How to optimize an app for an App Store? 5 quick tips making iPad apps shine

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a popular term these days, especially with Mobile SEO arena. It is critically vital to have your iOS app optimized for App Store search engines. This would in turn help increase app visibility slowly and gradually, building up a loyal user base over time. 

 ASO is an evolving concept, just like the iOS App Stores. After having a perfect app in place free of bugs or errors, it is time to rope in as many users possible, through optimization of App Store. Let us look at those optimization techniques that will help your iPad application development efforts gain momentum on app store. 

a. Creating a nice icon 

An app icon is the first visual impression of an app, which is the first thing users take into account for judging an app. The icon should be so well designed that it justifies the name and description, depicting app brand personality effectively. 

b. Giving an apt name 

Let the name of your app do a lot of talking regarding what your app is all about. It should be short, however descriptive enough to understand the app. Try inserting important keywords within the app, only if possible. 

c. Provide a concise description 

A clear and easy to read description appeals the users most efficiently. Convey the message within 2-3 sentences, and do it with the help of catchy lines, optimizing the description from an SEO perspective. 

d. Use keywords in proportion 

Keyword optimization is the key to successful SEO. Talking in terms of Apple, keywords are given utmost emphasis, followed by indexing keywords. Incorporate strongest relevant keywords, and you are going good with description. 

e. Reviews & Ratings telling a lot 

The actual credibility of your app could be known by the number of reviews and ratings associated with your app, as people trust other people. Bad feedback repels users, while good ones attract them building some nice quality and authenticity. Even from an algorithmic point of view, Google gives a lot of weight age to this feedback and hence it is beneficial from an SEO perspective.

What Apps to Consider from an Entrepreneurship Perspective?

As a successful entrepreneur, you should be able to predict the future, and know what customers want from you. There is a strong relation between entrepreneurship and apps. Every tech savvy entrepreneur wants to leverage full advantage of apps into their business. Whether preparing for presentations, scheduling meetings, doing live video conferencing, or more, there are apps for possibly everything. As a prominent tablet application development company, we understand the importance of entrepreneurship apps, especially on a tablet. 

So, what apps to use in your business for achieving routine goals rapidly? 

Apps managing your daily business activities 

Check out those apps that manage your daily business tasks. They can be in the form of apps which retrieve latest news, monitor the responsibilities allocated to individuals, help in time management, and more. There are a range of other productivity apps that could play a vital role in uplifting your business. 

There are too many resources and apps helping business people in travelling, meeting new people, taxi based apps, and more. These apps are with the likes of Trip Advisor, Showbox, Yelp, WhatsApp, AirBnB, Uber, and many more. 

Apps managing payment process 

Transfer of money within a business play a key role in helping with money circulation. Look at apps like PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Venmo, and a few others that have processes millions of payments by now. These apps have smoothened business transactions. 

Apps helping in business travelling 

Imagine long business trips for months. Having a handy app in hand that possibly handles everything from booking tickets, scheduling meetings, managing time between trips, and more, proves very beneficial, ultimately leading to new clients or generating new business. 

Apps helping startups from scratch 

If you are a sole proprietor, single handedly running a business, you can have everything in place at your fingertips. Just have a systematic plan to go about in your initiative, implement them through stages, and get going with your newest initiative. The apps meant for startups not just guide you through stages, but also help them in turn have smooth process dealing with hurdles.

What content to feature on a mobile app landing screen?

Landing page is the first point of contact between organizations and customers. First thing users see in an app is a landing page, in the form of a splash screen, or a login/signup screen. Think of landing page as a hotel entry, which if looks appealing, lures guests to go for a stay. 

You need to have an absolutely engaging landing page, as you might have heard “first impression is the last impression”. The graphics and content should have the ability to grab the user attention within seconds, and let them gauge about the offerings right away. 

A plain login/signup screen is no more a good idea nowadays. If users do not know in advance what the app has in store, they would not take a keen interest in registering an account. Absence of a guest login can even prove fatal in missing out on a large audience. 

