Table of Contents Contents BEFORE YOU READ BEFORE WHO AM I AND WHY HAVE HAVE I DECIDED TO MAKE THIS E BOOK? MY EARNINGS EXAMPLES WHAT IS IS AN ASO? KEYWORDS KEY WORDS IN AN APPLICATION'S TITLE TITLE AND DESCRIPTION CHOOSE CHO OSE YOUR NICHE PROMOTIONAL PRO MOTIONAL GRAPHICS, SCREENSHOTS, SCREENSHOTS, ICONS AND KEYWORDS IN FILE NAMES ICONS SCREENSHOTS PROMOTIONAL GRAPHICS KEYWORDS IN FILE NAMES PLA PL AY STORE CATEGORIES AND A MULTI-CATEGORY TRICK WHY TO USE THESE CATEGORIES? TRA NSL NSLA ATI TIONS ONS - ARE THE THEY Y IM IMPOR POR TANT? WHY WE NEED TRANSLATED TRANSLATED DESCRIPTIONS? DO WE NEED TRANSLATED STRINGS? IND IN DEXING AND RANKING ALGORITHM WHY WH Y ASO EXPERTS, BLOGGER S AND INTERNET GURU SAYS BULLSHIT? BULLSHIT NUMBER 1 - QUALITY MATTERS MATTE RS BULLSHIT NUMBER 2 - MAKE SOCIAL BUZZ AND INFORM YOUR FRIENDS BULLSHIT NU BULLSHIT NUMB MBER ER 3 - SEND YOU YOUR R APPL APPLIC ICA ATI TION ON TO TO REV REVIE IEW W SIT SITES, ES, BLOGS BLOGS AND YOUTUBERS YOU TUBERS BULLSHIT NUMBER 4 - CREATE A LANDING PAGE, START A BLOG, A BLOG, ESTABLISH AN APPLICATION PAGE BULLSHIT NUMBER BULLSHIT NUMBER 5 - GO TO PRESS WE ARE GETTING INSTALLS INSTALLS - GREYHAT METHODS! METHOD 1 1 - CRAPPY APPS, MAXIMUM AUTOMATION AND AUTOPILOT EARNINGS METHOD 2 - THE METCALFE'S LAW METHOD 3 - GAME HACKS METHOD 4 - MP3 DOWNLOADER HOUSE ADS AND HOUSE PUSH NOTIFICATIONS HOW TO MAKE HOUSE ADS WE ARE GETTING INSTALLS IN PAID WAYS HOW TO SET UP YOUR CAMPAING BLACKHAT METHOD - INSTALLS AUTOINSTALL FROM GOOGLE PLAY MONETIZE APPLICA APP LICATIONS TIONS WITH ADS AD NETWORK TYPES AND SOME REPRESENTATIVES AD UNIT TYPES SEVERAL CHEATS AND GUIDES FOR YOUR DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY HOW TO FORCE 5 STARS RATINGS AND NOT GET A BAN
HOW TO CONTROL MY APP REMOTELY SEO TRICKS WITH GOOGLE PLAY APK OPTIMIZATION GOOGLE +1 CHEAT AVOID BAN - GREYHAT AND BLACKHAT METHODS NEEDED TO STAY UNDETECTED HOW IT WORKS IN 2017 - BASICS HOW TO TRICK A MODERATION PROGRESS? NEW ME METHO THOD D - HTML HTML5 5 HOSTED HOSTED APPL APPLIC ICA ATI TIONS ONS CLOAKER METHOD HOW TO CREATE AND MANAGE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Summary
HOW TO CONTROL MY APP REMOTELY SEO TRICKS WITH GOOGLE PLAY APK OPTIMIZATION GOOGLE +1 CHEAT AVOID BAN - GREYHAT AND BLACKHAT METHODS NEEDED TO STAY UNDETECTED HOW IT WORKS IN 2017 - BASICS HOW TO TRICK A MODERATION PROGRESS? NEW ME METHO THOD D - HTML HTML5 5 HOSTED HOSTED APPL APPLIC ICA ATI TIONS ONS CLOAKER METHOD HOW TO CREATE AND MANAGE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Summary
BEFORE YOU READ 1. This e book is not a story but an info-product. Information is everything nowadays. In this e book, I've shared my knowledge with you 2. I am not an English native speaker. If you see any mistakes I am going to fix it in new versions (free for all buyers) 3. You will not find here any advanced coding tutorials. This e book is not about coding and requires minimum knowledge about making applications 4. Format is .epub to make the e book responsible with any screen size. It works with tablets, smartphones, PCs and e book readers. Here you can download a reader app for .epub format: https://www.nextofwindows.com/top-5-epub-reader-for-windows-7 5. Number of pages are not defined and depends to your screen size 6. You can define your own font and font size in an reader application
Copyrights 2017 Lukas Macczak - Different Idea Mobile Applications
[email protected] All rights reserved. Copying without permission is prohibited by law of European Union
WHO AM I AND WHY HAVE I DECIDED TO MAKE THIS E BOOK? Why have I decided to write this e book and share my knowledge with you? I need to introduce myself. My name is Lukas Macczak and I've started to making applications for Android in December 2011. In my six years journey I was looking for the knowledge in Google, blogs, articles and other e books. Everything I've learned was a total bullshit. During those six years, nobody, even single person has helped me to get valuable knowledge about Google Play. Nobody has told me how it orks, how to get organic installs for my applications or monetize my traffic. I've always saw the same articles, the same tips and tricks that not work any more. Who will share working stuff when he can make money without creating a competition? Ask yourself.
WHY I SHARE MY KNOWLEDGE?
I've made hundreds of applications; 350+ were reskins of an existing code from CodeCanyon and Chupamobile, 50 were applications made by me from scratch. I am tired of doing this business and I ant to try something different, a bigger scale and a higher level. After six years I hate making applications. I've used applications and mobile boom to make money and raise capital for my future projects. OK, so why to share it if applications still can earn money? I am a capitalist, money is still money and if I can earn some dollars by selling my knowledge, why not to teach you something? Mobile market is huge, so it's still a place for you and you will not harm my income. I can't waste six years of education and getting experience. I am going to teach you how to make money too. Google Play constantly changes very fast. It's brutal for indie developers. My tips, tricks, cheats and guides works for now and can work in next 1-2 years but you can't predict what Google is going to change. It's like in an SEO industry, you can't be sure to anything in 100%. I've decided to abandon this ship when I can and share what I know with you. It's your decision what are you want to do with it.
