App store optimization course: how to learn ASO for free (and what Reddit recommends) The best ASO course is the official docs plus your own app.

the best app store optimization course for most founders is free: Apple’s and Google’s own documentation, one or two well known free guides, and six weeks of practice on your own listing. paid courses mostly repackage the same material. this page gives you a week by week curriculum, the resources worth reading, and what Reddit discussions actually recommend.

Do you need a paid ASO course?

most founders do not need a paid ASO course. the rules that matter, like which fields feed search and how product page tests work, are published free by Apple and Google. no course can give you feedback from your own app. pay only when you want structure, a certificate, or a team trained the same way.

in 6+ years of growth work with AI startups in the US, Europe and India, i have found the same thing every time: people learn ASO by changing a live listing and reading what happens. reading about it helps, but only as preparation for that.

The free six week ASO curriculum

this curriculum runs six weeks at three to five hours a week. each week pairs one official source with one task on your own app. by week six you will have rewritten your metadata, rebuilt your first screenshots and launched a real product page test. the only cost is your time.

week	topic	read	do on your app	time
1	how store search works	Apple’s App Store search guidance, Google’s store listing best practices	audit your name, subtitle, keywords and category	3 hours
2	keyword research	Apple Ads keyword best practices	build a list of 30 keywords with popularity and relevance	4 hours
3	screenshots and previews	Apple’s product page guidance	rewrite your first three screenshot captions	5 hours
4	ratings and reviews	Apple’s ratings and reviews page	add the review prompt after a success moment, reply to ten reviews	3 hours
5	testing	Apple’s product page optimization, Google’s store listing experiments	launch one test on your first screenshot	4 hours
6	growth on Google Play	the Grow path in Google Play Academy	write down what changed and plan the next test	3 hours

keep a simple log from day one: date, what you changed, and the numbers before and after. that log becomes your real course notes.

Official sources to read first

start with the official sources because they are free, current and correct, and every paid course is built on top of them. Apple documents search fields, product pages, testing and custom product pages on developer.apple.com. Google documents store listings and experiments in Play Console Help and teaches growth in Google Play Academy.

the facts worth knowing by heart after week one:

• Apple’s search guidance names the app name (30 characters), subtitle, keyword field (100 characters, commas, no spaces) and categories as fields that feed search.
• Apple says do not repeat words across name, subtitle and keywords, and skip plurals, filler words and competitor names.
• Apple’s product page optimization tests up to three treatments for up to 90 days.
• Google’s store listing experiments test up to two variants, and localized experiments can include descriptions.

Free resources worth your time

beyond the official docs, three free resources are worth your time: Phiture’s ASO Stack blog, the free ASO ebook written by Phiture and AppTweak, and Asodesk’s recorded video lectures. each comes from a company that sells ASO services or tools, so read them for method and treat any claims about their own products with care.

• ASO ebook: a free download, 600+ pages in its 2022 edition, written mainly by Moritz Daan and Maggie Ngai of Phiture with contributors from AppTweak. the most complete free text i know of.
• ASO Stack blog by Phiture: free articles on algorithm changes, creatives and competitor tracking, plus a monthly update.
• Asodesk free video course: nine recorded lectures from 2020 covering keyword research, Google Play and competitor analysis. free, but you give an email to get the full set, and some tool details will be dated.

Paid ASO courses: what you actually get

paid ASO courses give you structure, video lessons and sometimes a certificate, not hidden knowledge. the material overlaps heavily with the free sources above. judge any paid course on three things: when it was last updated, whether it covers both stores, and whether the teacher has run listings for real apps you can check.

one example i could verify is AppTweak’s ASO certification: six chapters, about four hours of video, quizzes and a final exam. its page says it is included with an AppTweak subscription, and non-customers get it with a one month subscription starting at $99. marketplaces like Udemy also list ASO courses of mixed quality; check the last updated date first, because store features change every year.

What Reddit discussions recommend

the Reddit threads i could read, through archived copies, share one theme: people distrust ASO courses and guides that are really sales pitches, and they recommend official data, free long form guides and practice. i could not verify a useful r/androiddev thread on this, so nothing here claims to speak for that subreddit.

what i found, with links to archived copies:

• r/ASO, how can i learn ASO? the top reply argued there is no truly authoritative ASO course and suggested learning SEO basics first, then following Steve P Young on YouTube. another reply pointed to AppTweak’s certification.
• r/ASO, looking for in-depth ASO resources (not just sales pitches) the poster said most guides give “just enough info to spark your interest” but not enough to act. a reply recommended the ASO ebook.
• r/iOSProgramming, any free ASO tools for getting started? replies listed free tiers of keyword tools and one practical tip: Apple Ads shows keyword popularity when you set up a campaign, which you can read without ever starting it.

these are a handful of threads, not a survey, so treat them as signals rather than consensus.

Practice exercises on your own app

practice is where ASO actually gets learned. each exercise below takes one to three hours, uses only free tools and your own store consoles, and produces a change you can measure. do them in order alongside the six week plan, and write every change into your log with the date.

1. the competitor table (2 hours). pick five apps that rank for your main keyword. copy their name, subtitle, first three captions and rating into a sheet. note which words repeat.
2. the keyword list (2 hours). in Apple Ads, draft a search campaign without launching it and read the popularity dots for 30 candidate keywords. keep the ones that are both popular and truly relevant.
3. the metadata rewrite (1 hour). rewrite name, subtitle and keyword field with no repeated words, then submit with your next update.
4. the first frame rewrite (3 hours). rebuild your first three screenshots as promise, proof and how it works, using the method in App Store screenshots that convert.
5. the first test (1 hour to set up). launch a product page optimization test with one new first caption and leave it alone until it finishes.
6. the review replies (1 hour). reply to your ten most recent critical reviews, plainly and without arguing.

What to measure while you learn

measure three things while you learn: impressions from search, product page conversion rate, and ranking for your ten most important keywords. App Store Connect and Play Console report the first two for free. check them weekly, not daily, because store data is noisy and most changes need two to four weeks to show.

once the basics are in place, the full checklist is in the ASO guide. if you would rather hand the work to someone, what an app store marketer does explains what to hire for and what to ask.