This is a post-iOS6 update to a previous guest post by Naoki Shibata, co-founder of SearchMan.com, part of our 2nd accelerator batch. SearchMan is SEO for Apps, helping developers with App Store Search tracking and keyword optimization. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter for more content.

Problem: Why do developers seem to hate iOS6 App Store Search? In iOS5, you see 5 apps in search results and can get to #25 with one flick of the finger in a second. With iOS6 search, you see only 1 app per page so it’s really difficult for a user to discover which cool apps are in the top 100.

Solution: If you assume that web user behavior will transfer to mobile, then when it gets cumbersome for users to browse results, they will enter more descriptive phrases to get relevant results fast. eg search for “free video poker game” vs. “poker”. Longer phrases are 70% of search volume on the web (as an indicator), they’re less competitive, & and probably see higher post-click conversion (download) rates because the user explicitly searched for “free video poker game”.

Therefore, developers have a chance of capitalizing on this and taking steps to rank #1 under each of their long tail keywords and phrases.

For developers without access to a giant ad budget to boost-market their App into the Top Apple Charts, App Store SEO might be the best bet to improve discoverability inside the over crowded App Store.