So, what steps we would take in iPhone application development for optimizing your mobile app landing screen? 

Provide them info before making them register

No matter how easy is your app to understand, you need to educate your first time users, as they are completely new to your app. If you are able to tell them what the app offers and how to go about using it convincingly, then users would not mind signing up with the app. Jut have hero images, interactive slideshows, or engaging videos, accompanied with human content to achieve this. 

Inform them either about usefulness, or usage

There are two ways in which you can have a systematic splash screen designed. One way is to inform users about the benefits offered by the app. Another way is to provide them with right direction of using the app in simplest manner possible. Both these ways play an effective role in uplifting the app audience largely, as users get to know how relevant or useful the app will turn out to be. 

Some final concluding thoughts

Most users visiting your app are willing to know what is in store with your app, and that too in advance before actually reaching the login/signup screen. Giving them a brief introduction through a single splash screen, or by displaying the features or manual instructions, users are intrigued to find out more about the app. Encourage users to check out the app through an app landing screen visually appealing, full of useful content, and interactive ways of representing content.

3 UI/UX Strategies for a User-Friendly Mobile Website Design

Nowadays, businesses have shifted their focus on having a separate mobile website development for a unique personalized experience, keeping increasing number of mobile users in mind. Google has been in favor of mobile friendly websites since the time they updated their algorithm way back in April 2015, and later in March this year. It is not surprising to see more Google queries flooding smartphones as compared to tablets and desktops. 

Looking at this booming trend, Google is only going to increase the raise the bar with mobile websites. Optimizing the website in terms of page loading time, Meta tags, and more, is bound to make whole web experience than what it is ought to be. There are many strategies for nailing the mobile web experience. However, today we will be focusing on a few of them that could really be a difference maker leading to a customized mobile website. 

Allow users for an easy access to information

Having large sized menus in a dropdown format, allow users to find specific information distributed among categories. Adding big images, highlights the categories towards the bottom, letting users move easily within the app, starting from landing page. Once users click on those categories, you can greet them with macro images, telling them how efficient the website is for easy browsing on mobile. As an example, see the mobile website of Shutterfly. 

Mobile version needs to be much simpler

No matter how beautiful your website is, full of videos, animations, and more, the mobile version needs to be just the opposite with high level of simplicity. With multimedia components present on mobile version, the website tends to become slower, with page loading time increasing effectively. 

Hence, it is advisable to remove elements decluttering the site. This reduces complexities to the core, keeping mobile site clean, users not overwhelmed with app elements or components. As an example, see the mobile website of Typeform. 

Having a collage format makes things enticing

An ecommerce mobile website needs to be such that can cater to the needs of both buyers and sellers simultaneously. Imagine any of those users greeted nicely with categories, shops, and items. Immediately, what you see below are thumbnails for trending items, letting users know what is hot, so that they can directly visit product page through thumbnails. As an example, see the website of Etsy.

Windows 10 Mobile UX Disrupted Through Hamburger Menus and Toast Notifications

Windows 10 has always faced issues related to toast or hamburger style menus. As most of you might be aware of, Windows Mobile OS lack a swipe to open hamburger menu, not a good sign to deal with. This is quite annoying, as every time you need to reach out to the top of the page, for clicking on the hamburger menu, giving you access to submenus. Even worse, when you receive a toast notification, and you have to immediately rush to the top. 

It is even sad to see toast notifications blocking the hamburger menu in most apps. To be honest, Microsoft cannot really do anything about it. Even if you experience the same issue on iOS or Android, there is not one thing you can do about it. However, Android and iOS, do facilitate users with a swipe to hamburger menu, and so there is no question whatsoever of notifications popping up frequently, or a hamburger menu present right at the top. 

