How To Create A Free App Landing Page Or App Website?
Creative Assets
October 13, 2022
In a previous post, we showed you why you need an online space for your app other than the ones Google and Apple give you. Bottom line…you should create your app website as early as you can.
But what is the best way to build it?
Is it better to create a mobile app landing page or a full mobile app website?
In this post we’ll talk about the tools I like the best.
App Landing Page
Some people advocate that an app website is not made to engage users, and that a blog is not needed. I believe it depends on what app you’re working on.
If you decide you “only” need a landing page, then the two following tools might just be perfect for you. I would strongly advise to use the custom domain name option.
Unbounce Mobile App Template
Unbounce is a landing page platform. That’s what they do, and they do it really well.
They have several templates for mobile apps. Make sure that the key elements for your mobile app landing page are included: app name, clear call to action, app features, app promo video placeholder, app screenshots, user/blog reviews and contact info. You can also A/B test a lot of things easily, which can be great to improve your conversion rate.
If you want a free landing page, you will have to put up with an Unbounce branded footer and limitations like a 5,000 unique visitor limit. But that might be OK, if you are just starting out.
To get access to all of the great features of Unbounce, the starting price is $49/month. If you just need landing pages, this is a solution can grow with you.
Wishpond
Wishpond‘s software is built around lead generation. In addition to landing pages they also have forms, popups and more.
Although they are new on the scene, they have more than 50 solid landing page templates (and are adding more every week). The builder is a drag-and-drop, meaning there’s no need to ever code anything. And the interface seems pretty simple.
Because they’re the new kid on the block, their landing page builder is one of the most up to date. They built it to be mobile responsive from the ground up so you can edit the look of your landing pages in desktop, tablet and mobile view at the same time and without having to recreate pages.
Like Unbounce, Wishpond’s builder has A/B testing built into it. The platform is completely free up to 200 leads (leads, not visitors).
Some Other Tools
Another pretty sweet tool to try is LeadPages. It lets you create landing pages or customize already existing templates. They also have forms, popups and more.
If you want something really simple, you can also check out Smore that allow you to create an “online flyer” and has some app templates. Another resource is presskit(), which lets game developers create a detailed press kit easily that they can use when reaching out to bloggers for example.
App Website / Blog
If a simple landing page isn’t going to cut it, then you will need to build a website. But don’t worry, a simple site is easy to build.
You’d like a blog to engage users and create content for SEO purposes from the very beginning? You can build your app website from scratch or use a HTML template, but we strongly recommend you take advantage of the best CMS platform out there: WordPress.
WordPress
WordPress is a really powerful tool that will allow you to have a full app website and blog, with almost no restrictions on what you can achieve. The best part is that the WordPress software is free…but you will have to pay for your own hosting.
WordPress is easy to set up on your own shared server (if I was able to do it, you can too), and it does require a little time to get it. But the WordPress community is very large and once you’ve mastered it you’ll be able to create new app websites really quickly.
Yes, there is a free version of WordPress, hosted on WordPress servers, but it is really restricted when it comes to commercial use. So it is best to get your own hosting and not worry about violating any terms of service.
There are several WordPress themes available on platforms like ThemeForest or provided by WordPress themes companies. Some or pretty good, some were clearly made in a hurry and without taking into account what elements should be in an app website to sell more apps. Take your time and find a theme that you like.
Theme frameworks like Genesis can also give you rock-solid theme architecture and a wide variety of child themes to choose from. Remember that Google will penalize websites that are not mobile responsive, so by using a framework like Genesis, you won’t have to worry about it.
Blogger
Another option is Blogger. It doesn’t have the same level of functionality or theme options as WordPress does, but it is totally free and you can use it for commercial endeavors.
You don’t have to get your own hosting because it is hosted on Google’s servers. This is not the preferred option for setting up a blog, so as soon as you are ready to spend some money, you should move over to a self-hosted WordPress solution.
If you go this route, then be sure to buy your own domain. It will help with branding and building your authority.
Finally if you really don’t want to go with any of the options above, there is always Facebook. Yes, if you setup a Facebook Page for your app, it can act as a (hopefully) temporary landing page solution.
A bonus with using a Facebook page is that it is already setup for customer support. You can also use it to start building your social media presence.
Conclusion
So those are some options if you want to setup a website or landing page for your app…on the cheap. Having your own site has a lot of benefits like the ability to collect email addresses, Facebook/Adwords ads retargeting and much more.
If you don’t have a landing page for website setup yet, the best time to start is right now.
What about you? How do you usually create your app website or app landing page and why? We would love to hear your thoughts…
Follow Apptamin on Twitter
Follow me on Twitter
Great
Nice examples.
http://weelii.com/unbounce-landing-pages/
Hi Sylvain, I hope you remember me! In my opinion the best and absolutely free landing page would be ‘Blogger’ from Google. I have done it for my apps Winmail File Viewer and 7Zipper, and it works great!
Hi
We just launched a new free and easy to use mobile landing page generator:
http://mobtizer.com/
dasapp I added it to our list of tools for app developers https://www.apptamin.com/blog/app-developer-tools/
Hi Sylvain. Your post is really helpful and I agree that apps should definitely have their own separate web presence… especially now that the app stores are getting so crowded. it’s a nice way of getting apps to get more exposure. Thanks for the post. I’ll be looking into Unbounce. Cheers!
You haven’t mentioned the most famous one: http://launchrock.com/
That’s true. LaunchRock is a great tool. However, the problem I see is that it’s limited to pre-launch: you’ll still have to create an app website / landing page afterwards.
Good post. Unbounce and Ooomf are not the only players in that game: there is also App.net that has some pretty good tools.
Thanks John. I didn’t know App.net, I’ll check it out more in depth.
Looks like App.net removed the access to their tool now that they’re doing their new platform
Thanks for the article Sylvain. ooomf appreciates it.