Step 1. Find relevant websites or blogs. This can be done through manual search or via public announcement. In the latter, you can publicly announce the offer for reciprocal posting through your own site, blog, social network pages, and any other places online such as forums. Should you broadcast the offer in forums, make sure that the forum board is relevant. It should be a place where webmasters and bloggers frequently participate in threads.

If you opt to manually search for websites and blogs, a simple search engine phrase such as “websites and blogs for guest posting” will return results you need. Through searching, you may find actual websites or blogs. If not, you will end up with articles providing a list of sites and blogs you can consider for this purpose. You can continue searching using different combination of search strings like a more specific phrase, “Android apps websites and blogs for guest posting.” Aside from search engines, you can also explore actual blog platforms including Blogger and WordPress and find related blogs.

If you are posting for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, you can also check the site or blog’s page rank through free tools online such as pagerankchecker.com. As per SEO, the higher the site’s rank, the higher the value of outbound links referred by such site. Aside from the actual link, you should also take note of the anchor text or the phrase where your link is embedded. If possible, choose keyword rich text hyperlinked with your app page URL.

Step 2. Contact the blog owner or site admin. Not all sites and blogs are open for guest posting but you should try contacting them nonetheless.

When sending an offer, keep it simple and direct to the point. Emphasize the benefit which a guest post exchange will bring for the other party. Obviously, it will provide an opportunity for your app to be promoted. But what does the other party receive in return? In exchange, you can offer to blog about their site or blog and products or services. You may even give incentives and rewards such as a free download of your app for a limited number of readers and viewers.

Step 3. Finalize an agreement. In most cases, both parties will write their own posts and the opposite party will simply publish the post with a link back to the contributor’s page within the article body or through a resource box. But you may also request for the other party to write about your app based on their own opinion instead. You can also do the same for their site/blog or product/service.

Android apps marketing are not confined within the box of traditional methods. Over the web, you can take advantage of countless options to market your app.

Here’s another means you can employ towards marketing Android apps free; use Creative elements including icons, logos, screenshots, images, and descriptions on your application.

Minor Elements

So your app is now publish-ready. What happens next? Submit it to markets like Google Play, Amazon App Store, and even small players for Android apps. Then, you can wait for results coupled with employing marketing strategies both paid and free. But did you know that minor elements which are a part of your app or at least during the submission process can help you market the app for free? Details like icons or logos displayed including images or screenshots as well as descriptions which will be shown alongside your app in the market where it is submitted for distribution can make or break your apps marketability.

How app details affect sales

Assuming you an Android device user (phone or tablet) and is in need of a specific app such as say an organizer, you will then start searching in an Android market. Displayed results will vary depending on your search preference. You can begin your search based on feedback, download count, or availability (whether paid or free). Naturally, highly rated and most downloaded apps are prominently on top of the list. But to decide which application to download and install, you will obviously read more information about the app. Thus, the description will help make you decide whether or not it’s worth purchasing or downloading. In fact, some users may opt to download an app with detailed description over a vaguely described app regardless of its download count and rating. The same applies to enticing logos, icons, images, and screenshots used.

Optimize these elements

So in order to make use of these elements and let them market your app for you, take note of the following tips:

1. Choose logos and icons which represent the app. You may also use your studio or company logo.

2. Pick images and screenshots which will excite users to download your app. If it’s a game, capture an image right where the action is.

3. Use the description area liberally. Write the apps background including its function, a brief instruction about how it works and how users can benefit from it and any other information you think users would need to know about your app.

In case you’re not very expressive when it comes to written language, you may always seek the assistance of a personal colleague who has a way with words. You can also consider hiring the services of copy writers whose expertise is on technical writing particularly on technology or Android apps. If you opt to hire a writer, a little background information about your app will do added with a few screenshots captured within the app itself. If you are willing to risk letting them have a feel of how the app functions for a more descriptive copy, you can also let them download the app too.

