The short answer
- Find the broken step first: few visits, few installs per visit, or fast uninstalls. Each has a different fix.
- Target searches where the top 3 apps have few reviews. On 31% of the searches we track, they have under 50.
- Name your app "Brand - main keyword". 30% of top-3 apps have the search in their name, against 4.5% past position 48.
- Get reviews on many different days, not in bursts, and fix uninstalls: Shopify ranks apps on how merchants react to them.
Find which step is broken
"More installs" is three different problems, and most advice mixes them up. Before changing anything, add Google Analytics to your App Store listing. Shopify then sends every listing visit, install click and install to your GA4, with the surface the merchant came from (search, category, home, ads) and the search they typed. Look at one month:
| What you see | The problem | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Few people visit your listing | Discovery | You don't rank on the searches merchants type. Go to step 2. |
| Visitors come, few install | Listing conversion | Your listing doesn't convince. Go to step 4. |
| Installs come, most uninstall fast | Activation | Merchants don't reach the moment your app works. This also hurts your rank. Go to step 3. |
Compare the same weekdays when you measure a change. In my experience installs move with the day of the week, so a listing change made on Friday can look like a failure for no reason.
How to connect Google Analytics to your listing →Rank on searches you can actually win
Search is where installs start. Shopify said in 2020 that 60% of App Store installs come from searches, and two newer surfaces run on the same results: the app search inside the Shopify admin, and Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant. When we tested Sidekick on October 28, 2026, it turned each merchant request into a 1 to 3 word App Store search and showed the apps in the public App Store order on 22 of 22 English searches. Rank well in search and you rank well in all three.
Pick searches where the top apps are beatable
Most new apps target the biggest search in their niche and land on page 4. The better move is a narrower search where the apps on top have few reviews. They exist far more often than people think. Of the 2,493 searches we track daily:
- On 65%, at least one app in the top 10 has fewer than 10 reviews.
- On 36%, an app in the top 10 has no reviews at all.
- 1,503 apps launched since May 2026 already sit in a top 10 somewhere.
Number of searches, out of 2,493 tracked on October 31, 2026.
How I check a search before targeting it:
- Search it on the App Store and read the top 10. Would a merchant typing this want your app? If the results solve a different problem, skip it.
- Look at the review counts of the top 5. High counts mean real traffic but hard competition. Low counts mean you can get in quickly.
- Note their categories. In my experience an app doesn't rank on searches outside its categories, so pick the same ones as the apps that rank (you get two).
- Start narrow, then climb. As your reviews grow, move your name and texts to the bigger searches.
Put the search in your app name, after your brand
Shopify asks you to lead with your brand and keep the name to 30 characters. The data shows why you should still add your main keyword after it: apps whose name contains the search rank far higher.
295,599 ranking positions on 2,493 searches, October 31, 2026. A correlation: apps built for a search also tend to be named after it.
"Wide Bundles - Quantity Breaks" is the pattern: brand first, keyword second. In my experience, changes to your listing show up in search within days, so you can test a keyword, watch your rank for a week, and switch back. Don't repeat keywords everywhere: since 2023 Shopify says keyword stuffing has less impact.
Track your rank on any search, daily →Give Shopify the signals it ranks on
Since February 2023, Shopify ranks apps partly on how merchants react to them: apps that merchants find most relevant for a search rank higher, and search boosts smaller apps that are gaining traction. Two signals you control feed this: reviews and uninstalls.
Reviews: many days beat big bursts
Recent reviews count more than old ones. Across 2,479 searches, reviews from the last 120 days lined up with rank slightly better than total reviews. When we rebuilt the category ranking for product bundles, the best predictor wasn't the number of reviews but the number of days with a new review, with recent days weighted more (a 120-day half-life). Ten reviews on one day count about as much as one. An app that gets a review three days a week will eventually pass an app that gets two, whatever their totals.
How I get reviews steadily:
- Add live chat to your app (Crisp, Intercom) and get a Slack alert on every install.
- Message new installs yourself, as a person, in the first hour. Help them set up.
- Ask for a review right after they see the app work, the same day, in neutral words. A request inside your app's own pages works better than an email (Shopify forbids review requests in admin blocks, actions and links).
- Never ask for 5 stars, offer a reward or lock a feature behind a review. Shopify forbids it.
- If they say no, ask instead if they know another merchant who'd use the app.
Uninstalls: fix the first hour
In my experience Shopify's ranking takes uninstalls into account, not only installs. Look at how fast your uninstalls happen: most merchants decide in the first minutes, so that's where the work is: fewer setup steps, smart defaults, and one action that shows the app working on their store.
See installs, uninstalls and churn for your app →Turn listing visitors into installs
Merchants scan. They see your icon in the results, then your first image and your introduction line. In our study of 25,780 apps, the listings that win share habits anyone can copy:
- Icon: one bright color and one simple shape, so it stands out on a white page. Reuse that color across your screenshots.
