tldr: We looked at 2500+ mobile app landing pages while building LinkTexting. Below we share what we learned.

The Most Important Score!

You should know how your landing page ranks in an analytical manner. The objective way to improve, measure, and rank your landing page is by using GoodUI as a checklist.

We describe the evolution of our landing page in a more detailed post.

Are you meeting 10%, 20%, or 80% of GoodUI standards?

Landing Page Optimality is Impossible.

Reaching optimality on a landing page is impossible. At the very least you should follow these set of heuristics if you’re designing a website for a mobile app.

Get Users to the Download Button!!

Use LinkTexting.com to make it happen. Yeah, we’re the designers behind it!

Tag Line and ScreenShot

On every login-view and relevant banner online, your tagline should be apparent moving from the landing page to the login screen. The user should know what he or she is getting into regardless of where they are in your app.

In fact, as a simple exercise, remove all text from images. Can viewers still identify what the advertisement is for without the words?

The screenshot of your mobile app should appear at least once on your landing page.

Animated Gif Preview

Make an animated gif of your app to show how the app works. Here’s a good guide on how exactly you can go about creating good animated gifs for mobile app previews.

Ample Userbase Login

Give the user a simple way to login via twitter, facebook , LinkedIn, or Google Plus. If your userbase is in the older generation, go with Yahoo. ;)

Feedback Loop

Throughout the entirety of the app experience from landing page to mobile app, they should feel they have the ability to communicate with you, complain, gripe, or praise.

Feedback should be possible in seconds not minutes. Feedeebuzz.de is free. It’s not mobile responsive, but it does give you an idea of how you should build your feedback loop.

Internationalization

If your app is multi-platform and you’re not sure which country to go to next, internationalize your landing page into 150 languages in seconds using DakWak, which will help you determine which markets you should go into as well.

DakWak provides analytics and can help you find your next big foreign customer base accordingly by telling you which languages people are accessing the most.

Colorblindness

If your page is receiving over 10,000 hits in daily traffic, test it for colorblindness using one of these. http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ . Especially true if your audience is men. I’m daltonic and I find it frustrating at times.

Pricing Link

If you have a priced app, give the user a simple way to locate the prices. Pricing should appear in the navigation as either ‘premium’ or ‘pricing.’

Google Analytics Conversion Tracking

Use google analytics event tracking for conversions and this report.

We can’t tell you the number of founders of mobile app companies that aren’t aware and don’t do attribution analytics on their installs. It is purely shocking!!!!

You need to know the $$$’s being driven by every URL linking to your website.

Showcase Your App Ratings

Feature your app store rating next to your app store icons if it’s good and has over 100 reviews in the app store for the ‘current version’ in iOS. Take note of Wunderlist’s “Best of 2013" icon in the bottom right.

As well, while you’re at it, it’s worth reading about the right way to ask for users to review your app.

Press Credentials

Use testimonial icons. Only use the ones that you’re authorized to use.

Implement Branch for Referrals.

Use BranchMetrics.com especially if you’re a referral style app. BranchMetrics makes it easy for your iOS team .

Disclaimer: LinkTexting partnered with them to make it easier to generate Smart URL’s.

Implement LeadFeeder if you’re in B2B.

Install LeadFeeder.com if you’re in the B2B mobile app space.

Implement Facebook Web Custom Audiences if you’re B2C.

Have Facebook Web Custom Audiences installed for retargeting. We saw this as a simple fix, and found the pattern among our favorite landing pages by analyzing them via builtwith.com.

Browser Testing for your User Base.

If you’re early stage, only browser test for the type of early adopter you care about.

Always include your Twitter handle and Facebook icon.

You make it much harder for people to reach you when your landing page doesn’t have this on it. This is especially true for the early technology adopter crowd. These users could be your most loyal and you’re missing out on having a positive communication experience with them by not havin gthese on your landing page.

Implement Segment

This one is super simple, takes seconds, and will be useful as you continue to grow and are faced with more make vs. buy questions that require diverse data to answer.

Privacy Policy

If you’re going after customers in the EU, it’s important to have a privacy policy. Personally, we like iubenda for generating it. It’s super simple to add new apps that we use and clauses get added automatically. Privacy policies are also necessary for many ad networks if you’re buying leads.

Got any other tips or questions?

Tweet us at @datarade, @blaurenceclark, or @linktexting.