Marketing Android apps free through a detailed product description, vivid images or screenshots, and enticing logos or icons can definitely help increase downloads and thereby generated sales of your app.

• It’s Important To Know Your Stats

Knowing the stats will keep you informed of any marketing effort changes. If something has been changed, your stats will reflect the change in either a positive or negative way. You can therefore make adjustments as needed.

• Links Need To Be Customized

Using customized short URL links for everything is crucial, and be sure to use Bit.ly because this will allow you to track stats for all the links you’ve included it on. It doesn’t matter whether you are sharing on social sites, PR outreach, YouTube Video, or sharing your iTunes link, make sure you do this with all shortened URLS that can be tracked.

• Updates Are Very Important

If you’ve received any type of excellent reviews, feedback or you have been featured, you will need to make sure you update all areas that can potentially benefit from this information such as app stores, or web site information. If you can, whenever possible, translate those updates into images or videos because they can say a whole lot more.

• Constantly Keep Everyone Alert

Consistently keeping app awareness in the spotlight is vital and this should be done by spreading the word about app progress. People are dying for information, so keeping them abreast of development milestones will increase your chances of having a successful launch.

• Pricing Does Have A Strategy

You always need to be aware of the market and when there will be a good time to promote a price drop. Always keep in mind that even though you bring the price down you may be sacrificing earnings, but you will increase downloads and in turn your apps awareness will skyrocket. This will eventually turn into revenue.

This is simply a review of what you probably already know but for those that may have forgotten, this is a great refresher.

An excellent alternative for requiring a minimal fee for each app that is being downloaded would be freely distributing your application and get paid for it. In many cases it will provide more benefits in the long run. But everyone must keep in mind that this is a new age of marketing and even more so when it comes to marketing on mobiles devices. Some developers have chosen to sell modified versions of their lite or free apps, while many others have chosen a completely different route by using ad networks as their vehicle of choice. It is recommended you understand how it works so you can determine the solution that will work for you.

The first item you will need to keep in mind is, all ad networks will not support your platform. You will need to make sure they support the platform you are launching your app for. Some ad networks will only support apps like Android, iPhone, or WebOS. When looking through the different ad networks available, keep this in mind before you really get excited about their features.

The first is admob: This is an ad network that services over 7.1 million ads every month. Analytics tracking, ad reach, and excellent reporting drive this company. Their real strengths lie in the combination of all of these areas, making admob the developer’s choice.

Then you have VDOPIA: Ivdopia mainly works with apps specifically designed for Android and iPhone. They run a much different type of ad campaign, adding videos rather than using banner ads. These videos are brought right to the application itself and although they don’t have an inventory as vast as some of the other ad networks, they provide something special for their advertisers, and that’s excellent quality.

Many app developers are already aware of the many different ways for promoting their applications such as getting on review sites, PR, purchasing space on ad networks, link exchanges, viral, and you name it, because there’s a lot more. There is another way that has been emerging for app promotion and that is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing already has a proven track record in the online industry and has leveled the playing field for many different developers in almost any product category you can think of. How about using affiliate marketing for apps?

To be honest, affiliate marketing for mobile apps has been thought about in the past but many hadn’t really thought about how to implement the process effectively. In the online world affiliate marketing can be monetized in many different ways such as Cost-Per-Action (CPA) which pays an affiliate if a user takes action on a particular application of advertisement. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) will pay an affiliate if the user simply clicks on an application or advertisement.

But this doesn’t put money in the developers pocket when it comes to mobile applications, and because of this the only method that will work is Pay-Per-Download (PPD). Why pay affiliate costs that don’t convert? App developers don’t have to waste money on clicks or actions that aren’t leading to downloads, and downloads are what we are trying to accomplish anyway. By using PPD app developers will only pay affiliate marketers for completed downloads. Handsets and geography can be targeted by the developer and the affiliate marketers can handle the rest.

