Build a simple yet beautiful web presence with AppifyWP

Having an application for sale on the App Store is nice but let's face it: the iTunes page that comes for every application is very limited and uninspired. If you want to promote your app, you must build a better web presence for it. There a many ways to achieve this: create one yourself, hired a web designer or do a little bit of both. This is what AppifyWP is all about. This blog post will guide you in building a well designed web presence for your application in a very cost effective way and with a professional look.

What is needed

1. Select a hosting service. 
2. Register the domain name for you app.
3. Install WordPress
4. Buy and install AppifyWP
5. Customize AppifyWP with your application's promotional material. 
6. Update iTunes Connect

Selecting a hosting company
There are hundreds of web hosting services and some a more popular than others. I selected www.fatcow.com because the reviews were great and they supported the following: they offer domain registration and support WordPress. I've been using the service for a while and had to ask technical support a question regarding domain name registration. Support was done over a web-based chat session and in less than 24 hours my issue was fixed. I'm a satisfied customer.

Register a domain name
You have to register a domain name to host the web presence of your application. Mine was www.ultpassmgr.com. Many are adding a "app" ending but I felt it didn't fit well so I left it over. A domain name is valid for one year and have to be renewed accordingly. FatCow offers one free domain name with their hosting package which is nice so I don't have to rely on another service (like www.godaddy.com) to host the domain name. Up two three days may be required to the domain name to register on the internet. Be patient.

Install WordPress
Once setup on FatCow the next step was to install WordPress. This was quite easy. A simple button on FatCow's control panel calls an external service. On FatCow, they refer to https://www.simplescripts.com/ which makes the installation process as simple as clicking an Install button. Once done, you can manage your WordPress web site by visiting the /wp-admin page on your registered domain name.

Buy and install AppifyWP
So I'm not a web designer and I don't have enough money to hire one. I suspect this is the same for many iOS developers. Here comes AppifyWP. You can get a peek of what AppifyWP is all about by visiting http://appifywp.com/. Once purchased, you upload the AppifyWP theme (the .zip file that you get after purchasing it), then activate it with the WordPress with the following steps.

Customize the content

Once the theme is installed you have to add your promotional content to personalize it to your app. You'll need the promotional material for your apps. This include screen shots and description text.  This is done by visiting the theme management page at a similar URL: http://yourSiteURL/wp-admin/themes.php?page=appify_controlpanel.php

 

 

As you can see there is a lot of things that you can customize with AppifyWP and this is what hooked me on the package. You can select the type of application so the template adjusts the main page accordingly. You can upload up to eight screenshots of your app that will be played as a slide show when the user enters the website. AppifyWP is social networks aware as you can define the application's Twitter account and FaceBook pages link. Finally, you will have to define the theme pages ordering that make up the left part of the WordPress theme, the navigation menu.

AppifyWP is very well done and allows you to build a web site for your application without knowing the underlying details of building WordPress web sites. You'll save a lot of money because this package is yours for only 39$. That's a steal if you ask me. Not convinced? Ask a web designer to build a similar WordPress theme. Oh and the guy who wrote this was very responsive to my support requests.

Update iTunes Connect
Finally, the next step is to update the application's metadata on iTunes Connect to set the application's URL page and the support URL. Once done, after a few hours of replication on iTunes server side, all the world will be able to see the application's own web site.