In my previous post, I showed you an option for building a dating app to link to your existing dating site, to tap into the endless appetite that mobile device users have for apps of all different kinds.

The forecast for global app downloads in 2013 was 102 BILLION, with 91% of downloads free. (Source: Techcrunch). I developed an app on Como.com for my dating site I Find Girlfriend.com, which was the subject of my last post.
Having gone through some of the basic elements of setting up an app, there are some more advanced features available which are worth exploring. These options are very easy to edit and add in to your app. The screenshot below shows all the options available, which you should explore and adapt as appropriate to your app:

The options above provide an excellent platform for creating a rich app with multiple features. There are some which are more relevant than others in my view, as the platform caters for e-commerce sites selling products as well. The most relevant options in my view are:

• The “About Us” page – copy and paste the text from your site’s “about us” page and create a link to it on the app page; this will add credibility to your site.
• The “Forms” page allows you to build a mailing list.
• The “Contact Us” page – as with “About Us“, create a link to the site’s “contact us” page; this can also be used with the “Email Us” option.
• The “News” option can be used to link to RSS feeds for blogs that you subscribe to or that you write yourself.
• There are a number of social media options in addition to Facebook such as Twitter and Instagram.
• There is also an option to add video from YouTube, Vimeo and other sources. Create YouTube playlists and add them into your site very easily to add depth and content.

If you have created videos to promote your dating sites, this is where you can add them in, which is another way of promoting links to your sites. I have a number of videos that I have created through Fiverr.com or which I have created myself using Powerpoint’s video creation facility, which I have loaded into a playlist and added to my app.
There is also the option to add in an Amazon feed, so if you are an Amazon affiliate there may be an opportunity to promote relevant products (gifts, advice books etc) through your app.
In my next article on creating an app, I’ll go through how to use Como.com’s “To Market” services, where the submission process to Itunes, Google and Amazon are all managed for you. Como.com also creates advertising collateral that you can use to promote your app.
There is an analytics section provided as well, which shows the device profile and users by country. This is useful data for targeting Google ads for your sit at specific territories where customers are downloading your app.

In Summary:

• The Como.com platform for creating apps is very simple but powerful, easily creating content and depth for your app.
• It has social media and video features, enabling links to your own social media pages and feeds as well as YouTube playlists, providing multiple options to raise the profile of your site and drive traffic.

Good luck!