HOW TO UPDATE YOUR APP UI WITHOUT THE HEADACHE

Posted on March 30, 2017

Nora

After your app is on the market, the job is far from over. You probably already know that with every new update to iOS or Android that you have to make sure all functions of your app continue to work. While making sure that the functions work is a critical part in continuing to work on your app, make sure that you’re not neglecting the design or user interface. You’ll be amazed at how quickly the the designs in the app market evolve and how easy it can be to start to look outdated.

Hollie

One reason why you may update the user interface of your app is to match your website or vice versa. This is really crucial to your branding so that you are users understand that there is a connection between your website and also your social media sites. Make an obvious visual connection between all of your marketing content and your product.

When updating your app UI, don’t neglect to also take a look at your app icon. It may also need to be given a facelift to connect with your slick new brand image. Get the App Icon Creative Brief here.

PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION TO MARKET DESIGN TRENDS

Hollie

Having an outdated design will affect your brand image more than you may realize. Because the market is so saturated with millions of apps, you must make sure that you don’t lose out on a large part portion of your audience because you are turning them off with your design.

Nora

Often a lot of the cost of developing an app goes into the code and backend which is something that the user never sees. The user is not going to appreciate how many hours you spend to create an algorithm that works flawlessly. They only care about how the app looks and feels as they use it in their day-to-day life. This is why the design is so crucial though it is often overlooked by a lot of app companies. Putting a new face on your existing app can help improve your downloads and can give your users the feeling of more value when they download your app.

Hollie

If you are not only considering updating your app UI, but the UX as well, you should consider doing these things in separate updates. Sometimes doing both of these things at once can overwhelm the user and they may feel too confused to continue using your app which can cause a decline in app retention. There are examples of companies in the past that have updated the UI very gradually in order to prevent the audience from feeling scared and not using your product anymore.

Nora

eBay is a classic example of a website which previously created completely new UI and adjusted the UX all in one update. Their users freaked out and there was major uproar so they quickly reverted back to the original interface and then slowly started implemented the new changes bit by bit so that their users wouldn’t be shocked. This is an important lesson to learn: Always keep your current users in mind when creating dramatic changes to your products.

UPDATING APP UI VS. UPDATING APP UX

Hollie

When it comes to updating the app UI, the best practice is to first leave the majority of the buttons and functionality in the same relative location on the screen and just change the style first before making any large adjustment to the UX.

The SOP that you can download above makes this process much simpler by providing your designer with steps that they’ll need to take in order to update app. This will take a lot of the headache out of the full process and allow you to focus more on the design instead of on telling your designer what to do. If you currently have ideas for how you imagine your updated app to look, you can add them to the SOP in the spaces provided.

Nora

Also make sure to check out your competitors apps on the market and even some of the top apps in your category in order to get inspired with the design trends.

Updating your app UI is an ongoing process and you should consider doing touchups and design reviews on a regular basis. Doing this at least once every six months will help you to make sure that all of your development work to create a great app hasn’t gotten lost on the user.

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Content Creation

UPLOAD PODCAST EPISODES TO AMAZON S3

Posted on March 30, 2017

Nora

Once you’ve recorded your podcast, the a job isn’t done yet. There are quite a few bits and pieces that you have to remember to add before you upload new episodes to Amazon or wherever you host your podcast.

By now you should have already created your podcast cover art, but if you haven’t you can download the SOP for that here. Make sure that your cover art is ready to go before you upload your first episode to the servers.

GATHERING THE INFORMATION TO UPLOAD YOUR PODCAST

Hollie

Before you upload your podcast, you need add your podcast information into iTunes. The information you need to add are things like the title, album artist and other metadata that will be pulled from the MP3 that you upload. This information will be seen by your listeners and subscribers of your podcast.

Most of you will also have a page on your website that contains information about your podcast. It’s important to keep the titles and other information the same on both so as not to confuse your listeners. If you’re interested in creating podcast show notes, you can take a look at our Podcast Show Notes Template.

If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin called “PowerPress” that will help you publish your podcast once you’ve uploaded it to your hosting server. This is simple plugin that also pulls the information you write in your blog post show notes into the iTunes description of your podcast.

Nora

One of the things you need to have prepared for uploading other than your podcasts cover art, is the MP3 file of your episode which should be 100 MB or less so that it doesn’t take your listeners a long time to download it. If your MP3 file is much larger than that, you should definitely consider shrinking it down so it’ll be easier for your audience to access it as well as take up less space on their phone.