HOW HAS IT STARTED?
I 've decided to start making applications in December 2011. My university tutor has told me that he published several applications for iOS and opened my eyes but a macos, an iPhone and a market fee ere so much expensive for me. I've found out that my friends were using HTC, one of the first Android based devices in Poland. At the very beggining the process of creating an app seemed extremely complicated. Also, expensive. But I managed to jump-start my app development without a physical device by using an emulator and since then my journey has begun.. I've created my first application, very simple, it was a timer for a HIIT/Tabata training. This application was very poor but I've not resigned and started to making more and more applications. First money has appeared
very soon. I've started making $30 each day with 5 published applications. I know, it was not impressive income but for some student? It was 100% passive income. Anyway, I've got first money and decided to become a full time indie developer, make more applications and create a bigger money. Soon, my earnings has come to $300 each day with Admob and... Google has banned my developer account. Few months of hard work and education were to go to waste? I was being frustrated for few eeks, writing to Google to unban my account because I've not broken any rules. Google Policy was really simple these days. Then I've decided to fight, opened a new Android Market account and created new applications, result - a ban. Why? Google have many methods to detect multiple developer's accounts and strike them down. I've not stopped. I haven't known it but I've made the best decision in my life when I decided to spam an Android Market store, develop and create grey hat methods. Next months and years I've learned how to be not detected, stay in a shadow, flood the store with massive amount of apps and minimal effort. I've concentrated on making reskinned applications and boosting few more serious projects. I told you in "Before your read" section, this e book is not a story. I stop it now and teach you real things. You can learn the solid knowledge from this ebook. Nobody... ASO guru, blog writters, article makers can't do it. It's based on real six years experience and all these things works in 2017. Let's begin!
MY EARNINGS EXAMPLES
Airpush account number 1 for 2013-2017:
Airpush account number 2 for 2013-2017
These are only samples. I don't want to reveal every ad network what I've used and what I use currently.
WHAT IS AN ASO? If you are an android developer, you know what is that, but do you use it? According to Google Play statistics, 90% of the android developers haven't earned a single cent with their applications. That's hy we have to start with basics. You can skip it if you want. The ASO means the App Store Optimization. It's a continuous process of improving an application visibility in Google Play store.
Attention: Rules of the ASO are different for each store. Appstore and Windows Store are completely different and you can't use tips from this e book in these stores.
I think that most of the ASO experts says bullshit because they tries to move Appstore things to an android evironment. It doesn't work. Why you need the ASO? Do you have a big money? 90% of readers answered negative. If you don't have the money like most of indie developers, you have to use ASO. It's not 2011 when you could just publish application, forget and count dollars. You can try to do it today and get luck but I've tried it. I've published with my team almost 1000 applications in 2016 and just one of them has got 500 downloads. It's impossible now to make proper money without the ASO. The ASO is a process to make your application visible in search scores for choosen keywords. It can generate a snowball effect with Google's recommendation mechanism. If you know an SEO (the search engine optimization) it can be similar for a search engine in Play Store. You can increase your positions in rankings and get a lot organic installs, thanks to the ASO. Without the ASO your application will die never get discovered. I have good news for you, 90% of applications developers not uses any ASO so their applications are ust a trash that you need to avoid. Ofcourse, it depends only to you if you use my tips, tricks and methods.
The most important goals for the ASO in Google Play store:
get positions for keywords rankings are not important any more: top new, top apps are not visibile in mobile app of Google Play store we can't concentrate on rankings social: we need to get into recommendation lists and "used by friends" what are dynamic for each Play Store user maximum visibility in Play Store
You can see now that Google Play is a lot different than Appstore where brand and ranking are the most imporant. Search engine in Apple Store is much worse than in Google Play. That's why keywords are almost everything but also currently social.
KEYWORDS IN AN APPLICATION'S TITLE AND DESCRIPTION This is the most important aspect of your ASO
Your application will not be discovered ever without keywords in your description and title. Perfect quality? Unique and the innovative application? It's not imporant without keywords. Let's analyze samples, an application for downloading music. Title can be be simple, "Music Download" or "Cool - Music Download". First sample is a generic name with keywords, second is a brand + generic name. Please, look at competition, for example Avast. They are using "Avast - Free Antivirus" in their title where a "free antivirus" is not a name of the software. The "Free Antivirus" phrase is translated to every language to trick Google and get higher positions in Play Store. People don't search for "avast" but for the "free antivirus". If you call your application a "Super Duper 2017 Awesome App", nobody will find it ever. You will get zero installs and cash. People are simple, they don't look for applications, they want features. You need to inform them about features very fast in your application title. Please note that the title is a lot stronger in the ASO than the description. How to make the proper title? First rule, you can't use more than 2 keywords. It's very important to not spread a power of your phrase. Ofcourse with more keywords you can be listed for more words but your positions will be a lot orse. Better to use "Mp3 Download" than "Mp3 Wav Flac Music Download". Don't you think? We need strong positions but not average for a lot of keywords. Long tail is not working in Play Store. The description is less important than titles but still we need to do it well. Please find in Google Search some "keyword density" tools. They are 100% free. Your description have to be natural. Google Play bot can recognize if your description was created just for keywords. Write like a human being, not some SEO spam machine. First sentence is the most important. Please, use your choosen keywords from title: usic Download is an application that can help you to search for music, discover independent artists, download mp3... etc. Your keywords can't appear more than 5x in your description. More ke ywords can turn on a red flag for Google bot to punish your application. That's why keyword density tools are needed for ou.
