How to localize custom product pages

How do localizations work on a custom product page?

The same way they work on your default product page: one set of assets per language, on one page. Apple’s description of the feature says to add your customized screenshots, promotional text and app previews for any of your page’s localizations.2 In App Store Connect you open the page, pick a localization, and add that language’s screenshots, previews and promotional text; keywords are selected per localization too.1

What a localization can change is the same as what a page can change: screenshots, app previews, promotional text and keywords. The app’s name, subtitle and description in that language come from your app’s own localization and are the same on every page.2 The complete guide has the full list.

Which languages must you provide?

None beyond your primary one. Apple says you can add assets for any of a page’s localizations, not that you must add them for all.2 When you create a page from an existing product page, Apple copies the screenshots, previews and promotional text for your primary localization only.1 Everything else is yours to add.

The App Store supports 48 languages and locales for metadata, from Arabic to Vietnamese, with separate locales for English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese.4 A page does not need all of them. Provide a language where the page’s audience is: a page for a German search needs German, a page for an Apple Ads campaign in Japan needs Japanese. Your app’s own localizations are the ceiling, since a page’s languages are managed with the app’s, and keywords for a language exist only where your app has that language’s keyword field.13

What happens to a language you skip?

Apple does not document this for custom product pages specifically. What it documents is the rule for your app’s metadata: when you add an app you choose a primary language, which is the default across all App Store countries and regions; if no localization matches a person’s language setting, the next most relevant localization is used, and in other countries or regions your metadata displays in the primary language.3 Apple also notes that the language shown depends on the App Store language for the person’s location, their device language, the languages you have added and your primary language.4

Plan on that rule applying to a page, and do not plan on more. If a French speaker opens a page you made only in English, the safest expectation is that they see the page’s English assets under your app’s French name and description. Apple does not say whether a page with no localization for a language shows the page’s primary localization or falls back to the default product page, so if a language matters to you, add it to the page rather than relying on either.

How do keywords work per language?

Keywords are assigned to a page per localization, and each localization chooses from its own language’s keyword field on your latest approved app version.1 Apple’s instruction is to select the keywords for the page in the Keywords section and repeat for each localization.1 So a page that should appear for German searches needs its German localization’s keywords selected from your German keyword field; the English selection does nothing for German searchers.

Two consequences. First, a language whose keyword field has no suitable keyword cannot have a search page for it until a version with that keyword is approved. Second, Apple asks for a unique set of keywords per page so the most relevant page appears, and that applies within each language.1 The whole mechanism, including the page needing to be approved and visible before it is searchable, is in custom product pages in App Store search.

How do you keep translated pages current?

By treating the primary language as the source and every other language as derived from it, and redoing the derived ones whenever the source changes. A translated page goes stale in two ways: the app changes and its screens no longer match, or you improve the primary page and the translations still say the old thing.

1. Write and approve the page in your primary language first.Headlines, screenshots and promotional text. Translating a page you are still changing doubles the work.
2. Translate the words, not just the files.Each headline, each line beneath it, and the 170 characters of promotional text, written by someone who knows the language, to the same meaning and about the same length. Long languages such as German need shorter lines.
3. Draw that language’s screenshots on screens in that language.If your app is localized, the screen beneath a German headline should be the German screen. A German headline over an English interface is the first thing a German reader notices.
4. Select that language’s keywords on the page.From that localization’s keyword field, a unique set per page.
5. Keep a note of what each translation was made from.When you change a headline in the primary language, you need to know which translations are now out of date.
6. After each app update, check every language of every live page.A redesign changes the screens in every language at once. Rebuild the primary page, then the translations, then submit the new version of the page.

Sizes do not change with language: every localization needs the same screenshot sizes, listed in custom product page requirements.

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