If you type the word “basketball” into the search box of the iTunes App Store and press the spacebar, iTunes will start helping you in your query by suggesting other things, like the names of games.

There are a suggested terms like “Basketball Showdown” and “Basketball Tosses,” obviously from people who know the name of the game they’re seeking. But there are also terms that don’t represent the actual exact name of a game that exists in the store, such as “Basketball Toss” and other terms.

These search terms represent the sweet spot where some SEO experts suggest game-makers can slip into in the iTunes market in order to garner sales from people plopping in terms of stuff that doesn’t exist.

Therefore…a few good tips for performing SEO for your games include these:

Tip #1: Give your game a practical name

Of course there’s room for branding, and we can name our app games anything we’d like – but if there’s not a lot of funding for promotion, it helps to slip into the app store with the kind of names that customers might be seeking.

Therefore, using the name “Ball Throw” instead of “Yowza Balling” might help your game get more attention from folks searching for an app game that includes a ball to throw.

Tip #2: Repeat your search term and similar phrases in the game’s description

Another valuable place to take advantage of search-engine optimization – both for users searching for your game app on Google and in the iTunes Store – is in the game’s description field.

It’s a great place to entice buyers to download your game, but also a place to include the types of terms that folks searching for your game would enter. For example, a helicopter game might feature words like “copter” or “propeller” and such in the description.

Tip #3: Publish a lot of games to increase the likelihood of downloads

Similar to the way that publishing lots of blog posts or articles that are peppered with relevant terms and include quality information for readers can bring increased traffic, it can help to launch lots of games to the app store.

That way, if your puzzle game isn’t a hit, perhaps one based around soccer or fish will be.

Tip #4: Keywords and backlinks still matter

In spite of all the varying pontifications of experts in the SEO field, most agree that your game’s keywords still matter. SEO specialists usually state that when it comes to getting recognition for your website or game, you’re generally going to want to begin with a high-quality product that ends up gaining the types of social signals and high domain authority recognition that makes the great rankings come running.

Overall, the more experience gained in getting games into app stores will teach us all exactly what helps produce lots of downloads – and helps to do away with those tactics that fall flat.