How To Get Great Professional Reviews for Your App
Effectively wielding your tools (developer description, icon, screenshots, title) and contacting pro reviewers
This article was first published in AppsZoom.
First, design an amazing app. This is paramount.
Now you’ve got a top-notch app on your hands, ready to be released. How will the world at large know that it is, in fact, the Best App Ever?
Oftentimes, the twin oceans of the Google Play Store and the iTunes App Store are where good apps go to die. Navigating past the top lists is nearly impossible for the average user.
You need good press. You need to get people talking about how incredible your app is. You need reviews, preferably from trusted review sites. User reviews are great, but hard to manage if you don’t have any users yet.
You need app reviewers to notice you.
Valiant reviewers wade headstrong into said app oceans, emerging triumphant from the depths with their fresh catch of the day. A handful of those are a result of direct requests from developers, but many turn up from their own peculiar questing strategies.
Here’s how the editorial team at AppsZoom works.
A day in the life of an app reviewer
Every month, each AZ editor reviews approximately 150 apps on average.
In order to find those 150, we probably filter through twenty times that amount. We’re looking for quality, something that varies in specifics depending on genre, but we generally know it when we see it.
How can we decide whether an app merits a review before installing it? Moreover, how can you ensure your amazing app meets these criteria, so that it gets evaluated rather than ignored?
When you submit your app to the Google Play Store or the iTunes App Store, you’ve got just a handful of tools at your disposal: the developer description, your app icon, the set of screenshots you provide, and what title you bestow upon your app. Here’s how to use them wisely.
Developer Description: DOs and DON’Ts
The developer description is where you have the most liberty. There’s a character limit, and the stores won’t allow any particularly fancy formatting. Still, it’s a big, white, intimidating slate for you to fill as you please.
Plenty of devs blanch at the blank. They end up entering either way too much irrelevant information or almost no description at all. Both are excellent ways to get us to ignore your app.
Do:
- Be human. This shines much more than a squeaky clean SEO-marketing.
- Be clear. Bullet point lists are a great idea. Case in point: you’re reading this.
- Be funny. Hint: editors are suckers for puns and absurd humor.
- Proofread. Massive errors are a turn-off. Get someone to do it for you if your native language isn’t English.
Don’t:
- Write just one or two sentences. If you don’t have much to say about your app, we probably won’t either.
- Be generic. We’re looking for something that brings new value to our readers. The last thing we want is cookie-cutter.
- Go hog wild with SEO “tricks.” Your app’s not at all like Angry Flappy Crush 2048, huh? We see this all the time. We are not impressed.
App Icon: DOs and DON’Ts
There’s a certain magic to conveying the idea and unique feel of your app through just a few pixels. We don’t pretend to be experts in design ourselves, but we do know what we like.
Do:
- Keep it simple. Choose one idea and make it awesome.
- Use bright colors. Unless your app is an endless runner called Gothy McGotherson Rides At Night, incorporate the eye catching section of the spectrum.
- Use a portrait of one of your characters, if applicable. Humans are drawn towards faces. Editors are no different.
- Get it done professionally. If the icon isn’t high quality, we hold out little hope for the app itself. Online communities of freelancers like oDesk and Elance can make it happen on the cheap.
Don’t:
- Try to pack too much into it. Tiny details will get lost, and too many ideas will make it confusing.
- Overuse text. If it’s too small, we won’t be able to read it.
- Make it so abstract that we have no idea what it is.
Screenshots: DOs and DON’Ts
These are a sneak preview into your app and are of paramount importance. If these look uninteresting, or, worse, absent altogether, you can kiss that great review goodbye: we’re never going to download your app in the first place.
By the way, videos perform statistically well with users, but none of our own editorial team members watches them before making that vital decision.
Do:
- Include both your title screen and varied shots of the app actually in use. If its a game, show us the inventory screen and a boss battle. If it’s an organizational app, show us someone’s grocery list.
- Pick and choose the most aesthetically interesting bits. If possible, make a selection of screenshots that span a wide variety of colors and forms.
- Add as many varied attractive images as you can capture. Our whole editorial team agrees: more is better.
Don’t:
- Upload multiple images that appear almost exactly the same. This will lead us to the conclusion that your app is dull.
- Choose screenshots where nothing is happening.
Maybe:
- Edit your screenshots to include commentary (i.e. “30 different dragons!” “Blow everything up!” etc.). Done tastefully, this can add extra useful information. If it’s over-the-top, though, it comes across as schlocky and duplicitous.
Title: DOs and DON’Ts
The all important title. You have to name your baby. There’s plenty of advice out there as to short vs. long, whether you should cram it full of adjectives or invent just one word, etc. Here’s what works for us.
Do:
- Come up with a short and sweet title that makes it very clear what the app is about. If it’s interesting enough, a word or two should be able to intrigue.
- Either describe the app exactly, like Kiwi Dash, Next Bus Barcelona, and Walk Me Up Alarm, or —
- Invent your own unique words that summon up the right feeling. PolyFauna, Shatoetry, Retrica, Blinkist, and even QbQbQb are all great examples. or —
- Title it like a good book. This works best for games, of course: Ridiculous Fishing: A Tale of Redemption, Super Monsters Ate My Condo!, Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage, and Galactic Phantasy Prelude.
Don’t:
- Use words so generic that your app is practically guaranteed to get lost in the shuffle.
- Squeeze in unrelated terms in hopes of an SEO boost. Not even once.
- Max out your character limit. Again, there are different schools of thought here, but I can tell you that reviewers frown upon it.
How to contact an expert reviewer
The world is on Twitter. We’re on Twitter. Poke us (@janel_az, @PeterWarrior_AZ, @elund_az, @AZGrace) with a quick hello, and we’ll likely be delighted.
Once you get started on Twitter, it’s also pretty easy to link yourself into chains of other devs and reviewers — they tend to symbiotically follow each other.
We keep our fingers on the pulse of N4G and Reddit, too. Our state of being is somewhere between “swamped” and “besieged,” but we do read beloved feeds and forums on the train ride into work, trawling for the next lunker before anyone else.
Old-fashioned email is okay, but you’re more likely to get lost in the rush there if you haven’t given us a heads-up via Twitter first.
If your app isn’t free, send along a way to review it via .apk or promocode. We’d never do anything dubious with these; if we did, we’d quickly have to find ourselves a different profession.
Finally, like everyone else, expert reviewers love to feel like they’re getting a sneak preview. Sending out an app a day or two before it hits the general market is a great way to lure us into generating some buzz in advance.