Once you have the audio file in the correct size, you will edit some of the text content that appears in the information section of the files, such as the title of the podcast. This title should clearly explain what the current episode is about. Hollie and I have experimented with the titles of our podcast Two White Chicks in China and found that stating the topic directly is better than creating a clever title that sounds cool. People just want to know exactly what the content is instead of having a clever sounding title.

Hollie

Another piece of content that you’ll need is the show name of your podcast. Make sure that you use the exact same show name for every episode. You may also want to include a brief description of the episode in your metadata. To be honest I don’t know where this shows up, but I imagine that it helps with the keyword search in iTunes so it’s best to just stick a few lines in there to take advantage of this space.

QUICK CHECKLIST FOR NECESSARY PODCAST INFO

Title of the current podcast episode
Episode number
Shortened name of the podcast (example: Two White Chicks in China podcast would have a shortened name of “TWCC”)
Creators of the podcast (this will appear as the artist/composer in the MP3’s metadata)
Official show name of the podcast (this will appear as the “album name” in the MP3’s metadata)
Episode summary (Write a few sentences to describe what topics are covered in this podcast)
Podcast Cover Art

Hollie

You can upload your podcast to any hosting server, but the instructions provided in this SOP will give you a clear step-by-step procedure for how you or your freelancer can upload episodes to the Amazon S3 server. You can modify this SOP if you are hosting somewhere else before passing it to your freelancer.

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Research

FIND YOUR PODCAST’S TOP 5 COMPETITORS

Posted on March 21, 2017

Nora

There are so many great podcasts on the market, so it’s no longer just enough to upload your podcast and then walk away and hope that people listen and subscribe to it. It’s important for you to know what other podcasts are out there that might be competing for a similar audience that you hope are listening to your own podcast.

Hollie

Based on my own experience of listening to podcasts I’ve often searched for one topic, for example “true crime”- that’s my podcast weakness. iTunes will give you other related podcasts that you can you can also check out. You may call it ‘judging a book by its over’ but even before I’ve listen to a podcast I’ve been turned on or turned off by the podcast cover art or by the level of information that the podcast gives me in the metadata. Look at your competitors and decided what you find attractive or off-putting about your competitor’s podcast.

VALIDATING YOUR PODCAST IDEA USING COMPETITORS

Nora

Identifying your competitors is also a way to validate your podcast idea. If there are no other competitors on the market today, it is more likely that this is a sign that your topic is not really something that people are interested listening to. If you’re truly passionate about the topic of your podcast however, don’t just use the lack of competitors to decide whether or not to do the podcast. This is not ultimately the deciding factor. The point is not to be scared off by the presence of competitors because it means that there truly is a market interested in this topic.

That brings us to another key idea that you need to consider when looking at your competitors- who exactly is your target market? There’s a lot of information online which will help you to define your target audience, and you can use that to find the podcast which you believe have the same target audience. These are most likely your competitors.

LEARN FROM COMPETING PODCAST BUT STAY UNIQUE

Hollie

Something that you should consider when you look at your competitors is that they may not necessarily be in the right. What I mean by this is that just because your competitors are following a certain format, you don’t necessarily have to copy the same script or set-up of those competitors. Let’s go back to my true crime podcast obsession. Some of those podcasts are narrated by a single person while others are acted out as the narrators recreate the true crime events. Both of these are successful formats and there may be other ways out there to present that would work as well. The purpose of studying your competitors is to collect ideas and make adjustments to find that unique offering that your audience will love.

Nora

As Hollie mentioned before, identifying your competitors will help you to be aware of what kind of metadata they provide in the podcast marketplace that attracts their audience. Taking a look at the title of their podcast, the description and the cover art will help you to understand how your podcast fits into the market. In addition to that you’ll want to take some time to listen to some of your competitors podcasts to see if the actual content has elements that you are missing or is missing elements that you have so that you can figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your content.

Identifying these competitors will also give you an idea for what types of advertising opportunities may be available once you’re ready for making money. Considering these other podcasts have similar target audiences, you may also want to contact some of these podcasts in the future for affiliate marketing.

SOP FOR FINDING YOUR COMPETITORS

Nora

You can pass the SOP provided above directly to someone else to help you identify your podcast’s top 5 competitors. Giving this task to somebody else will give you fresh eyes (in this case “ears”) on your own podcast and inspire you with ways that you can continue to improve. The SOP gives step-by-step instructions for how to use keywords to identify your competitors and will ask the person who is completing this task to sample those podcasts in order to find the elements that they like and don’t like about your competitors. Finding this information will help you to improve your podcast which should help you to reach a wider audience as you develop your show.

