Last Updated on
September 25, 2024

How to Create a Great Apple App Store Product Page

Published in
Key takeaways:

Your app store product page is crucial for driving downloads of your app. As with any important landing page, you need to understand each element, and take time to thoughtfully craft the perfect design and copy. 

You can build and maintain your product page through App Store Connect or through the Connect API, and our team is on hand to guide you. 

Let’s look at each element of the App Store product page and how you can optimize to drive downloads and App Store rankings. 

App name

The name of your app is all important, playing a crucial role in discovery and conversion. For most ecommerce brands, there’s no need to overthink it though. Since you used MobiLoud to convert your web store into native shopping apps, in 99% of cases you’ll use your main brand name for the like our customers Rainbow Stores, Jack & Jones, SYN*DI*CATE, and many others.  

If you do deviate from your main brand name, choose something distinctive, punchy and memorable. Be sure to avoid names that are boring, generic, already taken, or over 30 characters long. 

Icon

Your app icon is all important. It is the first thing that potential customers see on the App Store, as well as what they see on their home screen after they install it. 

It’s important to make a great first impression with a professionally designed, sharp icon that’s recognizable, distinctive and visually pleasing. 

As part of our full set up, we work with professional graphic designers to create the perfect icon for you that is simple and eye-catching. We prepare it in all the necessary formats, resolutions and sizes, and tailor it to your brand and target customer. 

You can read more about Apple’s take on creating beautiful icons in the Human Interface Guidelines. 

Subtitle

This is where you summarize the core value proposition of your app in a concise, simple phrase. It’s a great opportunity to explain the value of your app in more detail, and highlight exactly why potential users should learn more and ultimately download. 

Some examples from MobiLoud customers:

  • Elevate Your Style with rue21
  • Shop women's clothes & shoes
  • Hot Trends for Less

Your subtitle isn’t set in stone, you can always update it when submitting a new version of your app if you think something new could engage users better.  

Your subtitle can be up to 30 characters and will appear throughout the App Store below the main name. 

We can help you out with this for your MobiLoud app if you’re short on ideas. 

App previews

No less essential is the app preview, a short video on your product page that demos the core functionality, UX, and features of your app. 

It can be up to 30 seconds long, and can use footage of real user interaction with your app. It’s possible to feature up to three previews on the App Store and Mac App Store pages, and to localize them for different languages. 

An important consideration is that app previews are muted by default, so it’s even more important to make the beginning of the video visually compelling and encourage visitors to watch. 

You can read more about creating a great app preview here.  

Screenshots

Humans are visual, and like to be shown things rather than just told about them. 

That’s why screenshots demonstrating your app’s UX are an essential part of your App Store product page. You can use up to 10 images in total, with the first three appearing in the app store search result pages when there’s no preview available. 

Make sure these really show off the core, most valuable features of your app, and that each one is distinct and demos a specific important screen or functionality. 

Apple also recommends adding at least one dark mode screenshot if appropriate, since this is important for some users. 

As part of our setup service, we handle all your App Store screenshots for you, working with our design team to make sure they really work to show off your app and entice potential users to download. 

You can read more about the specs in detail here from Apple. 

Description

This is the part where you write an engaging, concise and informative description of your app, showing users why they’ll love it and why they should download. 

Begin with a punchy introductory sentence that sums up the essence and core value of your app, letting users see it immediately without needing to expand the description. Use your brand voice and speak directly to your target audience, using the language you know they’ll connect with and understand.

Every word counts. 

It’s then good to follow up with a bullet list that ranks and explains the key features so that users can quickly scan and learn what your app is all about. 

Apple recommends that you avoid stuffing in prices, accolades, or excessive keywords - these are all better suited for the promotional text. Focus on value and informing the user above all. 

Remember that this too isn’t set in stone, and you can edit and change your description each time you update your app. If you want to make more frequent changes, you can use the promotional text instead. 

Promotional text

The promotional text is at the top of the description, and can be updated any time without the need to submit a new version of your actual app. 

This is a great place to show the latest news, new shipped features, cool anecdotes and figures about your apps, or special offers and promotions.. 

You’ve got 170 characters to make your points, so keep it fresh, concise and engaging. 

Keywords

The App Store is a search engine and so the results are partially determined by keywords. 

Think about which key terms, words or phrases potential users might search for to look for an app like yours. What would they call it? How would they describe it? 

Including these will help to make your app more discoverable for your target users. 

