First of all what we are going to discuss is nothing new, nothing out of ordinary, nothing you haven’t figured out by yourself. We are just going to revisit them and try to figure out where we can improve.

The Big Bad Icon

So you got your icon ready, is it really helping you out drive the downloads. This is the very first time a new user gets exposed to your app. Let us look at a search for kids app. We have as expected a plethora of choices, just like in an ice-cream parlor. Going with that analogy what are you going to try out.

 Search result for “kids app”

 

 

Let me help you out there something which catches your eyes, may be the name, may be the color and may be the quality of icon.
How will you identify a winning combo? Unfortunately you can’t. You need some help here. Who to call ?

The best way to figure out is doing a small test with your users pick the top 20 icons for your search term, throw in your icon probables and let them choose. This is a good field test for your icon, you can later follow up and ask why or why not they picked your icon.

The Forbidden App Page

The user has selected your icon and landed on the doors of the downloading your app. Work done?No. Here comes the difficult part to sell the goodies to the user. Yes, writing code and getting cool graphics for the project was not enough. Let’s get started.

Boss One : Shoot the Screenshots

Visual data is the first thing which hits the user. This is our time to shine. Get the best possible screenshots, remove distractions and convey the most you can in those screenshots. Easier said than done. You can choose from a variety of options you can add descriptive text, you can highlight the strong points . Let’s look at a few available options, I call them The Explainer, The Influencer, The No Screenshot and The Simpleton.

 Some General tips while taking a screenshot:

1. Remove all unnecessary notification icon, less distraction better screenshots
2. power capacity 100 is what you should set for emulator , no we do not want to see anything less than that
3. Same goes for wireless signal crank it up to max.
4. I love The Explainer, club your screenshots with a little extra information on what is happening in the app.

Boss Two: App Video Booster Pack

Yes, yes we all can’t afford a Liam Neeson but your apps do deserve a video explaining app features or may be just showing off that cool loading screen you wrote for half the time building your super awesome app. The second stop or even the first in my case on a app store page is app video, I want to know before downloading what it does? How it looks in action? What is so unique about it?

App Videos just need to be

1. Short and Sweet
2. Give people a tour of your app
3. Highlight the “Killer” Features
4. Optional: Entertaining, Ohh! who can say no to that.

If you can’t make it yourself, get some one to do it for you. Lot of professional help out there.

Boss Three: Short Description Hunt

The punchline or the deal maker or even deal breaker. This is your elevator pitch in 80 characters. The new play store redesign puts short description in prime light. The Full description takes a back seat, you need to click on READ MORE to access it.

Put your literary skills to test and frame the 80 letters keyword infused masterpiece. Yes this is the reason we tweet to practice 140 character self constraint, its just that play store took it a whole new level.

Boss Four : Full Description Maze Run

The final frontier, we will go to space later lets wrap it up with the big bad description. Its for the brave who still wants to learn more about your app. The extra push is required. Rule of thumb do not bore the user he has no time for your lengthy descriptions.

1. Keep it Short
2. Use Bullet points
3. Throw in reviews from other users
4. Throw in press coverage, yea some people do have press coverage
5. Avoid keyword stuffing but not the keywords

Lot of more stuff going around, let’s meet for round two. Until then feel free to point out my mistakes, add your tips and tricks.

This Post was first published on medium