Affiliate marketing for apps is another advertising tool that app developers can utilize to get their products in front of the users that will use them.

But just knowing this doesn’t really allow you to enjoy the benefits of social media marketing. Just because you may have access to certain mediums, it takes a professionally developed strategy to get the process rolling effectively to produce the results you’re looking for. If you are doing this yourself, you’ll need to be in contact with the right people, the right players, the right teams to effectively help you gain the right traction needed to move your product forward.

You will also need to do some research by creating an analytics and filter engine to review and see your ROI to get the prospective needed to understand where you fit. The other part of social media marketing for apps will be keeping the connections connected and in the process being able to measure growth, after all without growth your marketing efforts will be pointless. Social media marketing are not limited to the Facebook and Twitter platforms either.

You have a vast market just waiting to be tapped and there is nothing keeping you from taking full advantage. As stated before if you’re doing this yourself, everything listed above will need to be worked out and implemented, but you can always employ a service to handle some or all of this for you. To run an effective social marketing campaign, you will need to be connected to those that can spread the word about your product virally.

Social media marketing for apps is just another tool for an app developer or marketing service and can be used to get your product or information in front of the people that can take it to a whole new level of exposure.

When effectively using articles and press releases to promote your product, you aren’t just relying on the mobile platform for a would-be buyer of your products. You can use the web platform in addition to promote your product in the normal way but point them to micro-sites you’ve created. You can begin by writing articles about your application using excellent SEO techniques and create an article marketing campaign for promotion.

You can also use a social network platform for your marketing efforts and create a buzz in places such as Facebook, Twitter and any additional social network hubs that could potentially start a flurry of activity. Video marketing is another area you can create a good buzz about your application. Video is really a great way to showcase your product in a way that cannot be done using article marketing or social networks.

Cross platform marketing should be a part of any type of mobile app marketing effort because it promotes a product in places many people are hanging out looking for new applications or ideas. Taking advantage of every type of platform you have access to will only give you that much more product exposure. Creating an article marketing effort coupled with video, can produce the results you are looking for. Cross platform app marketing is done every day using techniques that are proven in online marketing all over the world and most app developers haven’t used it.

If you are truly thinking of using cross platform app marketing, this process should be done even before your application launches providing exposure and product awareness. Cross platform marketing is effective and will maximize your product awareness as well as sales.

• The Operating System (OS)

There are many different versions of the OS out there, and with each upgrade a newer version is released. For example current Android OS ranges from version 1.5 up to 3.1. To make the most of the Android app market it makes sense to develop apps that can work across all the different versions.

• Language

Users of Smartphones like the Android across the globe speak various languages. They too need the same kind of apps used in English-speaking countries. There are different ways to get the code responsible for languages translated. One popular method is by uploading the code to the website, crowdin.net.  While there is a free trial of the translation service, payment is calculated by the number of strings of XML code uploaded.

Internationalizing and localizing Android apps is an important aspect of marketing the products. Any good designer wants to make their app usable in other countries since Smartphones and devices that use Android OS are available everywhere.

• Size of Display

One of the good things about the Android is the choice of displays available. Since the Android OS is usable on various devices, there are different display sizes. The three standard sizes are small, medium and large. Of course there is no surprise here, but the way apps look on the different devices will also vary. As such, apps have to be designed to be seen or used just as well on a small display as they are on larger ones. This is one challenge app designers have to overcome.

One way to do this is to place images and other viewable features into what is known as an asset folder. There is one such folder for each type of display. There are other related features that must be addressed if you want to ensure as wide a user base for your app as possible.

In the past traditional advertising had been looked at as nothing more than an interruption in your viewing experience whether it be for television, magazines, newspapers or searching on the internet and receiving a gazillion pop-ups. There is a new type of advertising that provides a completely different twist and offers engaging entertainment that is educational as well as informational. This new medium is called ‘app-vertising’ and this proves to be the future of social application advertising in a huge way.