CHOOSE YOUR NICHE It's another important aspect of the proper ASO. With a good niche you can make amazing money but ithout it, you will not earn a single cent. If you want to make a next great music player, file manager, memory cleaner or calcualator, forget about it. You can make it for just fun but not for generating money. There are thousands of music players, file manager, calculators or memory cleaners. Competition is huge and even if your application is unique and high quality, it's almost impossible to boost this kind of applications. It's 100% sure that some developer made a high quality application ith excatly your "unique" features and a good design. When people are watching search results, they usualy check first 10-20 applications. Why they should spend more time for searching for excatly your application? It's nonsense. You need the really good niche. How to choose it when everything has invented and made? Go into services like: Appbrain Sensor Tower AppAnnie I will not teach you how to use these sites. Try yourself and discover their features. They are very easy to use. Check applications from top new rankings, popular in categories, for your keywords and find your competition. If some application have less than 50 competitiors, it's worth to get into this niche. It's easier to beat 50 developers than few thousands. Second method to find your niche is following trends and a pop culture. Some of big company is releasing a game? Last sample was Pokemon Go. Start making guides for game faster than competition. It's really working. Pokemon Go, Flappy Bird, Mario, Fifa, GTA guides have made millions of installs! They are easy to make and easy to monetize. Another examle are movies or TV series. The Bigh Bang Theory TV series had "whip sound" application in one episode. Many developers copied this app very fast and got few milions of downloads. Easy and profitable.
PROMOTIONAL GRAPHICS, SCREENSHOTS, ICONS AND KEYWORDS IN FILE NAMES This is psychological aspect of your ASO, something that can make your app unique in search results
ICONS
In Google Play, icons are 512x512 PNG and 24bit images with transparency. Icon is an information carrier in Play Store. ASO experts advice to make it simple with a shape, symbol or brand logo, for example the folder shape for file manager or speaker for a music application. WRONG! You can't do it unless you are building a brand and have a huge budget to exist in people memory. You are anonymous for most of users and they quick forget about your great symbol or perfect graphics. Let's use the icon to tell users about your application's features. 1. In your Photoshop or GIMP create a 512x512 square 2. Paint it with a solid color 3. Choose a good and visibile font, for example Impact and write big keywords from your title. Some samples: "WiFi HACKER", "MUSIC DOWNLOAD", "MP3 DOWNLOADER", "FILE MANAGER", depends to your niche The font have to be big, clean and readable. Everyone have to a read text, even on small screens. 4. You can add some unique elements but don't ruin the text visibility 5. Avoid more than 2 words in the text The ASO experts and Google Play says to avoid the text on icons but it's something opposite. I think the icon is first what your user can see. When every developer uses perfect simple shapes, graphics, vector, your icon will be unique with the text. From my experience, users are looking for features and not for graphics. Users have deeply in their asses your great logo, symbol or 3d graphics. They remember only the biggest brands like Rovio or Pokemon Go. I don't remember such big brands like Endomondo or Gameloft. You are here to make money, not create new brands. If you want to make brands, this ebook is not for you and you have more resources than indie developers. There are few billions of icons in Google Play store. User will never remember your icons.
SCREENSHOTS
Screenshots are required by Google Play console to publish your application. You have to make it and you need to have higher graphics skills than for icons. People don't read descriptions, they look at screenshots and this is 99% of their decission process before they install your application. If you haven't graphics skills, use Fiverr or Graphicsriver. Screenshots have to be professional. Size have to have 1:2 aspect ratio and 500px 1000px resolution. 1. Create an 500x1000 image and fill it with a solid color or a gradient 2. Put text on the top of a screenshot -font Impact -in the every screenshot describe an app feature in max two keywords, for example "Music Free", "Great Songs", "MP3 Download" -you need 3 screenshots, not two because it looks like an amateur job 3. Below text paste some shape of a device like Samsung and inside the shape put screenshot of your application -you can download free shapes from Deviant Art, Freepic or buy from Graphicsriver -avoid logos, find shapes of devices without logos -file sizes have to be small, use a JPG and not a PNG. Most of users have a slow internet and the screenshot loading can be too long. User may quit your app page before install the application
PROMOTIONAL GRAPHICS
They have to be more professional than icons and screenshots. However, I prefer simple graphics. 1. Make 1024:500 shape, fill with a solid color or a gradient 2. Put some shape or flat vector about your application -you can find many free on Freepics or buy from Graphicsriver 3. Using font Impact, describe your application main feature like "Music Download" 4. You can add some unique elements but a text have to be clean
KEYWORDS IN FILE NAMES
Google Play indexing bots reads file names of your graphics! Nobody will tell you about it. I've made experiment with this and called one of my screenshot with a weird keyword. As a result Google has indexed my application for this keyword. Even if Google Play on a client side have different file names, the indexing bot can index original names. So call your files, for example: "mp3_downloader.png" "music_download.png"
"free_music_download.jpg" It's few minutes for you and can help your app. If you are chaning names, don't forget also about EXIF tags, they can help also.
PLAY STORE CATEGORIES AND A MULTI-CATEGORY TRICK Each application in Google Play store have it's own category, for example Applications-Tools or Applications-Music. Some categories are very popular, you can read about it by searching a web. Google publishes such data sometimes. I am not going to describe it here, it's your decisions how you categorize your application. I want to tell you something that you cannot hear anywhere else from any ASO guru. Your application can appear in multiple categories in Google Play. Additiional to a main category, you have hidden subcategories in Play Store. tablet 7" tablet 10" tv devices widget livewallpaper Wear devices VR (new category) Each of cate gories have a different top 500 ranking for each country. Hovewer, you can put our app into more categories in some conditions.
To appear in tablets category, you have to put layout folders inside your application and screenshots in Google Play console. You can use the same layout and screenshots, a content is not important. You need to just put folders with specific names inside your res directory. res/layout/main_activity.xml - for phone devices res/layout-sw600dp/main_activity.xml - for 7" tablet devices res/layout-sw720dp/main_activity.xml - for 10" tablet devices After adding directories inside your application, go to Google Play console and include tablet screenshots to your application listing. You can use phone screenshots.
TV category demands a manifest declaration and a TV activity, you can read here how to add it: http://developer.android.com/training/tv/start/start.html It can be the empty activity and redirecting to your main activity. It's not imporant, we don't target our application for TV devices, we need the category only. You can add Wear in similar way but it's little more complicated. Please go into Google developer documentation, it's not a coding e book. Widget and Live Wallpaper categories demands declarations in a manifest and some files inside your
application. Ofcourse, it can be the empty widget and livewallpaper. You can find a code very fast on StackOverflow. There are dozens tutorials in web.
