
Ask HN: How did you get website traffic? - hpen
I have tried posting to HN, reddit, etc. Blogging is what I will try next. What are some things you guys have done to increase website traffic?
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jbaudanza
There is really no good answer to this. Just keep trying stuff.

My language learning website (www.captionpop.com) was ignored by HN, reddit,
and the other random places I posted it. Finally, I put a post on producthunt
and it spent the whole day in the top 5. From there, other blogs started
writing about it. Ironically, it was then passed all over reddit.

I had another web property that was totally ignored, and then one day the
Google Chrome Webstore decided to feature it. From then on, I had more than
enough traffic.

So, there is no magic formula. You just have to keep trying stuff and wait for
the internet gods to bless you.

Blogging is a popular approach, but I think people underestimate how much work
this is. You have to consistently write good quality blog articles that are
actually solving problems for people. This can be as much work as building
your actual product.

~~~
hpen
Cool website! I was thinking about paying someone to write a handful of
articles for a blog. As It would be a lot of work, and work that I'm not
especially good at.

"You just have to keep trying stuff and wait for the internet gods to bless
you." I like this quote

~~~
xenospn
It's what I'm doing. I tried generating my own content - it's tons of work,
and you might work for hours on a piece of content that won't interest
anybody. I find it's better to delegate/pay someone who is good at writing
while I'm focused on building product.

~~~
hpen
This exactly. Mind sharing your product?

~~~
xenospn
[https://ppn.gethuan.com/](https://ppn.gethuan.com/)

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semicolonandson
Play to your strengths. I'm a programmer (there's a good chance you are too if
you're hanging out here), so my preferred technique is scalable content
generation for SEO.

For example, I get about 90% of my 200,000 monthlies to my marketplace site
selling law notes via two initiatives: \- I hired an UpWorker to generate 500+
short case summaries (perhaps 300 words each), and put them on individual
pages on my website. \- I turned 30% of the PDF and DOCX documents people
upload to sell on my website into HTML as free samples that can be picked up
my Google.

I have a series of videos explaining more here:
[https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-
for-...](https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-web-apps-
part-i)

~~~
taphangum
Fantastic answer!

Thanks for sharing.

------
Minor49er
I created a web-based utility. That on its own isn't much to bring people in
(or even back). I quickly found out that it was important to keep the site
updated regularly with fixes and new features.

Announcements of new changes would be published to sites like HN or Slashdot
as press releases. So I wasn't really posting things like "hey, check out my
site, it does X!" It was more like "How Y can integrate into X" or "trending
stats on Z, provided by X". That sort of thing.

It was also crucial to have a mailing list in place where people could sign up
easily. That way, I could reach the users directly without worrying about
trying to get a post approved or posted onto a third party's site. The other
benefit is that, if people liked my updates, they would sometimes go out of
their way to repost my updates on sites that they visit that weren't even on
my radar.

Communications would always try to tie back into relevant problems or
interests of our userbase's demographic, but referring to the site as a
potential solution. So there's value for readers, even if they aren't my
users.

Just keep trying new things and new audiences. Things will click into place as
you go if you're delivering quality and as long as you don't stop.

~~~
hpen
Have you ever tried writing blog posts of relevant subjects? How about social
media or youtube?

~~~
Minor49er
Blog posts, absolutely. That was the main form of each press release and
article, actually.

Social media requires a lot more smaller and frequent effort which I honestly
haven't been able to keep up with to say whether or not it's worthwhile.

Videos, though, are much harder because they take a long time to produce,
relatively speaking. They also aren't visually engaging for the subject matter
in my case.

------
taphangum
To paraphrase the great answer given by ' jbaudanza':

Be consistent in both producing value, and in sharing it. Try to get better at
both of these activities as you progress.

Your 'luck surface area' [1] will, over time, increase and then network
effects will take over.

[1] - [https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-
sur...](https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area)

------
auganov
Reach out to a few people with a sizeable audience (or some other means to
potentially amplify it) who may be interested. And also don't immediately
write off channels that didn't work. There's a lot of luck involved. You can
definitely try again later in a different way.

Then there's always paid advertising don't be afraid of it. With not much $
you can do a lot of experimenting.

------
gradientgarden
Nathan Barry's Authority [1] is a very good and instructive read.

Focus on writing every single day. Create educational content. Have only one
ask as the call-to-action in the article.

[1] [https://nathanbarry.com/authority/](https://nathanbarry.com/authority/)

~~~
CodeWriter23
Nathan has a lot of good stuff to share and persistence is key. I additionally
recommend “Traction” by Weinberg & Mares.