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Design

PODCAST COVER ART THAT STANDS OUT

Posted on March 14, 2017

Nora

Everyone and their mother has a podcast these days. You can find topics ranging from fixing your car to breast-feeding and of course much, much more. Podcasts are a great way to absorb information while you’re doing something else and as a podcast creator you know that most of your marketing is done through audio. Since there are lots of podcasts out there and the market is getting more saturated, you should think about spending a little extra time on your podcast cover art.

Hollie

What you should remember while when designing your podcast cover is that you should use images you use are related to your podcast. That might seem really obvious but this is a great with you to play on the name or brand of your podcast.

For example, podcasters who interview successful or skilled people such as Tim Ferris have an image or photograph of themselves as Tim Ferris is his own brand. There are also podcasts such as those that I myself listen to like the Myths and Legends podcast that has an image of a castle on the cover art.

Nora

Having a great image will definitely help your podcast to stand out in iTunes or wherever else you upload your podcast. Remember that often this image is just seen as a small thumbnail on people’s phones so you want to choose a graphic that is simple enough that it is clear when it’s really small.

Likewise, you want to make sure that it looks good when it’s large because in some marketplaces you will see a full size image. You want a good balance between being simple and being informative enough to explain what it is that your podcast is all about. Keep in mind this is also probably the only image that your listeners will see related to your podcast so keep it general enough to cover any topic that you might discuss on your show.

Hollie

Because most of your listeners will only ever see a thumbnail of your podcast cover art, try not to add too much text. Also try to limit your font types to two or less so that it doesn’t confuse or detract from the image of your cover art.

If you’re not a designer, in order to look more professional you might want to outsource this task so that people see your podcast as professional. Often people will judge your podcast content based off of your cover art rather than taking the time to read the description of what your podcast is about. Make sure your designer adheres to all of the requirements outlined by iTunes or wherever you planning to upload your podcast.

The SOP provided outlines all of these requirements. You can pass this document directly to your designer or freelancer.

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Design

CREATE PERFECT APP STORE SCREENSHOTS

Posted on February 21, 2017

Nora

For better or worse, people today consume much more digital content on a day-to-day basis than even five years ago. This often means that we are all overwhelmed with data and content being thrown at us on a regular basis. People take less time to actually read the content of articles or product descriptions and instead they generally look first at the pictures to gauge whether the information is worth their time before spending time to read.

People are influenced faster through visual communication and so your apps store screenshots are a great way to get their attention and tell them your message without them actually having to read anything.

SCREENSHOTS OVER APP DESCRIPTION

Hollie

If you’re anything like me, and are attracted to shiny, pretty things, app screenshots are one of the most important things that will persuade me to download an app. Often the most brightly colored images will entice me and in general I’m heavily influenced by details and interesting graphics that I see in the screenshots.

According to research only 2% of people actually read the full app description and many people actually ignored so your screenshots are extremely important in order to get people to download your app. It’s important to include the features in your app. Consider the features that your competitors have and those that are unique to your app. Highlight your apps truly great qualities and convince your audience that out of all the apps on the market, yours is the most essential.

MAKE YOUR SCREENSHOTS AS A MINI-TUTORIAL

Nora

You can also use the space as a mini tutorial to show your users how easy your functions are to use. People will often judge the quality of your app based on the screenshots as well. If your screenshots are unattractive and the design is outdated then they’ll be more likely to think that your app is worth less and be less willing to purchase it, especially if it’s a paid application where they can’t see the actual app until they buy it in the App Store.

Hollie

App screenshots are also an incredibly important opportunity to localize your app. In both iTunes and Google Play, you’re allowed to upload different screenshots for all major languages. As most developers now upload screenshots with a bit of text around them explaining the features, you can change this text into different languages. This is a simple way to have a much wider reach in the App Store for people who do not speak English.

LOCALIZING YOUR SCREENSHOTS

Nora

Even if the app itself is in English only, you can still localize the explanatory text in the screenshots. In our experience, we saw a massive download increase (400%+) after localizing this text without even updating the actual app’s interface into other languages. It also helps to translate the app description, but even just doing the text in the screenshot images will help quite a bit.

