Five ways to get top ratings for your apps

Hundreds of apps are released in a year and some are lucky enough to land themselves in the new apps section. This position gives them the opportunity to attract and gain attention of millions of app buyers all around the world. But is the initial push towards appearing on the app store launch screen enough to ensure that the app is a success? The best apps are the one’s which makes the users give a 5 star rating without them being bombarded by 100 requests to rate the app. That is a difficult task‚ but not an impossible one.

Here are five ways to ensure that you get the top ratings for your apps:

Build a Good App:

The first and foremost way to ensure that the app gets top ratings is to ensure that the mobile app developer has developed a really good mobile app. The definition for a good mobile app is something which is upto a debate‚ but depending on if its a new app or update for an app they have their own requirements to ensure that they are successful. 

In lay man terms a good app needs to be:

• built for a reason other than just pure marketing‚ but adds value to the consumers using it.

• has simple to use UI and UX‚ which makes it an instant hit with the users

• is bug free and has been thoroughly tested before releasing into the market

Understand your users: 

Source: Flickr

Users are the bread and butter for mobile app developers and it is essential for developers to understand their needs and requirements. It is not possible for developers to cater to each user and tweak the features according to each user. But to understand what kind of features to implement for a set of users is important to ensure that the app is received well. 

Developers need to look at what kind of audience is the app being built for‚ building an app for enterprise consumers is a lot different than building an app for direct consumers. Enterprise app users have different requirements and it is essential to work towards catering to them‚ you need to find the ingredients required to make a perfect enterprise app. 

One of the biggest flaws that we have noticed in apps are that they tend to forget that they are dealing with humans. They lack the emotion that makes some apps and features stand out. Apps need to incorporate emotions in them as well as instigate it in the users. If the app does not have internet a simple message like “Unable to connect” is good‚ but a message like “Are you sure you have the wifi on?” could be a fun way to interact with the user and get the user to smile for second. This kind of additional features are what will make a simple app more popular than their competitors.

Spread the word:

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Building an app and releasing into the market is not enough to ensure that the app gets the best rating and download numbers. As explained 100’s of apps are released daily on the app store‚ all the apps that were released after would bury your app from visibility to the user. 

What developers need to do‚ is to make sure that the app is marketed well before the release as well as after the release into the app store. One of the way’s for developers to get users‚ tech bloggers and even app store reviewers to get interested in your app is to generate a lot of buzz around it. If these individuals are interested in your app‚ they will spread the word as well as write previews of your app on blogs. The app store reviewers will potentially look at featuring the app‚ it your app is really good and has had a lot of buzz created around it.

The reason why buzz is important‚ is not because app store reviewers will see how much did you invest in doing the marketing‚ but the more the buzz‚ it is more likely for the app store reviewers to hear about you and have a look at the app when it comes to review for them. Then they will decide if it is the right kind of app that needs to be featured on the app store.

Listen to the customers: 

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We live in an age when a complaint is a few taps away on a digital keyboard‚ it could be the app store reviews or social media sites like twitter. It is very likely that someone somewhere in the world has already used your app and is potentially talking good or bad about it on some platform.

Mobile app developers need to ensure that they keep an eye and ear out for these comments on their app‚ irrespective of where they happen. These comments can range from positive feedback to suggestions as well as negative feedback or complaints. It can be practically impossible for the developer to ensure that all these features are tweaked according to the requirements of all customers.

Mobile app developers need to be smart at deciding which of the suggested features are more likely to enhance the experience of the users at the end of the day and implement them into the app and update the app. Even after an update‚ the app developer needs to keep an eye out on the ratings and reviews being given on the app store itself‚ it would provide them with a lot of data to plan their next update.

Update regularly:

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Another way to ensure that users always give you the best rating and reviews is to ensure that you update your app regularly.

Users install a lot of apps on a weekly basis and before the next week itself they see new apps which possibly have more features than the one that they had installed already. This creates a problem for most developers as it becomes difficult to retain returning users to their apps as the users have already moved on to another app with more or better features. Hence‚ it is essential for mobile app developers to continuously strive to update their apps regularly with new or better features to keep the users engaged.

Updates also enable the app developer to change the way certain features or the whole app works‚ which would be essential if the developer has not had success at the initial launch and is looking to diversify their business to meet the demand in the market. But in any case it is essential for developers to ensure that they can provide better features and a bug free solution by updating the apps regularly.

Users who notice regular updates to the app tend to provide better reviews as well as ratings to the app.

These are only few of the points that we have observed during our development process. Send us an email at [email protected] if you want to ensure your brand’s mobile app always gets top reviews and ratings from the users.