WHY TO USE THESE CATEGORIES?
Each additional category means more keywords for you. More keywords are higher rankings, better positions. In connection with next chapters, translations it's insane boost for each application. Google Play works like an SEO index. More keywords in different places connected to your app means a bigger ASO power.
TRANSLATIONS - ARE THEY IMPORTANT? Google says in their documentation that translations are not important. I understand them, they have auto-transator script in their application and website. Hovewer, if translations are not important for an user because he see an auto-translated description, they are important for developers. The autotranslated descriptions from Google's tools are not indexed. It's an 100% dynamic progress and can't increase your positions. Do you know Czech, Polish or Russian? This is not important but you have to add these languages in your Google Play developer console. You can use Google Translator service, copy&paste or buy translations. I advice you to use the translator. I know that quality can't be good but people don't read your description. They make their decisions by watching screenshots and application titles.
WHY WE NEED TRANSLATED DESCRIPTIONS?
Google Play have more than 70 languages It means that you have 70x DIFFERENT descriptions, 70x more keywords but it's not all. If we use multiple-category tricks from previous chapter, our application's page is multiplied. In result we have 500+ places where our application is indexed. Normal category in 70 languages + a widget 70 + a live wallpaper 70 + a tablet 7" 70 + a tablet 10" 70 +a tv 70 + a wear 70 = 490 more "backlinks". When we include recommendations pages, top 500 rankings, friend's choice, we have thousands of places where our application can be visible and discovered by user.
MY TEST RESULTS: applications with descriptions translated with Google Translate have 4080% more installs INSTANT.
You can get translated descriptions using: Google Translate Bing Translate Paid feature in Google Play console (cost $150 but they translate also strings in your application) Make your own translation tool and connect it with Google Play Console API (I made my own in Java and connected it to Google Translate, it allows me to automate a process) DO WE NEED TRANSLATED STRINGS?
Google Play console can read if you have translated strings in your APK file. It's not proven if they use it for indexing but ofcourse it's worth to add the most used languages to your application. You don't need to translate it. Important is a folder structure for languages. Add a folder like strings-de, strings-fr, etc. to your structure. Tested, Google Play console regonizes it correct.
INDEXING AND RANKING ALGORITHM Google has changed algorithms in 2017. Every rankings and top new categories are not imporant now as like before. Sometimes Google manipulate their application and rankings are not even visible for users. We have new invisible rankings, they were always here but now they are the strongest. Rankings for custom keywords and you can check it with AppAnnie. You have to know what users ant to find exactly and get positions for keywords. If you want to boost your application you need to use ASO or CPI keyword installs. You cannot do this in other ways. Main part of Google Play algorithm is the same. Still important is time / amount of installs. You have to deliver as many installs you can in the shortest time you can and keep it for next 7-14 days. In addition, you have to get also big review amount with keywords. Hovewer, you have to keep ratio 10:1 between rating without review and comments.10 ratings and 1 review. Developers thinks that 30 days 'fresh app period' isn't important any more. Wrong! I think its still important. Application without enough installs on the beginning can disapear in Google Play and it ill be very hard to bring it back. My friend has bought installs for $50 000 and he hasn't got it back. Only way in such situation is republish it with new package.
ATTENTION
In 2017 fake reviews and installs not works. Google will punish your application by kicking it from search results and delete fake installs/reviews. I read on many forums and blogs that every site is selling fake installs/reviews. It's a wrong conclusion. What is fake and how does Google detect it? Let's analyze a sample: ayetstudios, cpimobi, keyapp.top. Installs from these services can be marked as "fake". The problem is that their users can receive real money for installing and reviewing applications. They are repeating intalls and reviews many, many times ( I had one site like this and in my experience, it's 20-50x!). Google checks retention in applications. If they see that someone installed it only for one time open, for review and then for uninstall, it's a fake action. Especialy these users install next application after few minutes to get more cash. Nobody normal install 50 applications / day and review to uninstall in next few minutes. Google tracks retention and it's very easy to detect fake installs. I\ve bought 10 000 installs in one of mentioned CPI services and lost all next day. Google has suspended my application for ranking manipulations. What paid installs are safe? You can buy installs only from a CPM advertisement like banners or social. Facebook ads, Appbrain, Mobfox, Admob, etc. Users are 100% random and install your application because they want to check it, not for receive few cents reward. Sadly, this advertisement is more expensive.
WHY ASO EXPERTS, BLOGGERS AND INTERNET GURU SAYS BULLSHIT? BULLSHIT NUMBER 1 - QUALITY MATTERS
They says, "concentrate to make the best quality applications". Make your application perfect with the best and richest features to amaze your customers. Everything is ok and make sense but ask yourself how much time you can sacrifice to make this application. I think it's much better to check your niche first. I know many of developers who were making their applications for long weeks and months. In the result, they hasn't got even 100 installs because their ASO hasn't existed or a niche has been insane useless. People haven't needed these applications. So what to do? Make your applications ith worse quality. Do not sacrifice more than one week for a development progress. Create many applications instead of one with the highest quality. If you can observe that you have installs and people are interested to your application, then recode, redesign and update your application with higher quality. Google Play's users can download everything, even the biggest crap with a massive amount of bugs. It's better to check your niche and keywords before you sacrifice a time for development. Starting quality is not important for getting installs. People downloads everything with nice screenshots and promotional graphics.
BULLSHIT NUMBER 2 - MAKE SOCIAL BUZZ AND INFORM YOUR FRIENDS
Are you popular or famous person? Are you Pew Die Pie? If you are not famous, forget about social buzz. Ofcourse, it's cool to tell your friends about your new app but consider it. How many installs you can bring in this way? 10-100-1000? It's not a lot to boost your application in search results. Spamming friends isn't the best way for getting installs. You are not Rovio. People doesn't like spam and nobody installs applications from your Facebook board.
