Before you launch: an App Store checklist for solo developers

You get one launch. The stores look at your listing with fresh eyes, decide what your app is about, and rank it accordingly. If the title, the keywords and the screenshots are not ready, you will spend the next months climbing back with paid ads. I learned this the hard way. Here is the checklist I run before every submission now.

Title and subtitle. Your main keyword belongs in the first words of the title, not buried at the end. On Google Play the title is 30 characters, on the App Store you have 30 characters of visible name plus a subtitle. Write the title for search engines, not for your brand ego. Your app name alone ranks for nobody.

The keyword field. On the App Store you get 100 hidden characters. Fill them all with real search terms, separated by commas, no spaces between them, and do not repeat words that are already in your title. If this field is empty or lazy, you are invisible to half of your potential searches.

The first lines of the description. The first 80 characters of your Google Play description and the first two or three sentences on iOS sit above the fold. They must state what the app does and for whom, in plain language.

Screenshots at the right size. App Store Connect and Google Play Console both reject wrong dimensions, and a rejected build delays your launch by days. Check the current required sizes for the devices you target before you design anything. The first screenshot is your ad: it should show the main benefit, not the login screen.

Localization for at least two markets. A listing in English only leaves downloads on the table. Some languages bring volume, others bring revenue, and neither is the one you guessed. If your app is about football, the listing should exist in the languages of the countries where football is huge, not just in English. Translation is not decoration, it is a search engine for those markets.

The right category and niche. Do not pick the broadest category because it sounds prestigious. A meditation timer in the Health and Fitness category competes against giants. The more specific your niche, the easier it is for the store to understand who your app serves, and the better your ranking chances in that niche.

Privacy policy and support link. Both stores require a valid privacy policy URL, and support contact information. Missing these blocks your submission. Get a simple page online before launch day.

Price and in-app purchases listed. Decide your price, free tier and subscriptions before you submit, and check them in the store listing preview. Changing your pricing strategy right after launch confuses both users and the ranking algorithm.

Search for your app on a real device. After submission, type your main keyword in the App Store search bar and see where you land. It is humbling, and it is the fastest way to notice a broken listing, wrong category or missing metadata while you can still fix it.

None of these steps is hard, but together they decide whether your launch starts with organic downloads or with a silent flop and a growing Meta ad budget. Most of the work is mechanical: writing metadata, translating it, resizing screenshots. That is why I built AsoFast, a free and open source tool that generates your App Store and Google Play metadata with AI, translates it into more than 80 languages, provides screenshot templates and publishes directly to both stores. Everything runs locally, your credentials stay on your machine. Run this checklist once, and every launch after that becomes a formality.