Telegram Mini App ASO: How to Get More Users Through tg.app

Most Telegram Mini App developers spend weeks on the app itself and minutes on the listing. That is backwards. On tg.app, your listing is the product — it is the first thing a potential user sees, and it determines whether they tap through or scroll past.

ASO for Telegram Mini Apps is not the same as Google Play or the App Store optimisation. There is no keyword bidding, no paid placement algorithm to game. Discovery is driven by category rankings, editorial picks, and user-generated signals like upvotes and reviews. Here is how to make all three work for you.

Start With the Right Category

tg.app has 12 categories: Games, Finance, Tools, NFT, Wallets, Social, AI Agents, AI, Staking, Shopping, Entertainment, and VPN. Choosing the right one is not obvious. A DeFi trading terminal could go in Finance or Tools. An NFT minting app could go in NFT or Finance.

The rule is: choose the category where your target user is browsing. A crypto trader browsing Finance expects to find trading interfaces. A developer browsing Tools expects infrastructure. Put yourself where the right person is already looking, not where the broadest audience exists.

Miscategorised apps consistently underperform in ratings and upvotes because they attract the wrong audience — people who open the app, get confused, and leave a poor review.

Write a Description That Converts

The short description (shown in listings) gets roughly 150 characters. The first 60 are critical — they display in compressed card views. Lead with the core action: what does the user do and what do they get?

Bad: "A next-generation Web3 platform for the decentralised economy" — jargon, no action, no outcome.

Good: "Swap TON tokens in 3 taps — best rates across STON.fi, DeDust, and TONCO" — specific action, specific outcome, named proof points.

The long description should answer three questions in order: what do I do here, why should I trust this, and what happens after I start? Skip origin stories and team introductions — users do not care yet. Those belong on your website.

Screenshots Are Your Conversion Layer

tg.app displays up to six screenshots per listing. Most apps submit one or two low-quality phone screenshots and leave value on the table. The apps with the highest conversion rates treat screenshots like a mini sales deck.

Screenshot 1 should show the single most impressive moment in your app — the moment a new user would screenshot and share. Screenshot 2 should answer the most common question. Screenshots 3–6 should demonstrate breadth: different features, different states, different user outcomes.

Use landscape orientation if your app supports it — landscape screenshots take up more space in the listing grid and get more visual attention than portrait ones stacked three-across.

The Verified Badge and Why It Matters

The tg.app verified badge is awarded after manual review: we check that your Telegram link works, that your app matches its description, and that it meets minimum quality standards. Only 63 of the 719 apps in our directory currently carry it.

Verified apps receive a visual badge in all listing views. In user research, verified apps get roughly 2x more taps from users who do not already know the brand. If you are a new app competing against established names, verification is the fastest way to signal credibility.

To request verification, ensure your listing has at least three screenshots, a complete description, a working Telegram link, and at least one published review. Then contact tg.app support from the listing management page.

Reviews: Volume and Recency Both Matter

tg.app ranks apps within categories using a signal that combines upvote count, average rating, review recency, and view-to-click ratio. Of these, review recency has the highest weight for new apps — a fresh 4-star review beats a six-month-old 5-star review in the ranking algorithm.

The practical implication: do not run a one-time review campaign and walk away. Set up a prompt inside your Mini App that asks active users to leave a review on tg.app after a meaningful action — first successful transaction, fifth session, first win. The best timing is immediately after a positive moment.

Responding to reviews — especially critical ones — also improves conversion. Users read recent negative reviews carefully. A developer response that acknowledges the issue and explains the fix signals that the app is actively maintained.

Editor's Choice: The Shortcut

Editor's Choice apps appear on the tg.app homepage and in featured slots across category pages. They get 5–10x the organic traffic of a standard listing. There is no application process — the editorial team reviews apps continuously and adds the designation when an app demonstrates sustained quality, active development, and genuine user value.

The fastest path to Editor's Choice is shipping consistently. Apps that push updates at least twice a month, maintain a rating above 4.0, and grow their review count month-over-month get noticed. Share your release notes in your Telegram channel and link back to your tg.app listing — it drives the engagement signals the algorithm watches.

Listing Your App

Submit your app at tg.app. The review process takes 24–48 hours. Once approved, your app is immediately visible in its category and eligible to appear in the open-source awesome list on the next snapshot update.