When creating your screenshots, you want to make sure that the dimensions match the requirements in the App Store. In the past, it was popular just to take a screen a literally take a screenshot of your app on your device and then use that post that directly to the app store. Currently the design trend is to have the screenshot embedded into a larger image that has a background and a space for a short sentence or a few words to describe each app function. This has many advantages, not least of which is that it saves you the hassle of taking screenshots in multiple resolutions. Instead you can just chop the border area in order to fit the resolutions that you need.

Hollie

This space around the screenshots also allows you opportunity to put other kinds of text, such as awards that you had that your app has won or positive reviews that people have given. This also encourages the user to download your app.

When you are creating your screenshots, use colors and fonts that are consistent with your app design. Also make sure to utilize all five screenshots allowed in iTunes. Google Play allows even more than 5 for your users to peruse. Keep in mind however, that most users only look at the first one or two screenshots so make sure you put your app’s key functions first.

Nora

Before creating or asking somebody else to create your screenshots, you might want to get inspired by a checking out the top apps in your category and seeing what they’ve done with their screenshots.

The SOP above provides detailed and current information about how to create a screenshot and the requirements from the App Store. You can pass this SOP directly to your designer and they will use it as a creative brief to create the screenshots for your app.

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SOP Library

INSTRUCTIONS FOR UX TESTING YOUR APP

Posted on January 26, 2017

Nora

User testing your app is a critical way to evaluate the design, content and usability of your application. Even if you don’t have a large budget for market research, you can still gain valuable suggestions and ideas while discovering errors and potential confusing sections of your app just based on a few user tests.

Hollie

If you have been working on the development of an app for a long time, it’s very easy to ignore or miss small mistakes in the design. You may not realize that there is a flaw in the app’s navigation. For this reason, you should ideally have the user testing completed by someone who has never seen the app before. There are plenty of websites out there that offer free and paid user testing. You could also have friends test your app, however you should be aware that these people may be somewhat biased. Even if you have a small budget, try to have at least one person who doesn’t know you user test the app.

You may be able to watch while someone is user-testing your app. This can give you some amazing insights into your app’s user experience. In this case, it’s extremely important that you keep silent and simply watch. Your instinct may be to help them if they have questions or issues, but try your best not to interfere with the testers’ experience. Hold your tongue and don’t give out any hints- let them figure it out. After all, you won’t be able to help your real users when they download the app themselves.

Nora

You can gain so much insight if you watch as an impartial and silent observer as your user-tester navigates through the app. Even just watching the way that their fingers move on the screen, or how long it takes them to navigate from one screen to another is extremely helpful in streamlining your design.

User-testing isn’t a one time event. It should be done on a regular basis and it should be consistent from version to version. You should strive to ask similar questions to one batch of reviewers versus another so that you can compare how your app has improved or deteriorated over time.

For those of you who have never asked someone to user-test your app before, the SOP download above includes an explanation of the test and a set of suggested questions you can ask your user-tester to answer about your app.

You can give your tester the SOP directly and ask them to follow the step-by-step instructions. When they finish the SOP, they will follow the directions and give you back a short report including information ranging from issues about navigation to their opinion on the design and colors used in the app.

Hollie

Before having someone take part in a user-test, you might want to set some specific goals for what you intend to gain from the test. For example, you may want to ask them to complete a specific task in your app, such as creating an account or editing a photo. Keep in mind what the main goal of your app is. Are you trying to generate revenue? Are you more interested in building your membership database? You can customize the SOP by adding a few of your own requirements.

Nora

The ideal test will also include a user who is part of your target market. If your app is a game for children ages 10 to 14 you should try to find some kids who will can test app. Try to find at least a few user-testers that fit your target market’s profile, as those are ultimately the people that will be using your app.

Ready to get started? Even if you have no experience with user-testing, it’s a super simple process to collect this data using the SOP provided at the top of this post.

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Design

GIVE THIS APP ICON CREATIVE BRIEF TO YOUR DESIGNER

Posted on January 3, 2017

Nora

The app icon is a small square that makes a big statement. With such limited space, the app icon offers a unique but very challenging opportunity for you to express your app’s function and overall style. It also helps to create brand recognition and many brands choose to use the icon or a variation of the icon to represent their whole image.

Hollie

Because the app icon is so small, it makes sense to use either a tiny amount of text or no text at all. You will see that most apps follow this this rule and focus on an image that is related to the brand. The image should stand out enough to evoke recognition in a returning customer or interest in a new customer.

