I posted this guidance recently based on the response I got from a comment on an AMO (addons.mozilla.org) editor’s blog. Basically it’s instructions on how to leave a review but not how to get a review. I’ve released several firefox addons/extensions under various different IDs so here’s my advice on actually getting reviews…

Reviews are all important for firefox extension developers as without a number (minumum 3 decent) reviews you can’t get an extension out of the sandbox and into the public site. That’s important because in the sandbox you have to have a log in to get at an extension on the main public area anyone can download and use anonymously, so clearly there’s a barrier to normal users for sandbox extensions. This is for a good reason of course, good reviews mean that an extension isn’t just spam or complete shit, it’s actually useful.

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So, 3 things:

1) If you have a log in to AMO then please leave reviews for the extensions you like, even if they’re already public

2) Please leave a review for my extensions

3) If you’re just sponging off the way extension developers make cool stuff for free help them out by leaving a review, it’s not like it costs anything more than 5 mins of your time!

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If you’re an extension developer, then you already know all this. So the critical question is how do you get reviews for your extension?

The obvious answer is to get your users to do leave reviews. The problem is it can be hard to get users if you don’t have reviews. I’ve gone about this by examining the target user base for my addon, and then telling them about it. My latest extension is about generating bbcode for forum users so naturally forum users are my target audience, I started off with my own forum and then let other forums know about it. If an extension is properly labelled then interested people will find it, of course many of them use google rather than AMO so you need to think about getting a website or page up that shows off your extension that people will find by search engines. Be careful with forums though, they are notoriously twitchy about percieved spam!

Do you personally know people/internet peeps that would be interested in using your addon? Then invite them to leave a review and make sure you explain how to!

List it on AMO. People do naturally find extensions by searching AMO, I know because they’ve found mine!

Blog it! Blogs are a great way to direct search engine traffic to something of interest.

Tweet it! If you have a twitter following then let your tweeps know about your new found extension awesomeness.  It’s bound to be relevant to some of them, or at least as relevant as knowing that you’ve woken up.

Get external links! If your target audience has a community or reference website then ask the webmasters if they’d be interested in linking to your extension in their resources section. Remember, everyone hates a spammer but people like contributors so you’ll often find that if you word your communication properly you’ll get a positive response. This will drive users to your extension, and in turn will drive up the number of reviews.

Pimp it out! Whatever mediums/networks you’re a part of should know about your extension. Post it to Facebook, twitter, yammer, bebo, blinko, linkedin, hi5, plaxo, friendfeed, plurj, rejaw, meemi etc. But only let them know once, otherwise you’ll be just another spammer and ignored as such.

Finally, get an AMO account and leave review for other people. If I see reviews for one of my extensions I’ll lookup the username and leave a review for their extension. A bit of quid quo pro works well. So leave me a review and I’ll leave you one, there are many others that have the same philosophy, if you’re one of them then why not leave a comment here gently spamming your firefox extension.

Do you have any other tips?