Editor’s Note: This is an installment of a new series that showcases the top developer tips, tutorials, and educational resources to help you build incredible Alexa skills. Follow the series to learn, get inspired, and start building your own voice experiences for Alexa.

Our vision is for Alexa to be able to help you with whatever you need. To make that a reality, we need help from our community of developers who are coming up with engaging voice experiences every day. Alexa skills and the developers that build them are incredibly important to that vision. And equally important to that vision is making it easy and frictionless for customers to find engaging skills.

In today’s resource roundup, I share our top articles from the year on how you can make it easier for customers to find and engage with your Alexa skills. 

How to Improve Alexa Skill Discovery with Name-Free Interaction and More

One of the promises of a voice-first user experience is that it’s natural. People can say what they think and the user interface can understand them, parsing their meaning or intent, rather than simply understanding their words. In this case, technology bends to our way of thinking and acting, rather than making us learn how to use it. This includes the technologies that support finding, launching, and re-engaging with skills in natural ways and how you can use them to make your skill more discoverable. Check out this post for an overview of these technologies.

Best Practices to Make Your Alexa Skills Eligible for Amazon Promotion

Amazon features the most engaging skills to customers through various marketing channels like email, social, the Alexa app, and the Alexa Skills Store. We feature skills across all categories, as well as skills created by all types of developers, from big brands to hobbyists. One of the most common questions we receive from developers is, “How can I get my skill featured by Amazon?” We review and consider all skills; read this blog post to learn about the things featured skills have in common and what you can do to help your skill shine, increasing its chances of being featured by Amazon.

Tips on Promoting Your Alexa Skill

When you have more customers using your skill, we see that as a signal that your skill provides an engaging voice experience. Promoting your skill to eager Alexa users will help you generate a baseline of customers, which drives more engagement with your skill and enhances your Amazon promotion eligibility. Here are a few things you can do to promote your skill and get it skill ready for the spotlight. 

How to Share Your Skills Using the Alexa App

In addition to promoting your skill via social networks, your website, and traditional marketing channels, there are several ways to amplify your skill immediately through the Alexa app. You can share your skills directly from the Alexa app to social networks, messaging apps, or even just copy a link to your clipboard. Check out these tips for sharing your skills through the Alexa app to attract more customers.

Things Every Alexa Skill Should Do: Use Memorable Invocation Names and Utterances

If customers can’t find your Alexa skill, they won’t be able to try it. That’s why it’s important to make sure your invocation name uses strategic keywords that align with what your target customers are searching for. Searchable invocation names are ones that even first-time Echo customers with limited experience using Alexa can find. Here are some tips for crafting great skill invocation names.

Build Skills, Earn Developer Perks

Bring your big idea to life with Alexa and earn perks through our milestone-based developer promotion. US developers, publish your first Alexa skill and earn an Alexa developer t-shirt. Publish a skill for Alexa-enabled devices with screens and earn an Echo Spot. Publish a skill using the Gadgets Skill API and earn a 2-pack of Echo Buttons. If you're not in the US, check out our promotions in Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan, France, Australia, and India. Learn more about our promotion and start building today.