ASO cheatsheet that works
A widely shared ASO cheatsheet says an app name loaded with keywords drives ~80% of discovery, maintain 4.0+ ratings, and optimize screenshots, subtitle and icon to boost installs — developers report big lifts from these basics. (x.com)
App Store search still dominates discovery: Apple says about 70% of App Store visitors use search to find apps, while an 11,000-person Airship survey found 46% of consumers discover apps by searching or browsing the stores. (ads.apple.com) (ads.apple.com ) Apple’s metadata rules make names and keyword fields high-value real estate—Apple’s product-page guidance calls the app name “critical” and limits it to 30 characters, and the App Store Connect API documents a 30-character name limit and a 100-character keyword field. (developer.apple.com) (developer.apple.com ) Industry A/B-test benchmarks show visual and icon changes move the needle: SplitMetrics’ 2024 benchmarks found optimized icons can lift conversion by up to ~25%, and multiple A/B tests (including Sensor Tower case studies) report mid-single- to double-digit install lifts from reordered or redesigned screenshots. (martechcube.com) (splitmetrics.com ) Ratings matter quantitatively—Alchemer/Apptentive analyses show moving from a three‑star to a four‑star average can nearly double install conversion in many samples, and Apple surfaces summary ratings in search results and territory-specific product pages. (alchemer.com) (alchemer.com ) Apple has added AI-driven discovery changes since WWDC 2025: App Store Tags are being generated with large language models (with human review) and analysts have documented that text in screenshot captions now appears to feed indexing and tag generation. (techcrunch.com) (techcrunch.com ) Google Play enforces different metadata rules—titles are also capped (≈30 characters) and the short description is indexed (≈80 characters), while Play’s policy and past updates prohibit promotional keywords in titles and icons; Apple’s Custom Product Pages have likewise shown an average +2.5 percentage‑point conversion lift when used for targeted referrals. (asomobile.net) (support.google.com )
