A design app · App Masters client
Rank for a niche keyword first, then climb to broader ones
Outranked Canva on a keyword
What they did
What happened
In their words
Steve Young - Beginners Guide to Buying & Selling Apps 2026
Joseph ChoiYou would search a popular term, and a lot of the top apps don't make as much money as they could, cuz they just haven't dialed in the you know, the onboarding and the paywalls and stuff. It must be true, cuz Apple must care about They probably do care about revenue, like it's a signal that the user had deeper intent with the app, which is good for them.
Steve YoungIt's so crazy, cuz I think it's different. Like one of our clients were able to like outrank Canva, and it started off just going after a niche keyword, and then eventually going up. And so we were able to outrank Canva on this keyword, and it obviously, we're not making more than Canva, [laughter] but like Canva can't go after those our keyword, right?
Joseph ChoiThe most profitable app founders I know have been using Superwall to A/B test their paywalls, because, yes, they have the basics, like building and deploying paywalls super quickly without coding, targeting users with different paywalls based on behavior and demographics. But now, Superwall AI actually predicts who will subscribe before they see a paywall. The AI can do this because Superwall analyzes over 1 billion paywall interactions to score …
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More from this episode
- Buy an app that ranks #1 but charges $2, then add a $60/year hard paywallRevenue up from $1-2K to $8-10K a month with the same downloads
- Remove the X from the paywall so users must start a trialTrial starts doubled from 6% to 13%; trial-to-paid unchanged; some one-star reviews
- Name your new app after a keyword with ~30 searches that nobody uses in their title#1 in week one, 100 downloads a day, $1,600 first month, ~$20K MRR years later
- Pick keywords where the top 3 apps have few reviews and lack the keyword in their titleUsed to launch and buy apps that reached #1; no pooled numbers
- Name the app after the keyword and use the App Store autocomplete phrase as subtitleReached #1 for 'green noise'; still #3 with little upkeep
- Target 24 more versions of the keyword you already rank #1 for, and cut Apple Ads
- Buy a profitable app with a 10-year loan and pay it back from the app's profitMoney back in 3-4 months on one purchase; example leaves ~$5K a month after loan payments
- Buy apps that already get organic downloads but earn too little or skip a channelBest buys fit this; one $18K purchase without it flopped
- Try Meta ads on a small organic app, including a hard paywallOnly ~$1 revenue per install; economics didn't work
- Send Meta sign-up, paywall-view and checkout events while still optimizing for purchasesGuest says the ad account got smarter; no numbers
- Show paid Instagram and Facebook users a paywall with no X; let organic users close itReported to perform a lot better; no numbers shared
- Switch from a closable paywall with no trial to a hard paywall with a free trialPerformed a little better; no numbers
- Launch a good-enough app, and only finish it if downloads show upSpeaker's standing process; no numbers
- Build just the viral feature as a TestFlight and let creators film it
Tags: app-store, niche-keyword, keyword-ladder