Creating an app - Episode 7 - Preparing the App page and App Store details

Hello, everybody, and welcome to part seven on this series, creating an application. In the last episode, we talked about taking those prototypes to some of the final designs and working through those and that iteration loop of getting that to some folks so that they can provide you feedback and keep improving those interfaces. We also said that that was essentially the last part in the development loop. So now we're gonna start talking about the next step. Okay?

So you now have your application, and either it's finished from a development perspective or you feel like you are getting pretty darn close to where you need to be for that one dot o release. Right? So what's the next step here? Well, now you need to start thinking about preparing for release. Now this is gonna take a couple of different forms here depending on which way you are building your application.

If you're building a web app, for example, then a lot of this episode is gonna be very easy for you because you can create your own web pages and supply the media. Now let's focus on those app stores. So I'm talking about Google and Apple here because these need some real serious attention paid to them. It is a very straightforward process. You do need to meet certain requirements and provide certain materials, and we're gonna talk about those here.

Now on one of my other podcasts where I talk about app development, we did a deep dive in particular on the Apple App Store and went through each of the requirements that you need to supply. So I will put a link in the show notes if you are going to be releasing on the Apple platforms and you wanna really deep dive into a lot of the content there and understand all of the parts that I'm about to talk about. So let's get into this. So when you are releasing on the Google or Apple App Store, first thing is you need an account on the appropriate store. I'm pretty sure you probably have those by now, and you will go into their various consoles.

And you're gonna be going in, and you're gonna be setting up essentially a new release and application page that will appear in the store. And to do this, to successfully get through app review, you need to supply certain requirements and some that I'm gonna recommend you treat as required even though they are optional. So the first thing is you should set up a privacy page somewhere. Somewhere on the web, ideally, you're gonna want to supply that link in the listing on the store page. I strongly recommend that you have this.

It will be publicly linked on the page, and you should probably put this link in your app somewhere as well. Now the privacy pages, there are plenty of generators out there that can help you get started. And, of course, you can certainly look at ones from your competitors and all the other apps out there, but you will need to fill in and supply a privacy page. Along with that, you will need to fill in a checklist, which will go through and ask you some very straightforward, very simple questions. They are not trying to trick you or cash you out.

They're gonna ask you some questions, and at the end of it, you will have this privacy profile that will be listed for your application, things like the data that you collect, why you're collecting that data, what it'll be used for, all that general kind of stuff. Now, you know, again, they're not looking to catch you out here, so just go through, fill in these questions. It does not take long. You will also need to supply screenshots. Now on these, you can supply as few or as many as you want.

I personally go for four or five screenshots, and there are certain requirements that both of the portals will list the particular pixel size of the images, landscape portrait, and they have lots of information on there to help you get through this. One of the nice things, especially on the Apple one, is if you try to upload an image and it doesn't match the dimensions, it will tell you, and you will not be allowed to use that image. So this can take a couple of attempts to get right, but once you've got this and you've nailed it, trust me. From then on out, it's easy. For your screenshots, I'm gonna recommend you keep them simple.

Do not put too much information on them. A lot of the time, what you will see is some kind of screen grab from the application and maybe a little bit of text. Not necessarily explaining the app, but maybe you're pointing out a few key features or something like that. But my recommendation is look at what's on the stores now. Keep them simple.

Right? You can also create videos for these portals. Now the nice thing about the videos is you're aiming for a thirty seconds maximum, I would say, for these videos, and you wanna get across the major features and, things that you wanna highlight in the application. But, again, think about the content. Now the reason I say that is you can use this video or videos for multiple things.

It does not just have to be the App Store. So you may have them on your website. You can use them on social media sites. All those kind of things, you may wanna put them on YouTube and link out to folks. The YouTube is a good example of putting it on there where it's another place for people to find your app.

And then, of course, in the description for your video, you wanna put a link to where it's gonna be on the app stores on the various platforms or websites, something like that. But take advantage of this. Right? And think about this as you're creating these videos and these images. Can I use these elsewhere for other things?

Very important. You want to try and create media that you can basically create once and use many times, that's gonna greatly help you out. You will also need to provide keywords for your applications. Now don't go crazy here. There is a limit.

Certainly on the Apple side, there is a limit, and you will use it up very quickly. It is slightly different than when you are doing, say, keywords for a website, something like that, because you don't have to worry, for example, on the Apple side, you don't have to put plurals in. If it's, say, people, you can literally put people. Right? It doesn't have to be peoples.

It's gonna work both ways for you. Now try to target specific keywords that you want people to, find your app with. Right? Don't go with this like I said early on in this series, don't go to try and capture everybody. Right?

So don't go for greatest app and and things like that or something that's got nothing to do with your app. You stand a very good chance of not getting through app review if you are putting any kind of content on these pages that has nothing to do with your app or feels kind of spammy in any way. It is not gonna help you out at all. Right? Again, go back to those earlier episodes.

Go back to that beginning document where we said about your key features in your app and describing that perfect user, and think about those keywords. Right? So look at your competitors on this, but you have very limited space. So you can play with these over time and different releases, but you wanna try and have a list to begin with on this first release to see how this works out for you. You will get analytics in both of the app stores that will help you understand how all this is working for you, and you can change it over time, but you do need some way to start.

And finally, think about creating a media kit. Alright? Now this may not seem like an obvious one, and you may be thinking, why should I do that? You never know what's gonna happen. Right?

You may put this app on these app stores, and you may get featured by one of these app stores. Or somebody may see this and say, hey, we wanna interview you about your app, or we wanna talk about your app, anything like that. Now if you can supply them a media kit, this is greatly gonna help you out. Why? Because you will have content in there that you have created and vetted and approved, and you can supply that to these folks in this media kit.

And they can take that, and they are essentially gonna be using your images, hopefully, and your language to describe your application, which at the end of the day, you know, as I've said throughout this whole thing, you're gonna be crafting this the way you want it to be. So you are helping them out by essentially giving them content to get started with. This could probably this would make all the difference if someone wanted to highlight your work or, that said, if you wanna if you reach out on social media or to some news site, some review site, whatever it may be, having that media kit that you can give them is gonna give a consistent message as you send out to all of these folks or these folks come and get it, and it's gonna save you having the same conversation over and over again, and it will be consistent. This is really gonna help you out, and you never know when you're gonna need it. And that's the other thing here.

It does not take long to create one of these. There are plenty of good examples out there. So this is something that you wanna think about as well. So this is how you are gonna get started here. This is basically preparing the page ready for you to submit your apps for app review or preparing a web page, things like that, where you have everything that folks are gonna wanna need to know about your application.

And hopefully, you're gonna get through app review. And in the next episode, we are gonna talk about that and about submitting for app reviews. Not gonna go into massive detail because, again, I've covered this on one of my other podcasts, but I'm gonna give you the information that will help you, hopefully, head in the right direction to get a good app review or if there's a problem, how you should deal with that and the approach that you should take. So we'll cover that in episode eight. But I will, as I say, put a link in the show notes for the deep dive on the Apple Store, for example, which a lot of this will apply to Google and will have you thinking, hopefully, about ways to tackle this problem.

That's it, folks. I will speak to you in the next episode.