We still suggest that Microsoft should introduce something like an in-built control, or facilitate users with a similar swipe to open hamburger menu, on Windows 10 mobile OS. It is expected that the company is going to address this issue with soon to be expected Redstone update. Windows Phone is known for a highly user-friendly interface, and an intuitive user experience. However, Windows 10 Mobile OS lacked this, which now seems to sort out with Redstone update. 

With Redstone 2 update taking place in the spring of 2017, you can expect a huge set of old and new Windows 10 Mobile devices, addressing the major issue of toast notifications blocking the swipe to hamburger menu. However, before that you can expect Redstone 1 update to conquer Microsoft smartphones on July 29. Redstone 1 is anticipated to bring itself a wave of updated features like Action Center, Microsoft Edge, Cortana, File Explorer, and more, giving room to developers for delivering customized Windows mobile application development services.

Mobiles still have a long way to go competing with Desktops

With emerging smartphones, the new market has clearly given the old market, a run for their money. Too many people will favor the desktop times, while others will support the growing smartphone market. Most of them, those in support of mobiles, strongly believe that the mobile market is emerging into the developing countries rapidly. 

A mobile application development market might be going for a kill; however, it is still too early to say that it is going to eat away the desktops, laptops, and tablets. Users in developing countries use smartphones to access the Internet, not out of choice, but due to unavailability of desktops, electricity, cost factor, or various other reasons. 

Have you honestly seen businesses, chucking desktops for shifting everything on mobile? Alternatively, is abandoning laptops or tablet right, in order to get everything on mobile? It is far more likely that mobiles can completely replace their elder versions, because quite honestly what businesses can do on desktops or laptops, is still not possible with mobiles, due to speed and other issues. 

Why mobile is still not a preferred choice? 

The reason is quite simple. Most organizations get work done efficiently and more importantly in an effective way when opting for big screens. However, that is not all. There are several more reasons supporting our argument. 

1. Text precision varies a lot 

If you have to jot down few letters of text, then a mobile keyboard would work wonders. What if, serious content editing is required? Typing things on mobile, especially when dealing with long blocks of text, become highly cumbersome. It is not just about writing text, it is also about manipulating them, which is a way harder task on mobile, as compared to desktops or laptops. So, what are the actual problems faced?

• Auto correct suggestions always conflict with the positioning with the cursor. 
• It is very hard to accurately place the cursor. 
• Auto correct feature disappoints on many fronts. 
• Tapping is difficult to handle as compared to using the arrow keys. 
• Copy/Paste can irritate you to the core. 
• Handling multiple tabs at a time 

You can have ease handling a single screen on your smartphone. However, when it comes to handling multiple screens or tabs at a time, it is very hard to do so in case of mobile. Doing the same thing on desktops is a lot easier. Imagine if you want to perform multiple tasks together, including copy/pasting, comparing drafts, writing job, gaming, and more, then only big screens can come to your rescue. 

2. Accessing app files and folders 

For most part, the files are a hidden option on smartphone, especially when it comes to mobile apps. User data remains hidden for the most part, with individual UX technique associated with the app, to access that data. 

Files, for the most part are invisible for most mobile apps. The user’s data is literally hidden within the app itself, with each having its own UX technique for showing that data. There is no doubt that when it comes to a fully-fledged desktop, they are less double whammy when compared to the apps, and more advantageous when it comes to cloud storage. 

We are not supporting desktop, instead encouraging mobile! 

We are not here to debate in favor of desktops, or confront mobiles. Instead, we want to motivate mobile users, and developers to enhance the capabilities of mobile to such an extent, which can make them equally competent to that of desktops.

4 Hurdles you Experience by Getting a “News” Mobile App on board

If, you belong to a major news network similar to - CNN, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, New York Times, BBC, or more – getting a news app on board might be an ideal option to let people stay connected with your news updates on the move. However, that is not the case, if you belong to a small or medium sized news setting. A news mobile app has its share of loopholes, and thinking of getting it developed, could a decision you may repent for life. Why, so much buzz, surrounding a news mobile app development? Let us find out. 