- First image: your app working on a real store, with a few words of benefit. Many merchants decide on it alone.
- Introduction (100 characters): what the app does for the merchant, in their words. Take them from your support chats.
- Translate the listing: the biggest gap in our data between top apps and the rest.
- Free plan: 85% of the new apps that broke through in their first months had one.
- Shopify's rules: no Shopify trademarks or prices in your icon and screenshots, no statistics in the listing, and no "the best", "the first" or "the only".
A video doesn't help on its own: about 31% of apps have one at every rank position, and the new apps that broke through had less video than the ones that stalled.
Run the free listing audit on your app →Add installs from outside the search bar
Built for Shopify, once you qualify
Shopify says Built for Shopify apps appear higher in App Store search, carry a badge and a search filter, and become eligible for the homepage, category pages and the "Picked for you" panel in the admin. You need at least 50 net installs from paying shops and 5 reviews, plus speed and design standards. Shopify's review can take weeks, so apply as soon as you qualify.
Partner with apps your merchants already use
Find apps that serve the same merchants without competing with you. Show them you share users, build a real integration, then promote each other: a newsletter feature, a dedicated email, an in-app integration page, a tutorial video. Integrations also make both apps harder to uninstall.
Creators, once the app is ready
Shopify YouTubers and newsletter writers can send a wave of installs, but only once onboarding and support are solid. A bad first wave costs you the reviews of the next ones. Pay on commission (10 to 50% of revenue) so both sides win only if merchants stay.
One more channel, done consistently
Pick the channel that fits your app and give it three months before judging it: tutorials on YouTube for visual apps, content and SEO for technical apps (3 to 6 months to show results), LinkedIn or communities for direct conversations, ads when you know what an install is worth to you.
A weekly routine
- 1Monday: check your rank on your 10 target searches and your installs by surface, against the same week last month.
- 2Pick one change: a keyword in your name, a new first image, a translated listing. One at a time, so you know what worked.
- 3Every day: message new installs in the first hour and ask happy merchants for a review.
- 4Read every uninstall and 1 or 2 star review. Fix the cause in the first-hour experience.
- 5Watch what the apps next to you change, and whether their rank moved after.
Questions
How do I get more installs for my Shopify app?
First find which step is broken: few listing visits (you don't rank), visits but few installs (the listing doesn't convince), or installs that uninstall fast (activation). Then pick App Store searches you can win, put your main keyword in your app name after your brand, collect reviews steadily, and connect Google Analytics to your listing to measure each change.
Can a new Shopify app rank without reviews?
Yes. On 65% of the 2,493 App Store searches we track, at least one app in the top 10 had fewer than 10 reviews, and on 36% one had none. Shopify says its search helps smaller apps that are gaining traction show up higher.
Should my Shopify app name include a keyword?
Shopify asks you to lead with your brand, not a generic descriptor, in 30 characters or fewer. In our data, 30% of apps in the top 3 of a search have that exact search in their name, against 4.5% of apps below position 48. A name like "Brand - main keyword" does both.
Do recent reviews matter more than total reviews?
A little, in our data. Across 2,479 searches, reviews from the last 120 days lined up with search rank slightly better than total reviews (0.31 vs 0.28 average rank correlation). In category rankings we found that the number of days with a new review, weighted toward recent days, predicts rank better than review counts.
Where do Shopify app installs come from?
Mostly search. Shopify reported in 2020 that 60% of App Store installs come from searches. Merchants also search from the Shopify admin, and Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant, runs App Store searches for them. The rest comes from categories, the App Store home, ads and outside links.
Does Built for Shopify help installs?
Shopify says Built for Shopify apps appear higher in App Store search, get a badge and a search filter, and become eligible for homepage, category and admin recommendations. It requires at least 50 net installs from paying shops and 5 reviews, plus performance and design standards.
How we measured
Search data: the App Store results we record every day for 2,493 searches (brand searches excluded), snapshot of October 31, 2026, up to 120 results each. Rank correlations use the top 48 of each search. Category ranking model: product bundles category, fitted on 7 dates from June to August 2026 and checked on 3 later dates. Listing numbers: our study of 25,780 live apps, August 2026 (the Winners' Playbook). Sidekick: our test in a Shopify development store, October 28, 2026.
- Shopify Partners blog, App Store ads (Feb 2020): 60% of installs come from searches
- Shopify Partners blog, search improvements (Feb 2023)
- Shopify dev docs, Built for Shopify benefits
- Shopify dev docs, Built for Shopify requirements
- Shopify dev docs, App Store listing best practices
- Shopify dev docs, tracking listing traffic
- Shopify dev docs, App Store requirements (reviews, listing content)