solo developers fail. English US only leaves you invisible in the markets where your users are. Some languages bring downloads, others bring revenue, and they are rarely the ones you would guess. A football app in English alone misses Brazil and Turkey. If your app serves a niche, that niche has a country and a language.

Check that your translated listings are localized, not copied. A word for word translation of your English keywords ranks for nothing, because people search different terms in different markets. Localizing means new keywords, not the same words in another alphabet.

Read your last ten reviews. Users describe your app in their own words: free keyword research. If three people call it a workout timer and your listing says training companion, fix the listing.

Check your rating and the date of your last update. A 3.8 average next to a listing last touched eight months ago tells the store and the user the same story.

Look at the three apps ranking above you. Not to copy them, but to see which keywords the store associates with this search, and whether your listing mentions them.

Change one thing, then wait. Fix the weakest item above, note the date, and search the same keyword a week later. An audit you rerun beats a rewrite you guess.

None of these checks needs a subscription, and the platforms that sell one are not cheap: 19 dollars a month at the low end, 79 at the familiar names, 500 and up with Sensor Tower. Manual keyword research is also where evenings disappear, which is the part AI changed. AsoFast does that part for free: it generates your title, subtitle, description and keywords for both stores, translates the listing into more than 80 languages with ASO aware localization, provides screenshot templates, and publishes straight to App Store Connect and Google Play. It runs locally, your credentials stay on your machine, and it is open source. Run the audit, fix the listing, and give organic traffic a chance before you rent it by the day.