10 Steps to Build a Mobile App That Sells

To know what goes behind the making of a successful app, you should know what mobile app requirements are in the first place. More often than not, developers do not spend enough time on working out the modalities of what the app should deliver and how it needs to be designed. The fault lines of every app that has failed originate here. In this article we take a look at the 10 check boxes that need to be ticked if your app is to be a success.

1. Who Are You Building The App For?

You need to be clear about why you’re building the app in the first place and who you’re building it for. What will be your app’s standout features and functionality? Who are your target users? Analyse the market you want to release your app viz. their preferences of your users and align your app with it.

2. Decide Your Revenue Model

Your app competes with a million others on the Appstore. Have you got the right model to generate revenue for your app? You need an analytics/pricing expert to decide your app’s pricing and ad rates. If you are choosing a pay per download model, your app needs to have features that justify it.


3. Choose Between Native, Web and Hybrid

Which category does your app belong to? Native, web or hybrid? This decides on how much you plan to invest in your app, how many platforms you want to target, what kind of app suits your app’s desired user experience and so on.

4. Get the Design Right

The design of your app must reflect your business in a way that is enriching and engaging. Since your app’s design is the first thing that strikes the customer, it needs to greater attention. Make sure that your design is responsive, touch-friendly and simple.

5. Create a Message Flow for Your App

Your app needs to respond to various situations and get the customer back to engaging with it. Create a message flow to respond to customers in various situations while being focused on the functionality.

6. Ensure Security and Scalability

Is your app secure and scalable? These two qualities are important if you are to attract customers. Get your app certified for both these. Ensure proper maintenance too from time to time to get this right.

7. Focus on UX

There is no point in creating content for your app if the content is not focused on the intended user experience that your app is supposed to give. Remember that if your app ultimately sells, it sells for its user experience and not anything else.

8. Make Your App Well-Integrated

If you’re designing an ecommerce app, make sure you integrate it with a secure payments module. If it is a travel app, you need to integrate it with business listing and classifieds sites apart from social media.

9. Monitor App Metrics with an Analytics Tool

Make sure your app has an appropriate analytics tool to get a clear picture of how many users visit your website, how long they stay, what percentage of users abandon and why, impact of social media on user traffic and so on. Google Analytics is the default choice now.

10. Test Thoroughly and Act On User Feedback


Do a case by case user acceptability test for your app. Once your app goes live, look keenly at user feedback for any actionable suggestions that can enhance the usability of your app and implement them.