App Store Optimization: A Practical Guide and Checklist

By Faisal Ashfaq · October 3, 2026

App store optimization (ASO) is the work of getting an app found in App Store and Google Play search, then making its product page convince the people who land on it. The first half is text and categories. The second half is screenshots, video, rating and copy.

This guide covers both stores and keeps what they document apart from what people guess. Every limit and rule below comes from Apple’s or Google’s own documentation, linked where it appears and listed at the end. They were checked on October 3, 2026. Limits change, so if a doc and this page disagree later, the doc wins.

One disclosure: Bidstore publishes this, and Bidstore sells paid placement on a leaderboard of iOS apps. The last section covers what that placement does and does not do. Read it with that in mind.

What ASO covers

Store search works like any search. The store reads your listing, decides which queries it is relevant to, and orders the results. ASO has three parts:

Relevance. Name or title, subtitle, keywords, category and description tell the store what the app is for.
Conversion. Icon, screenshots, preview video, rating and description decide whether someone who sees the listing installs the app.
Quality signals. Ratings, reviews, downloads and, on Google Play, crash and ANR rates feed back into where you rank.

“App store ranking” also gets used for two different things: where your app appears when someone searches, and where it sits in a top chart. Google says the two weigh signals differently. Charts lean heavily on popularity, search leans heavily on relevance to the query (Google). This guide is about search.

How App Store search ranks apps

Apple describes App Store search ranking in two parts. Text relevance is how well your name, subtitle, keywords and primary category match the query. User behavior is downloads, ratings and reviews, and other signals Apple does not name (Apple).

That is the whole official answer. Apple publishes no weights, so treat any exact percentage you read elsewhere as a guess. What the description does give you is a list of things you control and a list you can only influence.

What you control

Name, subtitle and keyword field. These are the text inputs, and they share one budget. Apple says not to repeat a word that already appears in your name, subtitle or category, and it counts the plural of a word you have already used as a duplicate. App Store Connect help adds that the app is already searchable by app name and company name (search, Connect help).
Primary and secondary category. Both are indexed by search. Choosing a category that does not fit is grounds for rejection in App Review (Apple).
Custom product pages with keywords. You can assign keywords to a custom product page so it appears in search results for those keywords instead of your default page. Each keyword combination has to be unique to one page (Apple).
In-App Events and promoted in-app purchases. Both can appear in search results. People who have downloaded your app before see the event card, and everyone else sees your screenshots or previews (Apple).

What you can only influence

Downloads. You cannot set them, only earn them. Conversion work, covered below, is the lever.
Ratings and reviews. Apple says they can influence how your app ranks in search, and they appear in the results themselves (Apple).
Description and promotional text. Apple’s list of text signals does not include either one. It says promotional text does not affect search ranking, and it advises against adding keywords to the description to improve search (Apple). Write both for the reader.

Search results can also show your name, subtitle, rating and up to three screenshots or app previews, so the listing starts converting before anyone opens it. Apple also generates app tags from your metadata with language models and may show them in results (Apple).

How Google Play search ranks apps

Google’s documentation names five factors in how Play organizes and ranks apps: user relevance, the quality of the app experience, editorial value, ads, and the overall user experience of Play. The weights change with where the user is looking and which device they are on (Google).

The parts that matter for search:

Intent first. Google works out whether the query names a specific app or a category of apps, and may consider synonyms. Then the metadata (title, description, category) and other signals decide which apps answer it best. For an exact title search, Google tries to return that title. A broad query like “photo editing” has many relevant apps, so other signals decide the order (Google).
The description counts. Unlike on iOS, Google tells developers to use SEO best practices in the description, and to stay inside its spam policy. Repetitive or irrelevant keywords in the name or description can get an app suspended (search guidance, listing fields).
Ratings, reviews and downloads. Google says apps are ranked on a combination of these and other factors, and that the weights are proprietary (Google).
Quality includes the listing. Google counts the pre-install experience (icon, title, screenshots, videos, description and links) as part of app quality, next to the behavior of the app itself (Google).
Crashes and ANRs affect discoverability. Android vitals has bad-behavior thresholds. For user-perceived crash rate it is 1.09% of daily users across all devices, or 8% on a single device model. For user-perceived ANR rate it is 0.47% overall, or 8% on a single device model. Above a threshold, Google says the app is likely to be less discoverable, and a warning may appear on the listing (Google).
Ads are separate. Developers can pay to appear in sections of Play that are labeled as ads (Google).

