Optimize your Shopify App Store listing: every field, limit and rule

The fields and their limits

Categories work with tags: one primary tag is required, a secondary one is optional. Changing your category takes an appeal; structured features can be changed at any time.

Choosing your five search terms

Five terms is little, so they should be the words merchants actually type, not the words you use to describe your app. You do not have to guess them: with Google Analytics 4 connected to your listing, the surface_detail parameter of each visit from search holds the search the merchant typed, and surface_intra_position the place your app had.

1. Collect a few weeks of searches that led to your listing.
2. Keep the ones that bring installs, not only visits.
3. Look for the searches where you appear low on the page: they are where a better match can move you up.
4. Write each term as one complete idea, without repeating your app name.

What gets a listing rejected

• Statistics or data in the listing, guarantees, and claims such as "the first", "the best" or "the only" (rule 4.3.3).
• Keywords added to the subtitle to improve search, and excessive marketing keywords (rules 4.4.1 and 4.4.2).
• Reviews or testimonials anywhere in the listing (rules 4.3.6 and 4.3.7).
• Prices that are incomplete or wrong, including the trial length, or prices shown outside the pricing section, in images or in the icon (rules 4.2.1 to 4.2.3).
• Shopify trademarks in the icon, banner or screenshots (rule 4.4.3), and a name confusingly similar to another app, a brand or a Shopify product (rule 4.1.2).
• Screenshots that do not show the real interface, that add a desktop background or a browser window, or that repeat each other (rules 4.4.4 and 4.4.5).
• A screencast that is not in English or subtitled in English (rule 4.5.3), and mentions of your other apps.

The review team can also reject an app at its discretion. The full list is in Shopify's App Store requirements.

Shopify's own advice

• Write what the merchant gets, not what the app does.
• Crop personal data out of your screenshots.
• Offer a 14-day free trial on paid plans.
• Translate your listing: Shopify says translated listings convert up to four times better in non-English markets.

Watch what changes

A listing is never finished, and neither are your competitors'. Luseri keeps a log of what changes on your listing and on theirs (name, plans, categories), next to your daily category rank and the searches that bring you visits, so you can see what a change did.