• Native apps are tough to deal with

Native apps meant for news purpose, are not only difficult to build, but also equally cumbersome to maintain. As you might know, news apps need to be updated all the time. If you need to update any section, you need Apple’s approval that typically takes 2 weeks. No matter how fast you code, until the changes are not approved, you cannot expect your latest updated app to be seen on the App Store. Meanwhile, users pounce on your app with negative reviews during those 2 crucial weeks. This might not only prove to be a big setback to your app, but also let your app not able to hold on to its place. On the other hand, Android quite certainly do not believe in approvals, enabling things to move faster. However, Android users are less inclined towards a news app, as compared to iOS users. Besides, even if they do, they do not feel like paying anything to access a news app. 

• Takes more time to load things

Compared to a news website, a news app takes much more time to load news accompanied by multimedia content like images, sound, or videos. This can in turn annoy users, as they expect to read the latest breaking news on time. If they are able to do it comfortably on a website, they would not even bother to see an app, wasting their time. 

• Capturing customers is costly and time consuming

Users are so much used to seeing news on websites, that they are least bothered to do the same in an app. Since websites have bigger screen resolutions, they let users access every minute news detail with ease. Whenever a new app gets launched, it achieves a decent user base during an initial period. However, it gets faded with time. This is specifically true, in case of a news app. 

• Users have less time in hand to access your app

With too many apps flooding the application stores, it is not surprising to see users simultaneously downloading a lot many apps together. This in turn results in your news app, having just minutes to impress your users, and retain them on an everyday basis. To lure your users on a daily basis, you need to deliver instant updates with every breaking news, and your app capable enough to keep archives for all the historical news that have already taken place.

4 mobile apps trends that will be rocking 2016

Right from online shopping to booking a car, having food delivered to your doorsteps to booking hotels, buses, or flights, today people are doing possibly almost everything on mobile making smartphones a significant vital part of our daily lives. It goes clear without saying that mobiles are having a ubiquitous presence today, and the popularity will only increase in the coming days. 

The wisest thing to do by all the mobile apps development companies as well as the mobile app developers is to keep themselves updated with the latest trends in this year to survive the cutthroat competition-taking place in mobile application development landscape. There are many trends to discuss. However, we will be talking about 4 predictive trends in particular taking the entire industry by storm: 

App security will become a necessity

With new security protocols brought by Google in Android 6.0 Marshmallow, there is no looking back in filling up the security gaps. Strict safety protocols will play an important role in securing payment integration on web to have people make purchases online with ease. 

Cloud driven technologies used to organize apps

Cloud technologies play a twofold role. The apps when integrate these cloud technologies help them to maintain their regular smaller sizes. At the same time, the apps can sync between devices with ease when present on the cloud network and connected with each other. 

Enterprise apps gaining more audience traction

Today among all the apps present on the app store, enterprise apps are the ones with probably maximum users. The figure has been soaring higher with now almost 20% of developers aiming to built these enterprise apps. If we go by the estimates, 35% of giant organizations will have their own mobile apps by 2016. 

Internet of Things (IoT) is something to talk about

Thanks to web coming on smart watches and TVs that gives rise to a new trend that has gained prominence these days. With wearable technologies designed by Google and Apple, the trend has extended to various electronic devices, making it a future possibility to have apps for Washing Machines, Refrigerators, Owens, and devices that we use in our daily lives. 

Some last thoughts

The above trends have already gained momentum with many more trends to show up in this year. With mobile apps landscape changing drastically, it would not be surprising to see users experiencing mobile experiences for possibly everything all the future electronic devices that are used.

6 things developers should know before building mobile apps

Mobile app development is becoming a more crowded place day by day with hoard of apps launched on App Store, Play Store, Windows Store, and others. Especially a start up mobile application development company have a tough time in gaining good amount of success to impress the audience, with excessive apps seen on Play Store due to quick approval process. With user expectations increasing, it has become important for developers to bring things of high standards through flawless products.