BULLSHIT NUMBER 3 - SEND YOUR APPLICATION TO REVIEW SITES, BLOGS AND YOUTUBERS
Do you have money for a promotional campaing? If not, forget about it. Ofcourse, your application can get some reviews but how many installs you can get from this channel? My friend has paid $1000
for review in one of the top 5 Android portals in the USA. He has got only 300 installs for $1000 investment! Very expensive and not effective. You can say that many sites offers free reviews. I understand it but how many requests they get every day, week and month? Each day we have 1000+ new applications in Google Play. Developers floods review services every day with new requests.Getting reviewed by a popular portal is like winning some lottery. You loose your time and can get frustrated. I have the same opinion about youtubers, social pages owners and bloggers. Ofcouse, If you have friends lie Piew Die Pie, you can try, not a problem. Hovewer, I can guarantee that he has closed his public mailbox and can't even read your request.
BULLSHIT NUMBER 4 - CREATE A LANDING PAGE, START A BLOG, ESTABLISH AN APPLICATION PAGE
Do you have money for a normal classic SEO? It's more expensive than ASO. Ofcourse, you can spam web with your website but you can also do it directly to your app page in Google Play, result is the same. People doesn't trust some landing pages, thanks to affiliate marketers.
BULLSHIT NUMBER 5 - GO TO PRESS
Ofcourse! Thousands of journalists are waiting for your application! They haven't anything else to do but wait for your appplication to make great article. That was a joke. Without money and contacts in media you haven't any chance to go to press. Nobody write about some anonymous applications from indie developer before they get succed.
There are only few examples of bullshit. What I want to teach you is that normal traditional web have low connection to Google Play. People use their smartphones for talking, listening to music, watching movies and play with applications. They doesn't read blogs with application reviews, technology portals and social. If they need some application, they turn on Google Play store. If you haven't money to flood the internet with your applications then you have to concentrate on the ASO and forget about review sites, blogs and social. You can say that social can be different. How? Your friends are limited. Facebook have security methods to no spread information too far. Chance for global viral is like lotto win. Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter? Same problem. "Viral free times" has over. You can't make viral without enough money. That's why the most of ASO experts fails in their advices.
WE ARE GETTING INSTALLS GREYHAT METHODS! Attention: you need to have many Google Play accounts for these methods. You can learn how to create and manage multiple accounts in next chapters
METHOD 1 - CRAPPY APPS, MAXIMUM AUTOMATION AND AUTOPILOT EARNINGS
Every method from this book is not moral. This method is based on a human stupidity. People installs everything with nice screenshots, promotional graphics and keywords. It can be incompatible with the Google Play policy. What is crappy application? Imagine that you can create hundreds of applications each month and flood Google Play with your products. How is it possible? Hundreds of apps each month? Ofcourse, these apps are low quality. You can make one in ust one hour or day (if you want little higher quality). I've made thousands of apps like this. Some samples: I've made 50 wallpaper apps in one day based on one engine. Other examples are jokes, love tests, solar chargers, battery optimizers, wifi hackers or internet boosters. You can check it yourself in Google Play. Just type a word "prank" in a search bar. You can find thousands of these apps with incredible download stats. Solar chargers with millions of installs? People are incredible stupid, most of them can't even imagine that they will not charge a device with sun. They downloads even wifi hackers in hope that they can break a wifi password. Most of people are technological morons. We will use them. Do you really think that hundreds of developers produces these apps for a fun or hobby? They uses morons to boost they real applications and make money. Imagine that you have 100 crappy applications. Each of them have 100 installs / day. Maybe it's not impressive but together they have 10 000 installs /day. Ofcourse, these apps have a poor retention rate and you can't make a lot money directly from them but you can transfer all these users to your higher quality apps. You can learn more about transfering users between apps in "House ads" chapter. It's a still powerfull method. Stupid people are unlimited, for example internet boosting apps were popular in 2011 but in 2017 they still have incredible download stats. It demands a lot of work but I strongly belive it's orth.
METHOD 2 - THE METCALFE'S LAW
THE Metcalfe's Law says that the value of a tellecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system. (n2). The network with two users have not so valuable. Every next user connected to every previous user is increasing value and stability.
We can transfer it to our app business. I've invented a way how to have many of applications and multiple amount of installs. It's an installation multiplier. Attention: this method is strongly not allowed by Google Play and can generate ban in long term. I advice to use 7 days after app publication and not before because a human moderator can check your application. 1. In our sample we have a Sound Booster application 2. Let's make 4 copies with different UI (mostly colors) 3. Implement a remote controlled AlertDialog into each of applications Dialog text: "We just updated our app, please install update to use it" Button YES: redirect to Google Play to 1st app Button NO: finish(); and close application Alert have to be controlled remotely to activate and deactivate any moment. When you want to boost an app number 1, then activate dialog in 3 others. When you feel that application is boosted in search results, disable it immediately to prevent a ban! Ofcourse, you can switch promotion to an app number 2, number 3... I don't advice to have more apps than 4 in your small system. You risk only 4 Google Play accounts. You can replicate sets of 4 apps to more accounts but separated. I've seen exactly the same method used by TV remote applications. Developer have 1-5 mln downloads and... 500 000 ratings now. Just check niche "tv remote" in Play Store. He uses exactly this method with AlertDialog. More chances, installs, keywords and ratings. This method is very profitable. You can also connect it ith different methods, mix them and use with house ads. Applications with this trick can grow very fast.
Here is diagram about the idea from Wikipedia:
METHOD 3 - GAME HACKS
What game players want the most? Hack for games. They want to cheat and get an advance before other players. Gamehacks is a strong business, so let's cheat cheaters. Currently my gamehack apps have 700 000 active users. Thanks that we can boost our main application without a big risk and pretty safe. You can connect it with previous methods. 1. Please, search for a popular game for example Clash of Clan. Avoid new hits because Google hunts for a brand issues harder 2. Application have to be with LEGAL tips, tricks, solutions for game. ATTENTION - without any real cheats, hacks and codes. We don't want get a ban. In your application avoid to use any original graphics and materials. Pure text! 3. In an application we need a big banner activated remotely. TEXT: "Give me cheats" or "Give me free game". It have to be big and appears in every possible activity! In a default keep it disabled and activate after 7 days to avoid a detection. 4. You need a webhosting now, can be free. Create a simple html website and put on the hosting, connect this website to your in an app's button. The website text: -install an application xxx to verify that you are not a bot -rate and review the app -we will give you cheat codes in 72h -button with our promoted app link in format market://details?ind=com.snapchat.android
5. You can use some pretty button with a text "Verify" Ofcourse, the best if your application and html page is well designed and not amateur. That's all, we don't need anything more. You can experiment with promotional graphics but avoid to use original materials. My 700 000 user base score? I can redirect 1000 people / day to a promoted application and it's growing faster then. Nothing more is important. I have just 50 apps like game hacks.
