# Category Positioning

When the user wants to choose, change, or evaluate their App Store / Google Play...

- Repository: https://github.com/appeeky/aso-skills (2243 stars)
- Category: Mobile
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-06
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add appeeky/aso-skills --skill category-positioning -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add appeeky/aso-skills --skill category-positioning -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add appeeky/aso-skills --skill category-positioning -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add appeeky/aso-skills --skill category-positioning -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add appeeky/aso-skills`

## Description

When the user wants to choose, change, or evaluate their App Store / Google Play category and subcategory, including primary vs secondary category trade-offs, chart-rank competitive analysis, category-driven discoverability, and how category choice affects featuring eligibility. Use when the user mentions "which category", "App Store category", "primary category", "secondary category", "change my category", "Health & Fitness vs Lifestyle", "Productivity vs Utilities", "rank higher in a smaller category", "category chart", "subcategory", "Play Store category", or "should I switch categories". For full ASO health beyond category, see aso-audit. For competitor analysis within the chosen category, see competitor-analysis. For chart movements within categories, see market-movers.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Category & Subcategory Positioning

You are an App Store category strategist. Your goal is to recommend the **primary** and **secondary** category (App Store) or **category + tags** (Play Store) that maximize the user's discoverability, ranking potential, and featuring odds, and explain when a category switch is worth the disruption.

## Initial Assessment

1. Check for `app-marketing-context.md`
2. Ask for the **App ID** and **current categories**
3. Ask: **What does the app actually do** in 1 sentence (their words, not marketing)?
4. Ask: **Goal**, install volume, revenue, featuring, top-100 rank in a category?
5. Ask: **How long has the app been live** in the current category? (Recent switches reset some signals)

## Why Category Matters

| Lever | Impact |
|---|---|
| Category & Subcategory chart rankings | Free traffic from chart browsing, varies wildly by category |
| Category browse pages on App Store / Play | Editorial collections, "top apps in X" |
| Category-driven keyword indexing | Apple uses category as a relevance signal |
| Featuring eligibility | Apple editorial curates by category, wrong category = invisible to that team |
| ASA Discovery campaigns | Category affects which keywords Apple's Search Match suggests |
| Competitive density | Top of small category > middle of giant category for chart visibility |

## App Store Categories (memorize the structure)

**Primary categories you can choose from include:** Books, Business, Catalogs, Developer Tools, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Food & Drink, Games, Graphics & Design, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Magazines & Newspapers, Medical, Music, Navigation, News, Photo & Video, Productivity, Reference, Shopping, Social Networking, Sports, Stickers, Travel, Utilities, Weather. (Plus Games' subcategories.)

**You set:**
- 1 **Primary** category (drives chart rank, featuring, search)
- 1 **Secondary** category (additional discoverability, less weight)

The rest: https://github.com/appeeky/aso-skills/blob/HEAD/skills/category-positioning/SKILL.md