Someone recently posted a question on ‘Quora’ on the most influential design blogs which has received some really impressive lists of the design blogs.

Here are the lists of the 20 most popular design blogs that got voted on the answers-

Smashing Magazine

20 most powerful design blogs – Smashing Magazine

Creative Applications Network

20 most powerful design blogs – Creative Applications Network

Siiimple: Minimalist CSS Gallery

20 most popular design blogs – Siiimple Minimalist CSS Gallery

site inspire

20 most powerful design blogs – site inspire

Six Revisions

20 most powerful design blogs – Six Revisions

tuts+ premium

20 most powerful design blogs – tutplus

Just Creative

20 most powerful design blogs – just creative

CSS based

20 most powerful design blogs – cssbased

Design Observer

20 most powerful design blogs – design observer

UX Booth

20 most powerful design blogs – UX booth

Styleboost

20 most popular design blogs – styleboost

The FWA

20 most powerful design blogs – The FWA

Spyline

20 most powerful design blogs – Spyline

Small Surfaces

20 most powerful design blogs – Small Surfaces

Pttrns 1014

20 most powerful design blogs – Pttrns 1014

LukeW Ideation + Design

20 most powerful design blogs – lukew

Johny Holland – It’s all about Interaction

20 most powerful design blogs – Johny Holland

CSS Mania

20 most powerful design blogs – cssmania

UX Mag

20 most powerful design blogs – UXmag

Dribbble

20 most powerful design blogs – Dribbble

Have your favorites made it in the list? Do you follow through some other awesome blogs? If yes, then do leave them in the comments.

Here’s the 10 effective ways to market your app that every app owner needs to follow

1. Sign up for an app store analytics application

In order to accurately understand your organic app distribution progress, you need to first sign up for an analytics tool. The two most prominent are App Annie and MobileDevHQ.

2. Get featured on App review sites

Submit your app for review to numerous app review sites. Provide a promo code so that the editorial staff can review your app without having to pay for it.

3. Word of mouth (Viral)!

Increase social sharing of content within your app as well as your app itself. Try Path which does an amazing job at simplifying social share.

4. Build a great web landing page

Make a well designed and a simple website for your app. when a potential user Google’s your app, they’ll find both your app’s detail page and your homepage. This in turn helps to convert your website visitors to users.

5. Promote from ads within other apps

Promote your app in interactive ads contained in other iPhone apps. Check out these folks for help Medialets,Quattro Wireless, and AdMob.

6. Promote your mobile app within current customer touch points

Promote your new app on receipts, invoices, monthly statements, etc. You can create attention grabbing stickers,whereever appropriate.

7. Get active on niche blogs and forums

If your app is in a specific niche, find a forum or a blog on the web that has the same niche. Get actively involved by answering questions and commenting as much as possible and leave out the link to your app wherever possible.

8. Create presentations for your app

Create and upload a presentation of your app on www.slideshare.net with description of features and benefits. Creating a demo video for your app also works perfectly to promote the app. So create a demo video not longer than a minute and post it to your website,YouTube and Vimeo.

9. Pricing Strategy

Peggle showed a perfect example of getting a price strategy work by dropping their price from $4.99 to $0.99 for a three day promotion on 11^th June, 2009. As a result on June 16, 2009, Peggle achieved a top ranking on the app store due to the popularity of the offer. But such strategy requires an effective publicity around the promotion.

10. Get noticed in the App store/

Get your app noticed in the app store is the most important point that every app owner needs to pre plan. Customers often browse through the top listed apps. The right name can make or break an app. So, choose a unique and catchy name for your app which should also include the most important keywords that potential users will be searching for.

Here’s an Infographic for the same:

10 ways to increase your mobile app downloads-Infographic

Building an app is a difficult work and marketing it is even tougher. It requires smart strategies and multi faceted approach. Each of the above steps are great tips to march ahead with marketing your app but none are silver bullets.

Are you an app owner or marketer following other tactics to market your app? Is yes, then please feel free to share your tricks!

Here are some emerging favorites among freelancers that haven’t yet hit the mainstream-

Expensify

Creates expense reports that don’t suck by importing expenses and receipts from credit cards and mobile phones.