How to improve your app store ranking

The documented signals, and the levers behind them. Neither store says how much each signal is worth, so this is a map of levers, not a ranking of them.

Signal	Stores	What moves it
Text relevance	Both	Name or title, subtitle and keyword field (App Store only), description (Google Play), category.
Downloads	Both	Screenshots, video, icon and copy that convert, plus traffic that arrives from outside the store.
Ratings and reviews	Both	A review prompt at the right moment, replies, and fixing what the reviews complain about.
Crash and ANR rate	Google Play	Fixing the biggest crash and ANR clusters in Android vitals.
Listing quality	Google Play	Following the asset rules for icon, title, screenshots, video and description.
Language coverage	Both	Localized listings for the markets you want to appear in.

Editorial features are a separate route, chosen by the stores’ editors and not by anything in your metadata. Google says its editors pick content manually and look at app quality plus novelty, design and usefulness (Google).

Metadata: every field and its limit

These are the text fields and their limits as documented on October 3, 2026.

Field	App Store	Google Play
Name or title	2 to 30 characters	30 characters
Subtitle	30 characters	None
Keyword field	100 bytes	None
Short text	Promotional text, 170 characters	Short description, 80 characters
Description	4,000 characters, plain text	4,000 characters
Category	One primary, one optional secondary	One category, plus tags

Sources: name and subtitle and keywords, promotional text and description for the App Store; listing fields for Google Play. Apple’s guidelines also cap app names at 30 characters (guideline 2.3.7).

Name or title

Make it distinct and say what the app does. Apple asks for a simple, memorable name and warns against generic terms (Apple). Google asks for a unique title that avoids common terms and stays focused, because long titles may be shortened on some devices (Google).

Both stores limit what you can put in it. Apple’s guideline 2.3.7 rules out packing metadata with trademarked terms, popular app names or pricing (Apple). Google rules out ranking and promotional claims such as “#1”, “Free” or “No Ads”, all caps unless the brand is capitalized, and emoji that have nothing to do with the app (Google).

Subtitle (App Store only)

Use it for the benefit or the typical use of the app, not a slogan. Apple points to generic praise as what to avoid, and guideline 2.3.7 says a subtitle cannot reference other apps or make product claims you cannot verify. You can change it when you submit a new version (Apple, guidelines).

Keyword field (App Store only)

Separate terms with commas and no spaces after them. Spaces are fine inside a phrase. To fit more in 100 bytes, leave out plurals of words you already use, filler words, generic words such as “app” or “game”, and special characters unless they are part of your brand (Apple).

Apple lists what gets apps rejected here: trademarks you do not own, celebrity names, competing app names, and terms unrelated to the app. It also states the trade-off plainly. Popular terms bring traffic but are heavily contested, especially for newer or smaller apps. Less common terms bring less traffic and less competition (Apple).

Description

On the App Store, the first sentence is what people read before they tap to expand, so say what the app does there. Apple suggests a short paragraph followed by a list of main features, accolades at the end or in the promotional text, and no specific prices, which may be wrong in other regions (Apple).

On Google Play, users may only read the first few sentences, so put the point there. Check how the page looks on the Play web store, and keep the important text in the top half. Do not repeat the short description in the full description, and do not use anonymous testimonials. Google’s own example of what not to do is a description that lists near-synonyms over and over, such as car racing, race cars and race track (Google, search guidance).

Google Play short description

It is the first text people see on the detail page. Leave out ranking and promotional words (“best”, “#1”, “top”, “new”, “discount”, “sale”), calls to action such as “download now”, emoji, repeated punctuation, and keywords added only for search. Google says those keywords will not affect ranking (Google).

Screenshots and preview video

These carry most of the conversion work, and some of them show up in search results before anyone opens your page.

App Store

You can upload 1 to 10 screenshots per localization, as JPEG or PNG without alpha channels. Required pixel sizes depend on the device, so check the current table before you export (Apple).
Depending on orientation, the first one to three screenshots appear in search results when there is no app preview. Lead with the ones that explain the app on their own (Apple).
Guideline 2.3.3 says screenshots should show the app in use, not only title art, a login page or a splash screen (Apple).
You can add up to three app previews per localization and device size. Each is 15 to 30 seconds, up to 500 MB (Apple). Guideline 2.3.4 limits them to video screen captures of the app itself.
Previews autoplay muted, so the first seconds have to work without sound (Apple).
Apple suggests giving each later screenshot one main benefit, and showing Dark Mode in at least one if the app supports it (Apple).