CREATING AN APP ICON CONSISTENT WITH YOUR APP’S GENRE

Nora

Consider the genre of your app when designing your icon as well. Games generally have fun and colorful icons, whereas educational apps might have more serious and interesting-looking icons.

Pay attention to modern design trends by scrolling through the app store’s top rated apps. It is especially useful to look at the top apps within the same category as your app. Browse the app icons of your competitors and view as many icons as you can to get a feel for how other developers are currently utilizing this design space. Update your app icon every so often in order to make sure that you don’t little outdated in the app store. Over time the overall style of app icons shifts as design evolves. Be sure to check back every few months or so to make sure you stay current.

Hollie

Another thing to consider when creating your app icon is whether or not this will be the only app that you release on the app store or whether you plan to create a series of similar apps in the future. You’ll have better brand recognition if your app icons resemble each other or maintain some common theme.

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Research

CREATE KEYWORD-RICH APP STORE METADATA

Posted on October 13, 2016

Nora

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a big topic for anyone working on a mobile app. For those new to the subject, it basically means futzing around with the title, description, keywords, and images that you upload to the App Store.

There is plenty of advice out there that gives you up-to-date practices for the latest algorithm changes in iTunes and Google Play. Rather than write a massive blog post about the ins and outs of all the strategies, today we’ll be giving you a quick and dirty guide for getting started today with choosing keywords and building great metadata for your app.

Hollie

This SOP will give you a jumping off point and is designed to get you going in the right direction. Once you’ve completed this task however, the job isn’t done. In fact, with ASO the job is never done. Working on ASO is a constant tweaking process. Check out the More Resources section in the sidebar once you’ve finished this task to find out where to go next.

THE ASO PERSONALITY TEST

Nora

Those who like tinkering with the details thrive in the task of finding the perfect mix of keywords, imagery, and content for ASO. These are the types of people who probably took apart the toaster as a kid, once they had discovered Daddy’s toolbox. If you’re not one of those people, it’s best to outsource ASO if you have the budget for it. You need a detail oriented person who loves statistics to get the most out of your ASO. If your budget is tight, you can at least get started with this SOP in order to get a baseline and decide how much effort to put in later.

IS ASO REALLY NECESSARY?

Hollie

Getting your app seen in the App Store is the best way to generate organic app downloads from your audience. There is no exact formula for completing this task, but there are some pretty stable principles that you can learn in order to get started.

The two most important things for ASO is the title of your app and the keywords associated with it. When you choose to name your app, you should try to be as descriptive as possible. Make it obvious what the app helps people do. This is important when people are searching for your app in the App Store, because they have likely never heard of you or your company before.

Nora

Apple and Google both have their own set of requirements when creating the metadata for your app. For example, with regards to the title, Google only allows you 30 characters while Apple allows you quite a bit more. It used to be recommended for Apple that you utilize all of the characters available to you in the app title field in your meta-data however it seems to be the trend lately that Apple penalizes you for keyword-stuffing or adding unnecessary data in this field. The point is, create a title that is relevant and descriptive without keyword-stuffing.

ASO is very similar to web SEO in that if you overuse specific keywords, you’ll be penalized. So when creating your keywords, try using some synonyms as these may be keywords that your competitors have not thought of.

Hollie

The next thing you should consider is your competition. If you rank for a keyword that has very high traffic but you rank in the 200s, this would be a waste of keyword space because no one will scroll down 200 apps to find you. Instead, go for more specific keywords or phrases for which you are most likely to rank in the top 10 slots within the App Store.

There are several free tools available for monitoring and choosing keywords which have high traffic but low competition in the App Store. Here’s a list of some of the good ones to get you started:

When using these tools, the most important thing to consider is relevance. The next thing you should consider is competition.

Nora

Google Play doesn’t have a separate keywords field in the metadata for your app on the App Store. For an Android app, you’ll need to strategically place your keywords inside of your app’s description. Google will also penalize you for over-using specific keywords so again, follow good SEO principles like you would on a blog post. Use descriptive words which excite your user about your app while using relevant keywords- but don’t overdo it.

Google’s app description is also quite a bit longer than the description you’re allowed in iTunes, so feel free to be more informative and use this space to its entirety. Keep in mind however, that the user will most likely only read the first paragraph and decide based off of that whether not to download the app. Make sure the first paragraph clearly describes the benefits to the user and functions available your app.

Hollie

For Google Play, organic search makes up 80% of app downloads. Similarly to iTunes, Google Play has an algorithm for ranking apps. Most of this is a mystery, however there are some things that we do know. Among these is certainly ratings. If you have 200 reviews this will definitely have a positive effect on your ranking. A consistently high number of downloads will also improve your ranking in Google Play.