Advertisers have been looking for ways to capitalize on in-app advertising and because of the flexibility and richness of interfaces such as the Droid and the iPad platforms are available for advertisers to develop ads that are more relevant to the applications they are advertised in, than any of the more traditional methods such as banner ads or commercials.  Many commercials are very popular because they have been associated with large events. With in-app advertising, many advertisers can take advantage of that same association with interactive mobile ads.

These are the early days of in-app advertising, but you are beginning to see some consistencies developing that are becoming more apparent. Because of this there are some items you may want to keep in mind when developing your next in-app advertising campaign.

• Allow Your Users To Be In Control

An engaging story disguised as an advertisement will intrigue a user to want to be involved. Allow the user to interact with the advertisement and give them a few options to choose from. These options will allow them to learn more and become interested and each option will ultimately lead to one place. Here is a perfect example (albeit Apple’s iAd)

• Load Times Are Important

If your load time takes longer than 5 seconds, rethink your idea. You need to get the user involved in less than 5 seconds or they will hit the ‘skip’ button. Remember to keep in mind that working with a 100kb per second base; you will always want to maximize your download time.

• Targeting

Google took the first step forward by allowing advertisers to target each mobile operating system independently and by carrier through keyword search.  Being able to target by mobile operating system is very valuable to app marketers who do not generally have their app available across all the different operating systems.

Google is also offering the option (although it is opt-out) to block advertisers’ ads from showing to users searching on mobile devices. This has the potential to improve the ROI for Internet marketers should mobile search become a large portion of Google’s search query volume.

• Call-To-Action

One of the best ways to ensure that users engage with your ad is to offer them something valuable in return, such as discounts and coupons or free music or apps. Whatever the offer, don’t forget to make the call-to-action buttons large and the hit areas larger to reduce false taps

These are only some ideas that will allow you to take advantage of this promising new area of advertisement. As time moves forward you can bet there will be much more to come.

Avoiding Common Mistakes When Marketing Android Apps

With the growth in demand for Android apps it is not surprising that more players have entered the market. This has increased the number of options available in various categories. The downside is that for every good app there is probably one or more that is of questionable quality. Smartphone app users are just as tech savvy and discerning as the average computer user. Making products that appeal to them means avoiding these common mistakes:

Failure to Assess the Market

To be successful in the Android app marketplace you need to have some idea of what is already out there. You want to avoid asking app users to go down the same road again. At the same time, even with the best Android apps, there will be room for improvement or some avenue that have been left unexplored. Visit review websites to see which apps are the most downloaded and what their most popular features are.

Improper Pricing

This can be a tricky issue, especially for those new to the industry. Part of the appeal of Smartphone apps is that they are often cheap, which makes them easily accessible. Many users however are willing to pay more for highly rated apps, or those from well-known developers. They know they will be getting a quality product.

Too Many Features

It is easy to go overboard and burden an application with unnecessary features. This can cause problems for those with older devices or Operating Systems. It can also prove to be a drain on the device’s battery. The idea is to try to reach as wide an audience as possible with apps that meet a specific need. This should always be kept in mind when Android apps are being developed. A good way my company solves this problem is by forming a focus group. We will go to community sites/message boards and choose 10 users who we feel would give us feedback for an app. For their work we reward them with $10 GiftCards after they fill out a questionnaire. If you are short on case you can always ask your friends and family for input.

Poor Marketing

You have to market your apps to get them noticed, and it is best to start early. In fact, many developers ensure that their marketing efforts coincide with the development process. Put out teasers to get people interested, and make sure your app delivers on what you promise. With so many apps vying for public attention, promotion can make all the difference when it comes to making money.

When it comes to Android apps or any other type of Smartphone application, a good program is not enough. It takes work and sacrifice to make an app successful. The road to developing and publicizing apps is fraught with pitfalls, as such, the developer must make a  conscious effort to avoid them.