METHOD 4 - MP3 DOWNLOADER
Try to find a "mp3 downloader" niche in Google Play. You can find hundreds of downloaders with free APIs like Jamendo, Hearthis, FreeMusicArchive, CCmixter or SoundCloud players. It's a massive and incredible spam. People will always search for free pirated music, it hasn't changed since Napster released. They always want to have a free music when even the legal music is really cheap. Let's allow them to do this. We can use a free API with the creative common 3.0 music (Jamendo, Hearthis, FreeMusicArchive). Standar user is 100% moron and he can't see any difference between the commercial music and independent artists. Applications with the free music can generate millions of users without any promotion. I've earned myself 60 000$ with mp3 downloaders. *we can use them standalone *we can use them with previous methods Here are two examples of my mp3 downloaders and earnings in Airpush:
Second
HOUSE ADS AND HOUSE PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
Our install methods are shady, not moral and very risky. 100% sure that we can get a ban soon or later. Don't worry. Money is more important than some ban when banned account can earn 100x more than it's cost. You can't loose users. They are a value, not the account.
House ads are just an ad system inside your application. After the ban you can fast and almost instant move your users to new apps and new accounts. Ofcourse, there is some % of loose but you haven't any choice. It's the only method to defend and increase your user base in a time. House ads were used by original 4 pics 1 word game creator. Google has banned this app without a reason for 6 times! Each time app has come back. Developer was redirecting old users to new versions and boosting it. After month, Google has stopped. App has got 10 mln users in a single day. How? Because house ads and user base are independent to Google Play.
HOW TO MAKE HOUSE ADS
you can make it simple, just implement a html website with app offers (find Dexati developer in Google Play, install one of his older apps and click a "more apps" button, it's the html website). You can display it instead of your main activity's content or outside application in emergency situations to get back your userbase more advanced, build whole ad system with a mysql/php, it's not a coding book so I can't make it for you. The e book would have 1000 pages, it's not a goal. More advanced systems allows you to use some geotargeting and multiple ads an another way is push notification house ads, just send notifications with a link to your new app. Attention: you can send it only for a banned app. Before, it can be reason of the ban. You can keep a deactivated system in apps without risk. The good thing that there are many free push notifications systems like OneSignal. You can make a reasearch in Google and then decide. Push notifications requires GCM permissions in a manifest
I WILL NOT RELEASE ANY APP WITHOUT HOUSE ADS. IT"S VERY RISKY. YOU CAN BE BANNED ANYTIME WITHOUT A REASON. EVEN YOU HAVE A GREAT GAME AND NOT BREAKING ANY RULES. KEEP YOUR USERBASE IN A SAFE PLACE.
WE ARE GETTING INSTALLS IN PAID WAYS Sometimes we have to invest to make money faster. We need to buy installs, how to do this in an effective way?
RULES
1. Avoid forums, most of them mmwa (forums making money with android) - you can be scammed easy blackhatworld - you can try only if a seller have a perfect reputation and an approved official thread 2. Spread your funds between many companies. Do not put your cash in a single service. Their installs can be deleted by Google very fast. I use 5 different company for $1000 budget. $200 each one.
3. Spread your funds in every campaing 80% third day after release. Do not publish at weekend unless you have a crappy application for building a user base. First 2 days are for a moderation to check your app. Any installs in first 2 days are useless. Why 80%? You need to get into good positions rapidly. 20% campaing funds spread for next 7 days to keep constant installs currently you need to deliver 5000 installs minimum to change anything, in a next year it can be 10 000. It depends to the market saturation and a niche do not invest to buy 200 installs, it's useless
Attention: avoid companies with cash reward applications. They pays users for installs and reviews. Google can delete it very fast. I described it in previous chapters (about Google Play algorithm). Some of companies to avoid: ayetstudios, cpimobi, keyapptop, buyinstall.net You shoud avoid also Tapjoy, Supersonic and CPA services. They allows usage in cash reward applications. Good sources of installs: Appbrain, Facebook, Mobfox, Inmobi, Appnext
BLACKHAT METHOD - INSTALLS ATTENTION: can be not allowed in your country!
We can use blackhat methods legal but they are not moral and can be not allowed in your country. Make sure that you will not go into a jail. I can't describe you details like code examples. If you are a developer, you understand it and can do it yourself.
AUTOINSTALL FROM GOOGLE PLAY
Imagine that you have 100 applications with greyhat methods, for example 100 game hack type applications and overall 100 000 active users. By using the autoinstall method you can move ALL these users instant to your next applications and manipulate ranking. This is not allowed in Google Play and they can ban your entire usersbase but it's not all. They can suggest to users to remove it from devices because it's a malware. Hovewer, if you want to risk because see a potential, your choice. There are two methods to do it, both demands user credentials. First method demands a user trust. You have to display a Google Account login website on a locked screen. (System Alert Permission). Use a WebView for this and save cookies, history and all data in it's config. When user Google login and screen is locked, I bet 80% that he will provide data. I checked it in the past with my stats systems. After that you have saved credentials and you can use it in your application almost forever. Next step is to use your service. You have to set up it when the user cannot see it, for example at night. Using the service, run the webview with Google Pay website and your promoted application. In ebview, you need to execute a java script code for a "button install". Once it's executed, an installation starts in background. Close the webview and service. App is installed!
