A large part of the world's population has a smartphone in their pocket, but it's not just for making calls and texting anymore. An app is one of the best ways to connect with your potential customer and create a lasting bond between you and your customer. As smartphones become more popular, people are increasingly using apps.
In fact, there's an app for almost everything, such as finding a lost item, shopping at the supermarket, or monitoring your health. Apps are ubiquitous and play an important role in our daily lives. In this article, we will guide you through the entire process of publishing your app to the Play Store.
What is the Google Play Store?
The Google Play Store is a digital distribution platform that allows developers to distribute their applications to Android users. The service was launched in 2008 and has been continuously improving ever since, becoming one of the most popular app stores in the world.
How to publish your app in Play Store: step-by-step guide
We will show you step by step how to successfully publish your app to the Google Play Store:
Create a Google Developer Account
First you need to create a Create Google developer accountto be able to publish apps to the Google Play Store. If you already have a Google account, you can link it to the Developer account. So you don't need to create a new account.
You will then be prompted to enter the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement to read and accept. After that, you will need to pay a one-time fee of 25.00 $ and fill out a developer profile. Make sure you read and review the agreement before proceeding. When you publish an app through this platform, it is important that you are clear about the rights and obligations you have, as well as the level of ownership of your intellectual property.
Does your app cost money or include in-app purchases?
If you plan to monetize your app or it contains in-app purchases, you need a Google Wallet merchant account. To do this, sign in to your Google developer account and click the "Set up a merchant account" option. Then carefully fill in the required information to create your profile. This will then be automatically linked to your developer account.
To understand the tax implications of accepting money from users outside your country, always do your due diligence as tax laws vary from country to country. You can also contact one of Google published informative article read about the different tax rates in different countries and jurisdictions.
Upload app to Play Store
Now that you have set up your accounts, you can start uploading apps to the Google Play Store. You can follow the instructions on the Play Store platform about the app to add to the store. And here you need to answer some questions. If you need to answer them again later, you can save them in drafts on this platform. The store listing is nothing but a kind of listing of what a customer sees when they visit your app store page. You should make sure that your app store listing is attractive, informative and enticing for customers to download it.
Some of the additional steps added here are:
Product Details
This section includes a title for your app, a short description, a full description, and so on. Make sure you have read all Google guidelines about the use of certain words and even phrases.
Graphic assets
In this section, you need to add any screenshots or images that show the features and functions of your app. Make sure you follow the size and format requirements of the image before uploading.
Language and translations
Here you need to mark the default language in which your app presents its information. When you create an internationalized version of your app, you can add translations as well as screenshots in other languages. This will contribute to a wide reach of your app.
Categorization of your app
When uploading your app, you need to select an app type or category in which you want to publish your app.
Contact information
You need to provide your support details in case the users want to contact you. It is highly recommended to provide users with an actively monitored email address and phone number. This way, it will not be a problem to reach a user in case the main person is on vacation.
Privacy policy
If your app collects sensitive user data such as names, birth dates, email addresses, or contact information, or even requires user permissions, then in all of these cases Google requires that you provide a comprehensive privacy policy. This must outline how your app collects, stores, shares and uses user data. You must link the privacy policy to the app store page. Make sure the privacy policy is active, relevant to the app, and available at an active URL.
Evaluation of appropriate content
According to Google's content guidelines, any content or service offered through Google Play must be appropriate for all ages and genders. Content must not contain offensive, pornographic, or obscene material; harmful, violent, hateful, or otherwise inappropriate content; or content that violates the rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, rights of publicity, or privacy. The guidelines also state that users must not post content that encourages others to engage in illegal activities.
With proper content rating, you can determine the most appropriate audience or users for your app. It's a self-assessment of your app's content that allows Google to classify it as safe or not safe for its users. For example, if your app has an age restriction, the content rating can help warn people under 18. You should always provide accurate information about your app. Apps that mislead users can be removed or the developers can be banned from the App Store.
App distribution and pricing
In this step, you can inform users whether your app is free or paid. And, where it will be published. You can either make your app available for download only in a limited number of countries or make it available worldwide. Please note that it is not possible to convert a free app to a paid one in the future. However, it is possible to convert an app from paid to free.
App tests
Google recommends testing your app before launch. Google provides tools on its Play Console platform, such as the app testing features, that you can use to test your app and make sure it works properly when someone installs it.
Upload the APK file
Android Package Kit (APK) is a file format used on Android mobile devices to store and share software applications. By uploading the Android Package Kit (APK), users can save themselves some time as they do not have to install the .apk file manually. The APK file contains all the necessary information to publish an app to the Play Store. After uploading, Google Play takes care of the rest of the process.
Launching the app - last step
When you publish an app for the first time or update your existing apps, you can view the publishing status of your app on the Google Play Store platform. When you publish an app for the first time, you can see the following categories:
Draft
This status indicates that your app has not yet been published and is in the draft stage.
Ready for publication
The Ready to Publish status indicates that your app has not yet been published, but is ready to be published to the platform. You start the rollout on the release page to publish the app.
Pending publication
Here, the app is under review and will be released soon. You will receive a Google notification about how long the review will take.
Published
This means that your app is published and available in the Google Play Store. You can also create new versions for any title or set up a staggered rollout for production versions.
Rejected
This means that your app has been rejected after review. Rejection can occur due to violations of the app policy. To learn more about an app rejection, you can visit the app's pages in Google Play Console. Only after you fix the violation, you can resubmit the app.
Exposed
This means that the app has been blocked due to violations of Play Store policies. An email with the details of the blocking will be sent to the owner.
When you have completed all the above checks and the app is free of errors or bugs, the store listing verification is complete, the app pricing, distribution, and content rating have been done, you can publish your app to the Play Store. When you're ready, select "Confirm Rollout." This will make your app available to all users in your target countries on Google Play.
What's next?
If you follow the above steps correctly, you can publish your app without any problems.
If you think that by publishing an app your work is done, you're wrong. To ensure that your app has as many downloads and installs as possible, you need to promote it.
You also need to maintain your app from time to time. Try to improve and update it with every review/audit. If you increase the performance of your app, more users will be encouraged to download and try it. This will further increase your revenue.
Note: The steps and procedures described in this guide may change from time to time. Be sure to read Google's current policies and processes before publishing your app to the Play Store.
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