Your app launched in China with a solid zh-Hans listing. Now you are adding an en-US storefront and wondering where search terms belong — title, subtitle, or the keyword field. This guide is for one- or two-person iOS teams, not enterprise ASO agencies. It is operational guidance only: no ranking guarantee, no access to Apple’s algorithm, and not investment advice.
App Store Connect exposes separate inputs for app name (title), subtitle, and keywords per locale. They are not interchangeable. The title is what US buyers see first in Search and on your product page — name the category and primary outcome within Apple’s limit (commonly 30 characters; verify in Connect). The subtitle completes a thought the title starts — audience, workflow, or pricing — without repeating the same nouns. The keyword field is hidden; it holds search variants that do not fit visible copy. Indexing rules change; read Apple’s docs rather than treating any article as a page-one formula.
Title: Lead with what a US user would type — “habit tracker,” “invoice scanner,” “pomodoro timer.” Keep a short brand name; drop pinyin-only names unless people search that way internationally. Skip adjective stacks from Chinese decks (“smart · efficient · professional”) and competitor names you do not own. If your zh-Hans title is slogan-first, rewrite English around a category noun.
Subtitle: Not a second keyword dump. Good lines add one fact: “for freelancers,” “offline PDF markup,” “syncs with Apple Health.” Bad lines mirror Chinese brochure commas or paste description line one. Match meaning across locales, but use natural en-US phrasing.
Keywords: Synonyms, misspellings, and problem phrases that are not already in title or subtitle. Comma-separated, no spaces after commas (check Connect’s note). Seed from US job language — “expense report,” “voice memo transcribe” — and skip trending words your screens do not deliver. zh-Hans keywords may include English loanwords locally; do not copy the same strings into en-US unchanged. Notes are for your team, not a ranking promise.
Machine translation is fine for internal drafts, poor as finished ASO. Common indie mistakes: literal slogans (“Make life more wonderful”) instead of concrete outcomes; descriptions that mirror the settings menu before stating who the app is for; formal false cognates (“professional,” “powerful”) that read as template copy; keyword blocks split across title, subtitle, and description; mixed Chinese sentences in en-US copy while screenshots stay untranslated; and superlatives (“best,” “#1,” download counts, press quotes) copied from domestic market pages without US substantiation. Better listing English reduces bounce — it does not replace in-app UI translation.
Draft en-US title (category + outcome), then subtitle (one new fact), then keywords (delete anything already visible), then rewrite the description opening for a US skim reader, then align zh-Hans so the promise matches without identical sentence structure. A simple spreadsheet — field, character count, rationale, cut list — beats pasting Translate into Connect and hoping Search sorts it out.
Related: full listing rewrite guide · ship from Asia checklist
Fortune Insight’s AppLocale service rewrites one live App Store listing into English and Simplified Chinese fields you can paste into Connect — title, subtitle, description, keyword suggestions with rationale, and screenshot overlay lines. Delivered after Stripe checkout; send your App Store URL and current copy from the email on your receipt. No icon design, no fabricated reviews, no ranking promise.