Creates expense reports that dont suck

Outright

Automates your small business accounting tasks by pulling all of your accounts into one place and organizing them in a smart way.

Automates your small business accounting

Remember the Milk

A popular to-do list application mobile and online task management.

Remember the milk

FreeAgent

“Painless online accounting” for small businesses and freelancers.

Painless online accounting” for small businesses and freelancers

Harvest

Simple time tracking, fast online invoicing and powerful reporting software.

Simple time tracking, fast online invoicing and powerful reporting software.

16bugs

A bug tracking solution with a simple productive interface.

A bug tracking solution with a simple productive interface.

Adroll

A leader in retargeting display advertising

A leader in retargeting display advertising

Capsule CRM

Online CRM for individuals and small teams who want a simple yet affordable solution.

Online CRM for individuals and small teams

Jing

Captures anything you see on your computer screen as an image or short video, and lets share it instantly.

Captures anything you see on your computer screen

Since this survey is conducted only in parts of US and Europe, I am sure a lot of you ‘freelancers’  from other parts of the globe have your own favorites. So, why not share your favorite apps in the comments?

However, acquiring a website alone doesn’t suffice the mission of promoting the business through the same. A website needs to be well optimized to get found on the search engines, and with the volume of websites numbered above there’s a tough competition to be on top positions. Many of us may have considered of SEO as a career or some of us may want to learn it to manage our own website. There are many books to read, video tutorials and blogs to follow. But with all that help on the plate on offer; we still struggle to start off!

How do I start learning Search Engine Optimization? Here are some tips

Below is an interactive infographic by Koozai that will surely help you make your first move towards mastering Search Engine Optimization. So enjoy!

how to learn SEO

Do you find this article helpful? 

If you there are other SEO tips you are referring to; please share it I love reading your stories..

So, follow through the few steps below to enable the featured tab and auto play features to enjoy the increase in ‘View’ counts in no time.

Step.1. Once you have logged in to your ‘YouTube Channel’, you need to navigate to ‘Channel Settings’.

Step.2. On the ‘Channel Settings’ option click on ‘Tabs’ which prompts you different options to manage your ‘YouTube Channel’. But here’s what you need to do –

a)      Select ‘Featured Tab’ option from the drop down list of the ‘default tab’ options.

b)      Click on the ‘Featured’ checkbox.

Enabling the featured tab in the Channel Settings

Step.3. Once you have completed the edits; click on the ‘Done editing’ option at the top right section of the channel settings to save the changes.

Step.4. you can now see the ‘Feature tab’ along with the ‘Feed’, and ‘Videos’. Here’s what you need to do; click on the ‘Add a Featured Video’ option where you need to enable the few options.

a)      Choose a featured video from your uploads.

b)      Make sure to click on the ‘Most Recent Video in Featured Set’ to automatically update the newly added videos as the featured ones.

c)       Finally, here’s the catch make sure to enable the option c) and d) as shown in an image as below.

d)      Hit the ‘Apply’ button.

Applying the settings to enable the featured video option

And Voila there you have your featured video; So now when your channel has a visitor, the video is going to have an auto play; which will add to its view numbers.

Your featured video with an auto play

Let me know if this was helpful by sharing the article or hitting the ‘like’ buttons!

For now relish this first astonishing video ‘Skoda Curriculum Vitae’; the video has enjoyed following awards and merits:-

ADC of Europe 2012 – Motion graphics – Nomination
ADC of Germany 2012 – Corporate Image Film – Nomination
New York Festivals 2012 – Advertising – Bronze World Medal – Animation
New York Festivals 2012 – Advertising – Finalist – Special Effects
CLIO Awards 2012 – Film – Animation – Silver
D&AD London 2012 – Film Advertising Crafts / Animation – Book
New York Festivals 2012 – TV & Film – Gold World Medal – Animation
New York Festivals 2012 – TV & Film – Gold World Medal – Public Relation
Die Klappe 2012 – Visual Effects – Bronze
LIA 2011 – Animation – Finalist
Deutscher Werbefilmpreis 2011 – Animation – Winner
Deutscher Werbefilmpreis 2011 – Music – Finalist
Eurobest 2011 – Film Craft – Animation – Gold
Eurobest 2011 – Film Craft – Visual Effects – Silver