How To Get Your App or Game Featured On The Apple App Store

Today we are talking about the reasons why your app or game could get featured on the App Store, based on an article posted on PickASO’s blog. 

Getting your product featured on the App Store doesn’t only mean that it’s good, but that it also depends on a day’s topic, holidays or particular events. And more importantly: editors.

What kind of apps get featured on the App Store?

App Store has three tabs with featured apps:

• Today: The most important and popular on the main page.
• Apps: A collection of the best apps.
• Games: A collection of selected titles.

How to get your app featured

Show me the money

Like any other business, Apple is interested in increasing its income and in keeping iOS as a quality platform for apps and games. For that reason, it’s more probable that those that include IAP get featured.

The importance of ratings and reviews

At the same time, it would be really weird that apps get featured if their rating is below 4 stars. Its average tends to start at 4.2 for apps and 4.4 for games.

If you’d like to improve your average ratings or get better reviews, here’s an article that will help you with that!

Universal Apps

Another way to improve your chances is to make your app available for iPad, Apple Watch and other iOS products, such as Apple Pay. The tab “Today” is the same for both iPhone and iPad, so Apple prefers apps available for iPad, too, so users from both devices will see identic collections.

If the app is only available for iPhone, your chances are lower. However, it can appear in Apps or Games tabs, as they get chosen separately for iPhone and iPad.

Double-edged sword

You need to be prepared. Getting featured could be harmful if your server can’t handle high traffic, which could generate bugs or lag and, therefore, bad ratings and reviews. This would damage your average rating and affect your organic ASO rankings.

Make it happen

Sometimes we need to be proactive in order to make things happen… So, if we don’t want to wait for it, we can request Apple to get our app featured by filling in a special form (you will also need some luck!). You don’t need to talk about your app’s functionalities but make it valuable and share how it can improve people’s everyday lives and routines, or how you have developed a completely new game mechanism.

If you are lucky, in a couple of weeks you’ll get an email from Apple asking for graphics requirements. In general, you can submit them within a week. And don’t forget to check Apple’s guidelines, as mistakes will get your app dismissed of consideration.

Get your app ready to be featured! Work on your on-metadata (icon, screenshots, textual fields, video preview…) test your charging times and see if it can handle a sudden high number of users without having its performance compromised.

Improve your chances of getting your app featured

Independently of the official reasons from Apple editors to get an app featured, there are some tips that can help you improve your chances to be featured. What is certain, though, is that this recognition will bring you a huge increase in impressions and visibility of your product page, which will also bring you more downloads. Don’t miss your chance to be featured on the App Store!

What do you think about these tips? Do you know more? Leave your opinion in the comments!