*I cannot tell you the javascript code to execute in the webview. You can check it yourself in a Google Play web version **currently this method is active but I don't know if they change it in the future. Kaspersky Labs has reported but they hasn't fixed it for 1 year Using this you can also: auto-review auto-rate make a fake retention
Second method is a lot harder but I want to explain you how advanced blackhat devs do it. It's similar, we still need the webview but credentials can be catched from a Google Play application. You need rooted devices for this method, so it's useless in Play Store for me. While Google Play application is still running, it's possible to get credentials from a temporary folder.
Attention: I don't want to advice you to break a law. Manipulating other accounts, systems and devices is forbidden in almost every country. If you want, it's only with your own responsibility.
MONETIZE APPLICATIONS WITH ADS If we have greyhat and blackhat applications, the only way to monetize them are ads. Hovewer, it's the gigantic market that allows you to earn millions of dollars.
AD NETWORK TYPES AND SOME REPRESENTATIVES
1. CPM TYPE ADS - we use them for the most time. They pays for impressions. ECPM values is calculated for each 1000 views. If you get $1 for 1000 views, your ecpm value is $1. The ecpm value depends to your geo. Tier 1 countries like USA, Canada and UK have bigger ECPM than Russia. Advertisers pays more in richer countries. There are no clean ECPM ad networks. They are combined with PPC or PPA systems. This means pay per click and pay per action. It's good for developer. You can get money for impressions, clicks and actions. Action means for example website registration or app download. Click and action payments depends to CTR factor (click rate). If you have a lot of clicks and no action, then your cash can be lower. High CTR factor is not good in mobile. REPRESENTATIVES: Admob, Facebook Ads, Airpush, Startapp
2. CPA / CPI ADS - you can get money only for actions, views are not important. Cash can be a lot bigger than with ECPM type. You can get between 10c to $100 for action. It's usualy app install or website registration but also dating sites membership. Ad networks in this model doesn't offer any SDK for app developers. You have to manage offers yourself. This is perfect model if you have big house ads system with geotargeting features. Earnings are usualy 5-10x bigger than normal ad network but demands a lot of work with offers managment. REPRESENTATIVES: CPALead, Adscend Media, YeahMobi
3. PUST NOTIFICATION ADS - display ads in notification bars. Not allowed in Google Play store. You can get money in CPM/CPC/CPI model. Very annoying for users and very profitable. You can activate it when your app is banned. REPRESENTATIVES: Airpush, Leadbolt AD UNIT TYPES
banners, you can find it mostly in an Admob ad network. Standard banner is displayed on the top or on the bottom of screen in your application. Results for banners are very poor in 2017. People don't click in banners, probably you can get very low ecpm and ctr values for banners. They also ruin an application's UI. I think the banner era finished. intersititial - full screen ads with offers and rich graphics. Can be very interesting for users if a design is nice. Best ecpm and ctr values in 2017 video ads- full screen video intersititials, very annoying for users and I observed that people can delete your application just because these ads. You cannot skip most of them. animated overlay screen elements - some networks like Airpush have this in their inventory. It's a floating banner with a nice design. Results are similar to interesititial. native ads - the most effective ads, looks like an application's interface. They are perfect for white hat applications with a high retation rate
SEVERAL CHEATS AND GUIDES FOR YOUR DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY HOW TO FORCE 5 STARS RATINGS AND NOT GET A BAN
You can see in Google Play. Many of apps have not normal rating numbers. If an application have 10 000 installs and 5 000 stars, it's not normal but can be natural. That's why Google Play doesn't delete it because users are 100% organic. You can use AlertDialog to force 5 stars with text "Give me 5 stars or close app". Button Yes > go to Play Store. Button No> finish(); Ofcourse, this method is very simple and can be detected by Google very easy. You can't use it in this way. How to do it without a ban risk? 1. Do not use strings. Make your AlertDialog graphical. Make a text in some photoshop and you can use it in a custom dialog xml 2. Do not publish an application with the activated dialog. Activate it remotely after few days. If you see that you have enough ratings and stars, disable it! You can control it with some json files on your server (the next method). This can protect your application against a bot detection and moderator actions. Usualy, the moderator leaves your app and forgets about it after few days. You will be out of a manual control unless for example huge reports numbers from users. Don't worry, few hundreds of reports for app ith 50 000 downloads can't turn on a red flag for the moderator.
HOW TO CONTROL MY APP REMOTELY
JSON should become your friend. You can change an application behavior remotely very easy. Ofcourse, you can use also txt, sql database or anything else but I prefer simple JSON files and Android have many free libraries to manage it. Volley, GSON, Retrofit, custom parsers, etc. Unlimited possibilites. 1. Create a json file (check some tutorials in a web) and put it on your server, can be even a free hosting 2. Parse the json file in your app 3. Depends to values of json variables, change an application behavior. You can enable / disable ads, rating systems, house ads.
If you leave your apps without any control, it's a mistake. If Google ban your app you can loose your entire userbase. *Instead of using files, you can try push notifications to control your applications. Hovewer, it demands GCM permissions.
HOW TO MONETIZE GREYHAT APPS WITH A GREYHAT METHOD
It's simple solution. You need to break Google Play rules but you know about if. It's the greyhat method. How to monetize apps when you have a poor retention rate? (for example game hacks or livewallpapers)? We need to display ads outside our applications! It's prohibited in Google Play policy but we can stay undetected: 1. Use a service class with timer. The service should open itself after some time period. I advice to use 1 hour. Bigger frequency is a high uninstall rate 2. The service have to open Activity (Translucent, no title bar, exluded from recent tasks - find these features in Google) If you use these features, user can't get know what application generates ads. 3. We run intersititials ads on just opened Activity. Don't forget about your network listeners. If user clicked an ad, close it. If no fillrate, close it. In this way we can monetize our active users easily, even if a retention rate is 0%. Ofcourse we can loose our userbase slowly but you have stable revenue even after a ban. Currently one of my apps from 2011 have $10/day. Banned in 2012. You can connect it also with house ads systems. To avoid the ban, keep it deactivated with the json file (the previous method) and enable it after you have a big userbase. The good userbase to make $50/day are 10 000 active users. Google will not ban you, they doesn't control all applications in a real time. You have to be really big to bring an attention but then you don't need it. By using this method an ecpm is going down a little
SEO TRICKS WITH GOOGLE PLAY
Standard SEO it's not necessary but can give you good results. Use the standard SEO for a faster indexation in Play Store. Ofcourse, The SEO is big thing but we can concentrate only on:
microsites on Blogger mini blogs on Wordpress Create 50 microsites and fill them with the SEO articles about your app and with a direct link to Play Store. Put keywords inside each each article. Lenght should be 500-1000 characters. If you have a massive ammount of these articles, then use some ping services. With this simple trick our app can be indexed better and faster in Google Play.
