Google is rolling out new features to make it easier for app developers to better showcase their apps on the Play Store.
“The assets and information you provide—descriptions, images, and videos—are essential for users who want to make a decision about what to download,” Alison Chang, product manager for Google Play; Weifang Sun, product manager for Chrome OS; Manuel Wang, Product Manager for Google Play Console; and Marcus Leal, product manager for Google Play, wrote in a blog post.
Starting next year, Google will give apps that follow content quality guidelines for larger screens access to richer formats, allowing them to change how the app is displayed on the Play Store.
The team is also adding support for Chromebook-specific screenshots in the Play Store. Currently, when a Chromebook user browses the store, they will be shown screenshots from phones or tablets, which may differ from how the app looks on the Chromebook. According to Google, up to eight screenshots can be uploaded.
The company also updated the quality guidelines for tablet screenshots so that developers can ensure consistency on larger screens. This will give developers a simpler process to generate new screenshots when an app is updated.
According to Google, these updates will make app listings much more prominent, so they’ve also shared some best practices for optimizing images on the Play Store, which include:
- Using device-specific screenshots to demonstrate the core app experience
- Be careful not to show a physical device in images, as it can become outdated or alienate users
- Using high quality images with correct aspect ratio and resolution
- Avoid overloading photos with text
“While we continue to test ways to present your store listing information more prominently on Play, the quality of your assets remains as important as ever. We hope these features and tips empower you to show off the best of your app on all device types,” the team wrote.
Google updates guidelines for creating and managing Play Store app listings