It is definitely not easy to keep up with business trends and technologies. Great apps take time and patience to develop. It requires research backed by useful insights for top-notch apps. So, what it takes to develop magnificent mobile apps?

1. Ensure to visit the app stores once a day It is very important to have a continuous watch of app trends taking place in respective categories. Check out what kind of apps are getting rated high or low, how many downloads specific apps receive, and even check out what designs, themes, or logos work in app’s favor.

2. It is a good practice to use bad apps consistently The best and shortest way to succeed is to learn from others mistake. Purposely install bad apps on your phone and check what users do not like and get annoyed off quickly. Ensure not to have all those things when you develop your own app to avoid your users walking off.

3. Be ready to update your app on a regular basis Once you launch your app, it is surely be on radar of users for even the minor most bugs or errors. Be prepared to bring upgrades with all bugs or errors fixed with every new version of the app. Most people lack patience and loopholes not fixed on time can cause them to get frustrated.

4. Read constantly about the newest tech trends If your app is not as per the latest tech trends, then users might feel bored of using it due to an outdated appeal. Take out time from your routine to check on latest technological trends in order to implement as much as possible within your app. This will attract a broad user audience.

5. Make use of keywords through intellectual approach Too much of keywords can hamper the user interest, and they can consider it as a marketing gimmick. Try to incorporate only the most common used phrases covering important keywords, making your content very relevant enough. This will not only optimized your app effectively but also grab user eyeballs.

6. Provide company information within the app It is very important to let users know that the app comes from a genuine legitimate source. Having your company information within the app will remove any insecurity hovering user minds. They can contact you anytime if in case stuck at any point within the app, or going through problems in using the app.

Measuring app success through engagement metrics

Custom Mobile Apps Development is a great start to your business starting the journey in smartphone arena. The biggest question that lies with every app is how to measure the fate of an app. It can be a tricky situation to analyze and measure where your app stands. Just a few years ago, taking into account the number of downloads was just enough to vouch for the app success or failure. Nowadays number of downloads is simply not enough. The most common problem faced today is user engagement and retaining them for long term once captured. The key to successfully scrutinizing an app lie in the right engagement metrics. 

Analysis of the type of users

It is very important to trace the ones actually using your app. Treated as Average Monthly Users, segregate people based on geography, time of use, day on which app is used, device used for operating the app, number of fans, and the active users who are still using the app. 

Length of the app using time

Track the start time and end time of the app use. It helps in explaining what time people spend ideally on your app. It also explains a lot about the people using your app the most and least. 

Length of time people switch between sessions

This is the time taken by users to switch from one session to another. It also tells about the frequency of opening and closing an app. Too long session time means users did not find your app very useful and hence wasted lot of time in finding out things. Too short session time means users did not really enjoyed your app and hence closed early. 

Historic time spent in an app

This tells about how much time user spends in an app during a historical use. It also tells how much users value your app. 

Number of downloads or installs

A traditional metric that still plays a prominent role in defining app success or failure. It tells you about where your installs or downloads came from and how much spent on each advertising source. Social Media, referrals, word of mouth, or organic search, no matter what is the source, identify the strongest entry points, and seal the ones not working out. 

Heat map related to screen flow

Scan individual screens and comprehend where users like to scroll around or which CTAs clicked by them. Track the visual interactivity, total visits to screens, flowing between screens, entry and exit points related to screens, tracking user session on every single screen and later activities as well. 

Retention rate of existing users

Retention tells about the actual percentage of users who returned to your app or probably still using it. Have an insight of users who are most valuable or engaging to check engagement levels. 

Lifetime value of customers (CLV)

Customer Lifetime Value is a financial metric that is critically important when depicting how much worth a user is from an app perspective. Split it up by dividing average monthly customers value by individual value, which will give you time against worth in terms of loyalty or money.