APK OPTIMIZATION
Proguard should become your friend! It's not imporant that it's hard to set up and can generate dozens of configuration errors. You need to get into this because of two reasons: Google Play have 1+ billion users, 70% of them have 3G or 2G only. Smaller application is a bigger chance that user will not break a downloading progress in December 2011 Google introduced a new algorithm and officialy favor smaller apps in a search engine
GOOGLE +1 CHEAT
You need Google +1 votes to build your a social arround the app and appear on recommendation pages in Google Play. Overall, Google Plus service is dead but Google still uses it to recommend apps for users. You need get organic pluses to increase your social factors. Let's force users to give +1: include Google +1 in your applications, there is a good instruction inside developer documentations make a custom dialog with a count down timer class for example 1 minute ask users for vote on your applications or make them wait for 1 minute you can use it with a remote control to enable/disable a huge user base allows you to open next revenue stream, you can start selling pluses on your own webiste or Ebay
AVOID BAN - GREYHAT AND BLACKHAT METHODS NEEDED TO STAY UNDETECTED There are many methods to help you to avoid bans. Google Play changes every day and some methods can stop work tomorrow. You need to think how to fool Google Bouncer (a bot's system).
HOW IT WORKS IN 2017 - BASICS
Google Bouncer cheks your applications just after you click a Save (NOT PUBLISH) button in Google Play Developer Console their checkout progress finishes after 15 minutes mostly and the bot never comes back to your application random apps can be checked by a human moderator or 100% checked if the bot has turned on a red flag the human moderator can check your application maximum 7 days after publication and never comes back to your app unless users are not mass reporting it How I know it? Google Bot and the human moderator have active internet connection. I've checked them, their IPs, location, devices with my stat tools and my own servers.
HOW TO TRICK A MODERATION PROGRESS?
do not display a bad content in your application. Greyhat methods like manipulating rating or an outside app monetization can be controlled remotely. Please disable it and enable after some time try to use coding languages that can't be checked by the bot examples: C# for Unity3D games, HTML5 hosted apps, native C encrypt your strings with AES algorithms ATTENTION: Base64 turns on the red flag for the moderator! Try to use 3rd party encoding libraries The main idea is to hide anything bad from the bot (make impossible to check) and insivible for human moderators. You can ofcourse mix methods and create your own solutions but rules is one, think and change solutions always!
NEW METHOD - HTML5 HOSTED APPLICATIONS
I've invented and used this methods to publish in Play Store mp3 downloaders with a Youtube music source. The idea is to not store your code in APK file. In native apps put only a WebView element, some translucent settings and hide a title bar. Then display your "app" inside the WebView. It looks almost the same as like a native material desing created app. The idea is simple: 1. Make your app in AngularJS + bootstrap with a material design library (you can find some on Github) 2. Publish legal apps in Google Play Store without any bad code 3. After 7 days change a html app on your hosting for a bad app. In my case I've added "Download Mp3" buttons for Youtube Player and forced 5 stars 4. Profit = my app is in Google Play, 3 months and nobody interested to them 5. If this app would be a native Youtube downloader, then I get an instant ban IF YOU WANT THIS DOWNLOADER. CONTACT ME ON
[email protected] IT'S NOT A FREE CODE BUT I CAN SELL YOU ONE COPY FOR $99
CLOAKER METHOD
It's one of the methods to hide your application from Google Play. You will upload... a legal application. After 7 days you can modify an APK dex files directly from your server using cloaker. The best cloaker I know is Amigo Library from Github. It allows you to change the dex file, strings and layout files inside the compiled and installed APK. 1. Put Amigo Library into your legal applications with some remote control. It's legal, a code can't make anything bad when it's deactivated 2. If you activate it, library will exchange the APK content from another APK what you have on your server 3. In result, you have the new app on a user's device without update system from Google Play ATTENTION: applications can be marked as like a malware. Some of my apps uses this and they are still in Google Play. Some were deleted by Google and they've sent message to users with warning about the malware!
HOW TO CREATE AND MANAGE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Using greyhat and blackhat methods can result a ban any moment. In this chapter I want to teach you how to create multiple Google Play accounts and manage them.
You need to know how to create fake accounts to pass a verification progress.
buy some virtual visa card (VCC) - you can get anonymous cards in many countries, some of them not works How to check if your card works in Play Store? Type in Google "google play payment yourcardbankname" in your local language. Read users opinions. If the card works for in app payments for common customers, then it works also for developers. Make sure if your card can be anonymous and with possibility to fill a Name / a Surname with random values. Sometimes it's not necessary but it depends to the card and the bank. Deposit $35 (not $25) on the card. $10 is needed for the verification progress. They can reject less amount and ask for an ID card!
register some SIM card with an internet package, have to be fresh! We need a fresh IP, best to use a 3G (attention, test different providers, some of them uses the same location!) for account creation, use a Vmware/Virtualbox machine with Windows or Linux Google can detecte the machine fingerprint. It's system fonts, a graphics card ID, screen settings. It allows them to generate a unique ID for your machine! email also have to be fresh always compile your APK files using Vmware/Virtualbox! Google somehow detects machines. Probably in a compilation progress by Android Studio. you can use BBQLinux ISO, it's Arch Linux based distribution with preinstalled Android Studio, SDK and all tools. You can run a LiveCD version on Vmware/VirtualBox. It have the fresh fingerprint for each run. IF YOU CAN'T OPEN ACCOUNT WITH SOME REASON, YOU CAN USE ACCOUNT PROVIDERS You can find them on http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com but atte ntion, use only old sellers with a good reputation!
