This didn't exactly tell me how to get my app noticed, but how other apps of mine may help get my other apps noticed. However, they need to get noticed first first that..
You need to generate your own installs at first. Google will look at your uninstall ratio, and perhaps other factors. If those factors are good, Google will start pushing you up the keyword and then category rankings in various countries. Then people will start ranking your app, and that will factor in. Google has made some public announcements about what they take into account, and there are many outside accounts out there with guesses, some good, some not, at what helps.
Making an app people want helps. Having a clear, simple icon and clear app name helps. If the app does offline maps, call it Offline Maps. If several reviews and e-mails suggest adding a feature, consider adding the feature. And so on.
I have not found cross-promotion helpful In the mannernthe article says. If you run ads, and get one cent for every ten ads shown on average, then you're losing a cent every ten times you show your ad. It might be cheaper to advertise it in other venues. In some circumstances cross-promotion makes sense. You can set a minimum bid for your ad network, and show your ads when the ad network can't make that bid. Also, for new apps, I often put the first ad in as a cross-promotion ad. I see how the app does, and how much it refers. If all is well and the app is taking off and doing referrals, I put an ad network ad in the app.
We've had that challenge with Umbrella App and have done out best to try to also have it on Google Play, Amazon App Store, F-Droid, direct .apk https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...
Advertising networks usually require them, but if you are the one announcing, you can choose to (not) use whatever you want.
That will get you your 5 minutes^H^H^H^H seconds of internetfame already. However, it will only create a short popularity spike and you constantly have to invest in promotions to keep that up.
The blogpost doesn't tell you to put ads for your other apps into your apps (that would be stupid!), but to think of ways in which they can complement each other. That way you get effortless crosspromotion, can touch vastly different traffic sources and channel users to your main app.
But if your app isn't 'noticed' by the time you have your 'main app' then what users are there to channel into it? Seems like a chicken/egg type deal
Yes, there is a bit of a chicken/egg here, but getting _some_ installs for an app really is not that difficult.
Not really, I'm focusing on the title and intro to the blog post and expecting the post to follow the questions laid out in that.
This current title makes it seem like it's tips for getting the word around about your app (xda, reddit, HN, whatever) and leveraging that, giving away paid versions for free to a specific community etc. At least that's what I'd expect from a post titled like this.