Do the UK, Australia and Canada App Stores use the same keywords as the US?

No. Each is a separate storefront with its own English localization, its own 100-character keyword field, its own search habits and its own competitive rankings. A term that is crowded in the US can be wide open in Australia, and vocabulary differs — torch versus flashlight, holiday versus vacation, maths versus math.

What happens if I leave English (UK) empty in App Store Connect?

Apple falls back to your primary localization, so UK shoppers still see your US listing. You lose nothing visually — but you gain nothing either: the fallback reuses the same keyword field, so you forfeit an extra 100 characters of country-specific ranking surface.

Should my UK keyword field just be a copy of my US one?

Copying is better than leaving it empty but wastes the opportunity. The value of the extra field is divergence: replace US-crowded terms with UK-winnable ones, swap vocabulary (torch, holiday, favourites), and target queries the US field had no room for.

Does the US App Store index Spanish keywords?

Yes — the US storefront also indexes your Spanish (Mexico) localization, reflecting the large Spanish-speaking US audience. Filling in es-MX gives you roughly 160 extra indexable characters that still target US users. The UK storefront similarly cross-indexes other localizations.

Storeboard/Guides/English keywords by country

English isn't one market: keywords by country

ASO 16 July 2026 · 7 min read

"We support English" sounds like one decision. On the App Store it's four storefronts, four keyword fields, four sets of competitors — and most apps fill in exactly one of them.

Four storefronts wearing one language

App Store Connect offers English (US), English (UK), English (Australia) and English (Canada) as separate localizations. That's not cosmetic. Each maps to its own storefront, and each storefront carries its own:

Keyword field — 100 characters, indexed independently.
Name and subtitle — 30 + 30, also indexed independently.
Search habits — genuinely different vocabulary and phrasing.
Competitive rankings — who ranks for a term differs country to country.

Add it up: a US-only listing uses ~160 indexed characters. Filling all four English variants gives you ~640 characters of ranking surface for the same language — before you've translated a single word.

The vocabulary is really different

The famous examples are real search behaviour, not trivia:

US searches	UK / AU searches
flashlight	torch
vacation planner	holiday planner
math practice	maths practice
soccer scores	football scores
resume builder	CV builder
check register	cheque book
gas mileage	petrol / fuel economy
favorites	favourites

That last row matters more than it looks: spelling variants are separate queries. If your US field says favorites, UK users typing favourites may not find you — and you'd never spend US characters on the British spelling. A separate UK field means you don't have to choose.

Canada is the quiet hybrid: mostly US vocabulary, mostly UK spelling (colour, favourite), plus French Canada next door — which is its own localization again.

The competition differs even when the words don't

The second effect is less obvious and often bigger. Even for identical terms, the ranking table is per-storefront. A US-headquartered competitor who dominates "sleep tracker" at home may barely have bothered with Australia. Same term, different fight.

Smaller English storefronts are systematically less contested, for exactly the reason you're reading this: most developers stop at English (US). The apps that do fill in the AU field are competing against the minority who tried. This is the closest thing ASO has to an arbitrage — same copy, weaker opposition.

The strategy, in order

1. Duplicate first — ten minutes

Copy your US metadata into UK, AU and CA so the localizations exist and stop falling back. This is the floor, not the goal — a copied field ranks you for the same words against different competitors, which is already free upside.

2. Fix the vocabulary — half an hour

Sweep each field for US-isms and swap them: torch, holiday, maths, football, CV, favourites. Do the same sweep on the subtitle, which is indexed too. Your screenshots can stay shared at this stage — captions in neutral English travel fine.

3. Re-score per country — the real work

Run your tracked keywords against each storefront separately. The scores will surprise you: a term that's "crowded" in the US is often "worth it" in Australia. Where a US term is hopeless, replace it in that country's field with something winnable there. This is where the four fields stop being copies and start being four strategies.

4. Let the fields diverge — ongoing

Treat each country's field as its own small portfolio, reviewed at each release. UK gets the UK-winnable terms; AU chases what's open there. Nothing forces the four fields to agree, and past step 2 they shouldn't.

The bonus round: cross-indexed languages

Some storefronts index a second language's localization. The classic: the US storefront also indexes Spanish (Mexico) — so filling in es-MX buys you ~160 more characters that still target US shoppers. The UK similarly cross-indexes. If a storefront matters to you, its bonus locale is free keyword space.

Storeboard's Coverage tab showing per-language keyword usage across app name, subtitle and keyword field, with a warning about repeated words and a tip about bonus locales — Storeboard's Coverage tab tracks each language's indexed characters separately — and flags the bonus-locale trick at the bottom. Each English variant keeps its own researched keyword set.

Research each country, not just each language

Storeboard scores your keywords per storefront — US, UK, Australia, Canada and 30+ more — and keeps an independent tracked set per English variant, compiled into each field automatically.

Download for Mac

What not to do

Don't leave the variants empty — the fallback shows your US listing but re-uses its keyword field. You're forfeiting characters, not saving effort.
Don't stop at copy-paste forever. Copies capture the different-competition effect but none of the vocabulary or divergence value.
Don't localize the brand. Your app's name stays your name; it's the descriptive words around it that swap.
Don't forget the subtitle. It's 30 indexed characters per country too — "Holiday budgets made simple" in the UK, "Vacation budgets made simple" in the US.
Don't double-count words per field. The no-repeats rule applies within each localization: each country's name + subtitle + keywords should share no words. Check each one →

FAQ

Is this worth it for a small app?

It's especially worth it for a small app. Big-budget competitors saturate the US; the regional storefronts are where being the one who bothered still wins rankings. Steps 1–2 cost under an hour, total.

Do I need different screenshots per English variant?

Rarely at first. Keep captions in neutral English and share the sets. Once a market proves itself, localize spelling in captions ("favourites") as a polish pass — conversion, not ranking.

How different should the four keyword fields end up?

Expect 50–70% overlap — the core problem-words are shared — with the rest diverging: vocabulary swaps, plus terms that are winnable in one country and hopeless in another.

Does this apply to Spanish and French too?

Yes — Spanish (Spain) vs Spanish (Mexico) and French (France) vs French (Canada) follow exactly the same logic: separate storefronts, separate fields, different vocabulary, different competitors.