Like on the web, there’s often a tradeoff between the search volume of a keyword and how difficult it is to rank highly for it. So we recommend focusing on longer tail, specific keywords that can bring you in targeted traffic. 

You can include keywords up to 100 characters in total, separated only by commas. Apple specifically warns against the following:

  • Repeating words in plural form 
  • Using the word “app” 
  • Various forms of synonymous or duplicate words
  • Special characters like hashtags or @ symbols 

The real things to avoid are unauthorized usage of any trademarked terms or the names of real people like celebrities. You should also not use anything offensive or inappropriate, or the brand names of your competitor’s apps. 

This is one of the main reasons why apps get rejected from the App Store, so it’s important to get it right. 

In-app purchases

If your app has in-app purchases & subscriptions, the user can view and buy from the product page. You can display up to 20 items, defining the copy in the description & title, the promotional images, and the order they’re displayed.

Again there’s a strict character limit of 30 for titles and 45 for descriptions, so concision is important as always. 

Now, if like most of our customers you’re an ecommerce brand selling physical items, these are not classed as in-app purchases. Thankfully, because otherwise you’d need to pay Apple a 30% cut. So you really only need to worry about this if you sell purely digital products. Speak to one of our team if you need clarification. 

What’s New

What’s new is the perfect place to inform users and potential users of important changes after an update.

Whether you shipped new features, squashed a bug, or made a UX improvement - you can share it here, with it appearing on both the main product page and the updates tab. Apple recommends listing new features in order of importance and using punchy copy to excite users about the updates. 

At MobiLoud we handle all updates and maintenance for you, so we also handle this part of the product page. You’ll have the freedom to make changes or updates to the copy as you see fit. 

Ratings and reviews

Ratings and reviews are really crucial. Not only do they provide social proof and entice new users to download your app - but they’re an important ranking factor on the App Store. Here you can see individual reviews as well as a summary rating. 

All MobiLoud apps are designed to be slick, performant, and to give the user a great native UX. MobiLoud apps get overwhelmingly positive reviews, which will encourage even more users to download. 

It’s important to get as many reviews as you can, that’s why all MobiLoud apps have automatic ratings prompts which remind your users to leave a review and rating at key times. 

On your end, it’s a good idea to respond to App Store reviews to address users feedback and questions. The original reviewer will be notified when you respond, and other users browsing the page will see that you proactively engage with and value your user base. You can read more about ratings from Apple here

Categories

Categories are helpful for users browsing for and discovering new apps, and you’ll give your app both a primary and a secondary category.

The primary is particularly important, helping to rank the app for specific keywords and allowing users to find it through searching and filtering results. The primary category should be as accurate as possible. 

The secondary category gives you a bit more flexibility to niche down, allowing your app to appear in a wider range of searches. 

It’s really important to be accurate and honest when it comes to categorisation, not least because getting it wrong can lead to rejection by Apple. 

Localization

At MobiLoud, our apps are multi-language, supporting most major languages as well as RTL for Arabic and Hebrew. 

If your app is multi-language, it's important to localize your description, keywords, preview, screenshots, and keywords for all the markets you offer your app in. 

You might want to translate your app’s name and branding too so that it resonates better with the local audience. 

Product page testing & optimization

Apple has an inbuilt testing feature where you can test out alternative versions of your product page with different icons, screenshots, and previews to see which one performs the best. 

Users are randomly selected to see different versions, and you can measure the results in your App Analytics. 

If you get a high volume of traffic, this might make sense for you. Speak to one of our team about the possibility. 

Custom product pages

You can make specific versions of your product page to highlight a particular feature or key selling point. You can then share them with your audience through unique URLs. 

These can have unique copy, images and localization, so you can really drill down to what you want to show off on each page!

Ready for the App Store?

At MobiLoud, we build apps for you, based on your existing website, online store, or web app. With our custom platform and experienced team, we build you top class iOS and Android apps that let you reuse everything you already built for the mobile web.

It's the perfect way to build apps fast and cost-effectively, as the model is proven - having worked fantastically for thousands of businesses from small startups to multibillion dollar global brands.

We built the apps for you, handling everything from the app build to ongoing updates and maintenance. That includes publishing to both the Apple App Store and Google Play. All the elements we covered above, we handle for you - our team of app experts and designers have it covered.

Ready to get on the App Store?

You can get started today, check out a preview of what your app could look like - and book a demo call to get all your questions answered.

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