Google Play

You need at least two screenshots across device types, and can add up to eight per device type. Each is a JPEG or 24-bit PNG without alpha, with sides between 320 px and 3,840 px, and the long side no more than twice the short side (Google).
For the large-format recommendation placements, apps need at least four screenshots of 1080 px or more, in 9:16 portrait or 16:9 landscape (Google).
Keep taglines to 20% of the image or less. Leave out ranking, award and price words, and calls to action. Avoid device imagery and other stores’ badges (Google).
The feature graphic is required: 1024 × 500 px, JPEG or 24-bit PNG without alpha. The app icon is 512 × 512 px, 32-bit PNG, up to 1,024 KB (Google).
The preview video is optional: one YouTube URL, public or unlisted, embeddable, not age-restricted, with ads turned off. It may autoplay muted for up to 30 seconds, and Google recommends showing the real app within the first 10 seconds (Google).
Google recommends alt text of 140 characters or less on every graphic (Google).

Ratings and reviews

Both stores treat ratings and reviews as part of ranking and as a reason to install or not. Apple’s ratings are tracked per territory, and you can reset the summary rating with a new version. Apple recommends doing that sparingly, because few ratings can put people off, and a reset does not clear written reviews (Apple).

Ask at the right moment. Apple says to ask when users are likely to be satisfied, such as after finishing a task or level, and not to interrupt them. The review prompt API can show the rating prompt up to three times in a 365-day period (Apple).
Never pay or reward for them. Apple says it may remove an app and expel the developer from its developer program for manipulating reviews or chart rankings with paid, incentivized or fake feedback, including through third-party services (Apple). Google’s policy bans incentivized ratings, forced rating pop-ups and automated inflation of installs or ratings. Its first example of a violation is offering a discount in exchange for a high rating (Google).
Reply. On the App Store you can answer any review in App Store Connect. The reviewer is notified and can update their review. Apple suggests answering the lowest ratings and the reports of technical problems first, and saying so in the release notes when an update fixes them (Apple). On Google Play, keep replies on the issue raised and do not ask for a higher rating (Google).
Make support easy to find. Apple suggests putting your support contact in the app and on the product page, so a problem can reach you before it becomes a one-star review (Apple).

Conversion: test the page

A view that does not convert is wasted ranking. Both stores have built-in tests. Google recommends testing one asset at a time (Google), and Apple says the more you change in a treatment, the harder it is to tell which change worked (Apple).

App Store

Product page optimization tests alternate icons, screenshots and app previews against your original. A test has up to three treatments, runs for up to 90 days, and you can run one at a time. You cannot edit it once it has started, and new assets need App Review approval first. Apple recommends waiting for a treatment to be declared better or worse than the original with at least 90% confidence before you apply or stop it. More treatments and more localizations make a test take longer (Apple).
Custom product pages are up to 70 extra versions of your page, with their own screenshots, promotional text and previews. Each has a unique URL you can share with a specific audience, and you can review them without shipping an app update (Apple).
App Analytics in App Store Connect shows impressions, conversion rate and downloads. You can filter by source type, for instance to see conversion from App Store search only (Apple).

Google Play

Store listing experiments test variants against your current listing. Per app you can run one default graphics experiment or up to five localized experiments at the same time, with up to two variants each. Default graphics experiments cover the icon, feature graphic and screenshots. Localized experiments can also test the description. Experiments stop on their own after six months (Google).
Custom store listings let you tailor the listing for a segment, such as a country, pre-registered users, people who search for specific keywords, or inactive users. They also work for visitors who arrive through a unique URL or a Google Ads campaign (Google).

Both consoles estimate how much traffic a test needs. Read the estimate before you start. An app with very little traffic may not reach a result before the test times out, and in that case you are better off making the change and watching conversion before and after.

Localization

App Store Connect lets you localize metadata in 50 languages and locales (Apple). Name, subtitle, keywords, description, screenshots and previews are all localizable properties, so each language can carry its own set (name and subtitle, the rest). Apple says a localized page makes people in other regions understand the app more easily and may make them more likely to download it (Apple).