Users may also stumble across your app when doing a keyword search in Google when they’re working on a computer. Take advantage of this by making sure that your metadata is suitable for both experiences. Whether the user is on a small screened phone or at their work computer, make sure the metadata looks great and is easy to read.

Nora

Google also allows you some extra fields to enter information into that iTunes does not have. For example, there is a promotional text area which gives you the opportunity to write a one-sentence description that summarizes your app. This description is all that most mobile users will read of your app’s metadata because they will have to click down to view the full app description.

STRATEGIES FOR TRACKING YOUR ASO

Hollie

Once your metadata is finalized, decide how you’re going to measure its performance. If you make any changes to the metadata, make sure you do it little by little so that you’re able to accurately measure the impact that it has on your app downloads and visibility in the App Store. Also consider that the strategy for each App Store will be different. Don’t be afraid to change the Google Play app description so that it’s totally different from the iTunes app description if it will improve your downloads or rankings. As long as it’s telling the story of your app, that’s all that matters.

The SOP download provided above gives you detailed instructions for how to create optimized metadata that will fully utilize all of the opportunities available in the App Stores, both for Google Play and for iTunes. It lays special emphasis on walking you through the steps to do good keyword research. This is a task you can and should outsource from time to time in order to discover new keyword gems that can make a big difference in your App Store visibility.

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Design

CREATE A STUNNING EBOOK COVER WITH THIS SOP TEMPLATE

Posted on September 27, 2016

Nora

If you want to be an author, or if you’re a business wanting to attract potential customers by offering something of value to collect emails, writing an ebook is a great way to get your content out there. Whether you are a budding fiction writer or you trying to generate leads for your online business, creating an ebook can be a great stepping stone accomplishing your goals.

The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” is frankly complete nonsense when taken literally because most people will certainly judge the quality and value of your ebook based on the design that you have on the cover.

TYPOGRAPHY FOR YOUR EBOOK COVER DESIGN

Hollie

If you’re not sure where to start with the design of your ebook cover, you should look at similar books that are in your genre. Carefully consider colors, images and even blank space.

Another element that you should definitely take into consideration is the typography that you use on the cover. This tends to account for the largest portion of the design. The typography will instantly convey a meaning to your potential customer.

Nora

If you’re hiring a freelance designer, they should already understand the basics of typography and will choose a style which matches with the type of book.

As Hollie mentioned, the blank space also makes a difference in the ebook cover because more and more users surf the web on mobile devices. These users will likely see a smaller image of your ebook. This means that if you utilize every pixel of the design with detailing and text that your overall message will be muddled and confusing to the user. As most designs for mobile, keeping it simple is the best strategy to communicate a clear message.

GETTING AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE FOR YOUR EBOOK COVER

Hollie

Depending on the genre of your ebook, the cover should also invoke some emotional response from your customer. You’ve all seen books or novels, especially romantic novels, that have been turned into motion pictures. The books often have an image from the movie because the movie provokes an emotional response from the viewer. You’re probably not writing a romance novel, but the principal still rings true for other genres of books.

Color is often also an important factor when choosing your design. Certain colors tend to evoke certain emotions. Also adding a small picture or icon to the ebook cover can be a great way to make a connection with your audience.

Nora

Statistics show us that people are more interested in clicking on things with human faces on them as opposed to abstract designs or plain text. While creating the cover for your ebook is often one of the last steps before publishing your ebook, it should not be thrown together thoughtlessly. This is the not the part of your project that you should save money on. In many cases, it is the most important factor when it comes to attracting your audience.

You don’t want to spend so much time and effort on your content only to chase people away with a crappy or cheap-looking book cover. In the past it was more common to show an ebook cover as a 3D image, making it look like a physical book.

That same design style today often looks outdated and cheesy. It’s important to be aware of the current design trends when creating your cover. So take a look at Amazon or wherever you might purchase ebooks and scan over some of the hottest selling books in your genre. This will give you a general feel for how your cover should look.

EBOOK COVER DESIGN FORMAT

Hollie

The format of the cover should also be considered when creating the design. Different e-readers have different specifications in regards to the size of your ebook cover. For example, the dimensions for an ebook in Amazon Kindle may be different from books offered in iTunes.

The SOP above describes all the design constraints in more detail. You can use it yourself or pass it to your designer when they are creating your ebook cover.

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