"ASO" advice on the web is mostly keyword tricks that violate Google's metadata policy and get listings flagged. This guide is the version that survives review: what actually moves installs on a Play listing, and the rules that bound it.
What users see, in order
In search results: icon, title, developer name, rating, and sometimes the first screenshot. On the listing: icon, title, short description, ratings summary, the first two or three screenshots (or the video), then "About this app". Everything below the fold is read by a minority. Optimise in that order.
Title (30 characters)
- Your brand first, then — if space allows — what it does: "Rosie's Bakery — Order Ahead".
- Play search weights the title heavily, so a descriptive second half helps; a keyword salad hurts and violates policy.
- Prohibited: "free", price or promotional words, "#1", "best", "top", emoji, decorative characters, ALL CAPS, competitor names.
- Check truncation in the listing preview.
Short description (80 characters)
The only body text most users read. State the job and the app-only benefit: "Order ahead, track pickup, get notified when it's ready." Avoid repeating the title. This field is indexed for search; write it for humans and the indexing follows.
Full description (4,000 characters)
- First line: what a user does with it. That line shows before "Read more".
- Then: the app-only features (notifications, offline, home-screen launch), then the content or catalogue, then support and privacy links.
- Natural language mentioning relevant terms a few times each. Play's search penalises repetition and lists; it rewards descriptions that read like a product page.
- Localise it if you have non-English users — Play shows the description in the user's language, and localised listings rank in localised search.
The listing text tool gives a compliant skeleton to edit.
Icon
Recognisable at 48 px, consistent with your website's branding, no text. Play applies its own rounding; upload a full-bleed square. The icon resizer shows the small sizes.
Screenshots
- Order by value: the core action first, not the splash or login.
- Short benefit captions in a consistent style; readable at thumbnail size.
- From the installed app — no browser bar, no personal data.
- At least four at 1080 px on the short side to be eligible for promotional placements.
- Tablet screenshots so the listing isn't marked "not designed for tablets".
Export to spec with the screenshot tool.
Video and feature graphic
A promo video roughly doubles the visual real estate above the fold and autoplays muted on the listing. Thirty seconds of the app being used, from the promo video tool, uploaded to YouTube. The feature graphic becomes its poster — keep the centre clear.
Store listing experiments
Play Console lets you A/B test icons, screenshots, the feature graphic and the descriptions (Store presence → Store listing experiments) with a share of traffic, reporting install-rate differences with confidence intervals. It is the only optimisation tool that tells you what worked rather than what someone claims works. Test one element at a time; let each run until the console reports a result.
Custom store listings
You can create alternate listings for specific countries or for users arriving from a particular URL (custom store listing URLs). Useful when your website has regional variants, or to show a "for returning customers" listing to people who scan the QR code in your shop.
Ratings and reviews — the rules
- Never incentivise reviews (discounts for 5 stars), buy reviews, or ask only happy users. Google detects incentive patterns and removes ratings — or the app.
- Ask real users at a good moment (after a completed order) via a link to the listing. The in-app review API is available to native apps; a WebView app can link to the store page.
- Reply to reviews, especially negative ones, factually and briefly. Replies are public and improve conversion more than the star delta.
- Bugs reported in reviews are usually website bugs; fix them on the site and reply that you did.
Measure
Console → Statistics and Store performance: listing visitors, install conversion rate, acquisition by source (including install-referrer UTM values from your QR codes). Conversion rate is the number to watch when you change the listing; installs alone move with traffic.