Getting Your App Found in the App Stores

Be realistic about store discovery

For a consumer app aimed at a broad audience, store search is a real acquisition channel. For a business app serving your own customers or a specific trade, it is almost never where installs come from.

Most of our clients get their installs from a link in an email, a QR code on paperwork, or a member of staff telling a customer. Optimising for that is worth more than optimising for search.

What the stores actually rank on

1. Title and subtitle. The heaviest keyword signal you control, on both stores.
2. Ratings and reviews. Volume and recency, and they compound.
3. Retention and engagement. Apps people keep and open rank better.
4. Install-to-open rate. Installs that never open hurt you.
5. Update frequency. An abandoned app slides.

The two strongest ranking signals — ratings and retention — are products of the app being good. There is no listing copy that compensates for people uninstalling it.

Writing the listing

• Put the useful words in the title, not just your brand name
• The subtitle is prime space — say what it does, for whom
• The first two lines of the description are all most people read
• Screenshots with a short caption on each, showing real screens
• A preview video only if it shows the app doing something, not a brand film

Write the screenshots for someone deciding in four seconds. Captions matter more than the images; a bare screenshot of a list view persuades nobody.

Asking for ratings properly

Ratings are the compounding asset. Ask at the right moment: after a task completes successfully, never on launch, never during an error, and never more than a couple of times a year.

1. Wait for a successful completion — a job closed, an order placed
2. Use the platform's native prompt, which is rate-limited by design
3. Never interrupt a workflow
4. Reply to negative reviews; it is public and it visibly changes ratings
5. Fix the pattern rather than the review when several say the same thing

The channels that actually work for business apps

• A link in the transactional emails your customers already open
• A QR code on invoices, job sheets, packaging or in the premises
• Your staff mentioning it during a normal interaction
• A page on your website that explains it, with both store links
• Onboarding — make the app part of how a new customer is set up

One client got more installs from a QR code on their delivery notes than from everything else combined. It cost nothing and it reached exactly the people who would use it.

What to measure

If view-to-install is low, fix the listing. If install-to-open is low, the listing is overpromising. If retention is low, no amount of listing work will help.

Frequently asked questions