On Google Play, the default language is English (United States). You can add translations plus localized screenshots and video. If you do not, users can see an automated translation, labeled as such. Google says a professional translation of the description can lead to better search results, and it asks for separate screenshots and videos per language when they contain text (listing, search guidance, best practices).

Which languages first is a judgment call. A reasonable order is the markets that already send you impressions in App Analytics or Play Console, then the ones you can support when a review or a support email arrives in that language.

The ASO checklist

Run through it before a first submission, and again before each release.

Text

The name or title is distinct, within 30 characters, says what the app does, and has no price, ranking claim or trademark you do not own.
App Store: the subtitle states a concrete benefit in 30 characters, with no reference to other apps and no unverifiable claim.
App Store: the keyword field uses up to 100 bytes, repeats no word from the name, subtitle or category, and has no plurals of words already used, no “app” or “game”, and no competitor names.
The primary category matches what the app is. A secondary category is set only if it is true.
The first sentence of the description says what the app does. Google Play: the short description is 80 characters or less with no “best”, “#1” or “download now”.
The description repeats no keyword list, has no unattributed testimonials, and has no prices.
App Store: the promotional text is current. It is not where keywords go.

Visuals

The first three App Store screenshots explain the app on their own, because they can appear in search results.
Every screenshot shows the app in use, not just title art, a login screen or a splash screen.
App Store: any preview is 15 to 30 seconds, uses screen captures only, and works with the sound off.
Google Play: at least four screenshots at 1080 px or more in 9:16 or 16:9, a 1024 × 500 feature graphic, and a 512 × 512 icon.
Google Play: no ranking, award or price words in graphics, taglines at 20% of the image or less, and alt text on every asset.
Screenshots match the current UI.

Ratings

The review prompt fires after the user has succeeded at something, not at launch, and nothing in the app offers a reward for a rating.
A support contact is easy to find in the app and on the store page.
Someone replies to new reviews after each release, starting with the lowest ratings and the bug reports.
Google Play: crash rate is under 1.09% and ANR rate is under 0.47% of daily users, with no single device model at 8% or more.

Localization and testing

The markets that already send traffic have a localized name, subtitle, keywords, description and screenshots.
One test is running at a time, and it changes one kind of asset.
Each audience you send traffic to has its own custom product page or custom store listing and its own URL.
You compare conversion before and after every change, and you do not stop a test before the store reports a result.

Getting your first traffic, honestly

Both stores use downloads and ratings as ranking signals, and a new listing has neither. ASO makes a listing eligible to appear and likely to convert. It does not create demand. Apple notes that popular search terms are the most competitive for newer or smaller apps (Apple), so a brand-new app often gets its first users from somewhere other than store search.

That means people you can reach directly: your own audience, your website, a mailing list, and the communities where users of your kind of app already talk. Send each source to its own custom product page or custom store listing, so the console shows which one converts. Paid placement is the other route. Apple Ads can appear in search results, and Google Play ads are labeled as ads (Apple, Google).

Do not buy installs or reviews. Apple can expel a developer for it, and Google’s policy prohibits it (Apple, Google).

Where Bidstore fits

Bidstore is a public leaderboard of iOS apps. Rank is set by one number, the dollar amount standing on a listing. $5 opens a listing, bids move in $1 steps, and a tie goes to the newer bid. The app has to be live on the Apple App Store, so Android apps cannot take a spot on the board. The mechanics are in the rules.

What a listing gets you:

A listing on the board. Its icon, name, developer, description, rating and screenshots are pulled from Apple when you bid and refreshed on every raise. You cannot supply your own copy or images, so the board shows your App Store listing as it is. The work in this guide is the listing.
A counted link. Every click on your listing is counted on its way to your App Store page, and your click total is public.

What it does not get you: a bid has no effect on Apple’s charts, search results or editorial features, and Bidstore is not affiliated with Apple. A bid is not refundable if someone outbids you, because being passed is how the board works (rules, about).

The audience is small. As of October 2, 2026, the board held two apps. Since counting began on August 29, it had recorded 438 page views and 38 clicks through to App Store pages. The live figures are on the stats page, so check them before you pay anything.

At that scale a Bidstore listing is a public link with a click count you can inspect, and not a download channel. It makes sense once your App Store listing already converts and you want one more visible place that points to it. It will not fix a listing that does not.