How to Make Great, High-Converting App Store Screenshots For Your App
You’ve made the next great app. You’ve sweated, coded, tested, and now you’re ready to submit final code to the app stores. But now you’re faced with marketing. One of the most important things your potential users will see is the screenshots for your app. So they need to not only show off the best elements of your app, but they also need to convince users that YOUR app is the one to download.
Apps should solve one problem for a user. Games solve boredom. GPS apps solve getting lost (or being late). Recipe apps keep you from eating the same things over and over. So your screenshots should reflect the value of your app. What problem is your app solving, and which parts of your app show a user how it does it?
So take your model user through your app, screen by screen. Start with your app home screen and take a screenshot of that. Then, step by step, take the next four screenshots that show how your user gets from Problem to Problem-Solved!
Once you have your five screenshots (home screen plus four more) go to AppToolkit.io and set up a free account.
Once you’ve set up your free account, choose “Get Started” for the Screenshot Builder.
Pick the app store you’re making screenshots for (different device types available in each store so you don’t use an iPhone frame when submitting an app to Android and vice a versa).
Then you choose the layout style you want — text above the device or below. If you want to show the whole device or just the screenshot with text, those are pro features, but not necessary to do. If you have a horizontal screenshots, just upload them and AppToolkit will adjust the frame and text for the screenshots.
Edit the text you want above the screenshot, focusing on the problem your app is going to solve. Edit the background color to be complementary to the app screen colors or upload a background image you like. Upcoming features in AppToolkit will include suggestion background colors based on either your icon colors or the color from the screenshot you uploaded. There will so be an option to upload a continuous background image that goes from one screenshot to the next, creating a flow when a user swipes from left to right.
Once you’ve completed your first screenshot, you can go to screenshot #2, 3, 4 and 5. Make sure you organize them in the order you want them, from left to right so you can see what they’ll look like in the app store. If you want to have text both above and below the screenshot on different slides, then make sure you do them alternating, text on top of slide one, text underneath slide two, text on top slide three, etc. This provides a flow to the style and will also help convert your users.
That’s it. Once you complete your screenshot set, you can download them and/or edit them as needed. If you need a new set of screenshots, you can set up a pro account for $19 a month and make as many sets and versions as you want.
Easy enough. After your icon, the screenshots you put into the app stores are the most important visual thing that your potential users see. So make the most of them and use them to sell your app as the app that will solve the user’s problem the best.
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Ross Rojek is the CTO of GoLocalApps. GoLocalApps has developed and launched more than 90 apps since 2010. Best-selling apps include Diners and Drive-Ins TVand Secret Menu Starbucks Pro Edition. Follow him on Twitter @golocalapps
