Experienced IOS developers, as well as beginners, know that good ratings and reviews are essential for taking higher positions in App Store’s rankings. They serve as a way for determining the app’s popularity and reliability. Most people choose an app to download based on its ratings and reviews, so it’s extremely important to create a good online image of the app. However, popularity isn’t the only effect of 5-star reviews.

App Store’s search engine is a complicated system based on a lot of factors, including the app’s ratings. That means that your app’s reviews directly affect your position in the search ratings. App Store’s top search results include relevant apps with high ratings, and other relevant apps with lower ratings are placed below.

Even though Apple’s search algorithm isn’t known to the general public, app developers are convinced that 5 main factors are taken into account: number of downloads during the several past hours, number of downloads of several past days, amount of reviews plus the average number of stars, user interaction, and sales. It’s reported that the combination of those factors determines the app’s position in the rankings. You can notice it too: as soon as your app gets a significant number of positive reviews, the app climbs higher in the ratings.

Developers often wonder: is there a way to influence those ratings? There are a few steps you can take to improve your app’s position in the search results. First you need to take care of possible bugs to provide the users with great experience, bugs can negatively influence any app’s ratings. Then you can do the following:

1. Use notifications and pop-up windows to remind users to leave feedback;
2. To minimize the risk of getting a negative review, ask users if they are satisfied. If they are, take them to the rating page. If they are not satisfied, let them leave feedback in the special form;
3. Localize your app for a lot of different markets to get more reviews from around the world.