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I recently created an Android App. It translates thousands of frequently used words from each language. When I started learning Dutch with a friend of mine, he suggested it would be great to have an offline translator app. I know my app is not the best of the breed, but it would be very useful for people who are learning or want to learn a new language. I published it on Android Market couple of days ago and I want to make it visible to as many people as possible. What is the best way to do it?

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What makes your app so different from others? Is it the only one with an offline dictionary? – dnbrv Feb 27 '12 at 16:02

5 Answers

On Android market their are about 400,000 applications and the search technology implemented is not of the standard what Google.com has . The best way to make it visible is add keywords correctly Do some key words research. For example search for "translator app" see which are on the top then find the unique words in those Apps Description. Add them in your App Description Apart from this their are other App markets like getjar .

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At first, I think your app is great and could be worthy to play with for other dedicated users. Now regarding the promotion; I think you can market your app using the modern WEB and SEO 2.0 trends.

  • Engage targeted bloggers, market influencers and reviewers to explore your app and share their feedback with their reader-ship.
  • Since your website belongs to language translation and learning so find some credible forums, groups and discussions; then ethically share about your product. Please note that your words must be toned to help the community instead of blatant promotion only.
  • Start viral marketing campaign and try to Reach & Engage authoritative people within your social circle (LinkedIn, Twitter, FB etc)
  • Write a few blog posts to demonstrate about how your app works; why it is different and how useful it can be for translating and learning new languages?
  • If you are good at writing then consider doing some Guest Posting on credible websites to define and showcase the best features of your product.
  • Try to find some credible directory websites for Android Apps in particular and submit your app there.

I hope using all these ways will bring some good amount of traffic to your app and the number of app-download will rise significantly.

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You can also run some social campaigns to get your product to market. We've launched several apps for clients and the majority of the traffic steamed from Social Media. If branded and targeted well through these mediums sky's the limit. You could start by giving it away for FREE and/or running a contest/sweepstakes campaign.

In short, master social media and the tech blogs (and other important influencers) will find you! Trust me. They want products/services with some "buzz". Which you can create yourself through Twitter and other platforms.

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That's pretty cool! It might not be the next million dollar idea but here's what you can do.

You said you used it to learn new languages correct? Then market it as just that! Make a video about your app in action. Do not make a tutorial or a video of how it works. You don't even need narration! If you want to market it as a language learning tool, then you can have a short creative video about a person visiting a country, taking a bunch of photos, and using your app to get around the city and talking to the locals (just shooting in the dark)

Also you need to go where your customers are. Goto language and speech learning forums and websites and partner up with them! provide a free trial "exclusive" to those members. Do some guest blogging about your experiences when you were learning dutch, join their forums and become a regular! All these things add up, doing just one of them won't get you all of your customers but once it builds up, it will spread on it's own.

You can also visit your local schools (high schools or middle schools) that teach a second language and tell the teachers about your app, show them how it works. Once you do that you can tell the teachers to tell their students about the app as a great offline, out of school practice tool. Of course, you should provide them a discount as it is for a good cause.

Also, next time please share a link to your app and tell us a little more about it, even a name. Don't worry we won't rip you apart. We're nice folks!

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a note to any moderators, I understand you are doing your job and keeping everything in check and upto standards. But must you edit everything everyone writes and make it into a monotone answer that lacks a human touch? Let us show our personality, don't turn us into answer bots please? it's really annoying. I have gone back to some of my answers and noticed you changed my entire sentence and the way I talk, that seems like a misuse of power. – BhargavPatel Feb 26 '12 at 4:27
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Bhargav, I think you make some fair points in your comment. It would be worth posting this as a discussion question on the Meta site so the community can consider it. Would you be open to doing that? – Susan Jones Feb 26 '12 at 6:06
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Can you post in Meta the answer you think is affected by "misuse of power" please. – Ross Feb 26 '12 at 8:08
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Two comments. 1) Posting a link, as you state in your answer, and possibly requesting feedback is against our policy. That is clearly stated in our FAQ, and has been discussed on meta. 2) I just looked at your 50 answers, and did not see a single instance where someone "changed my entire sentence and the way I talk" (your quote). The only thing I saw was that your signature was removed, which again our FAQ clearly states is prohibited. That is hardly a "misuse of power" or "changing entire sentences and the way you talk". Please don't make such wild accusations unless you have evidence of it. – Zuly Gonzalez Feb 26 '12 at 17:31
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If you don't like the site's policy the place to bring it up for discussion is on meta, as the two previous commenters have stated, and I welcome you to do so. I would really like to see the examples where "misuse of power" has occurred, because that should not be tolerated. Please don't leave comments with wild accusations where people are unlikely to see them and cannot defend themselves. I look forward to seeing your meta post, so we can take proper actions to prevent people from abusing their power. – Zuly Gonzalez Feb 26 '12 at 17:40
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As well as alerting app review sites, tech blogs etc, think about where your users are likely to be. For example, Expat forums tend to have people who may be looking to learn a language.

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Thanks Nick for the pointers. I'll direct myself there. – Balkrishna Rawool Feb 25 '12 at 22:23

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