

Ask HN: How do I get traffic on a shoe-string budget? - marcamillion

I launched my web app on HN about 3 months ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2460406 - (100 days to be exact) and am struggling to get traffic.<p>As a result of low traffic, I don't know what to optimize, because I feel like I don't have enough of a sample size to accurately tell me what I am doing right and wrong.<p>I have tried guest post blogging, submitting my site to lots of 'galleries', plugging it where appropriate and helpful - but I am at a paltry 5.5K uniques since launch.<p>Any ideas?<p>Thanks.<p>P.S. The web app is targeted at designers/photographers/creatives.
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jgmmo
How are people supposed to find you?

Looks like you haven't written a new blog post since May 4th.

Looking at your source I have no idea what your most important keywords are, I
think you really need to understand the key-phrases which people use to
describe the kind of product you have made -- and then you need to optimize
for them. 'Multiple revisions'? I think theres gotta be a better search phrase
describing this product. Maybe 'mockup tool' or 'revision tool' (note: havent
done google keyword search, just off top of head)

Are you actively engaging press? You need to write up a reviewers guide and
ship it off to every tech writer with a decent designer audience that you can
find. You need to personally email every author or blogger who says something
good or bad about your competitors, are you doing this?

Do you comment on high-trafficked freelancer/designer blogs? Do you
participate in freelancer/designer forums?

Are you collecting emails anywhere? Preferably on front page! Use MailChimp
it's free for less than 1,000 subscribers. I would be far more likely to give
you my email address then to signup. Once you have me on your email list you
can have a time-based email campaign that introduces people to your program
and offers discounts towards end of trial period.

Just my .02

~~~
sga
I agree with the sentiment regarding the keywords. I tried for a few minutes
to read your on-page copy and distill your products keywords but found it
difficult. It could be that I'm not familiar enough with the space/problem
that your service addresses. I'd be inclined to identify your competitors and
the keywords for which they rank. If a set of keywords can be identified I'd
then use Google Keyword Tool to determine a set of keywords to target (i.e.
those that you have a shot at ranking well for).

~~~
marcamillion
Agreed...I have found this difficult too. I guess the issue I keep having is
sure I want to appear in the search results for the keywords that my
competitors appear in - but at the same time I want to differentiate myself.

So I am kinda struggling with this, to be honest.

~~~
sga
I get the desire for differentiation, it's important otherwise why would
someone choose your product over another. I think it's key though to better
understand the words that your competitors are using to describe the
problem/space coupled with the words that consumers are using to describe the
problem/space. Understanding this word-scape will help you to better craft
your on-page copy along with identifying the words that best describe your
unique value proposition.

I'd also consider studying/contacting the twitter followers of your
competitors. That would be a direct method of identifying solid potential
leads.

Who are your competitors? Can you give me links to at least 3 of them?

~~~
marcamillion
Sure:

Colaab - <http://colaab.com/Home.mvc/Home> Notable App -
<http://www.notableapp.com/> Prevue - <http://prevue.it/> Onotate -
<http://onotate.com/>

------
redxaxder
Rob Walling has written about this a bit.

"The 5 Minute Guide To Cheap Startup Advertising"

[http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/43774/The-5-Minute-
Guid...](http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/43774/The-5-Minute-Guide-To-
Cheap-Startup-Advertising.aspx)

3 part series on startup marketing, although this is more about retention than
advertising:

[http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/15/startup-marketing-
mi...](http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/15/startup-marketing-mistake-
losing-people-through-the-bottom-of-your-funnel/)

[http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/09/why-focusing-on-
traf...](http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/09/why-focusing-on-traffic-can-
kill-your-startup/)

[http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/01/12/startup-marketing-
mi...](http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/01/12/startup-marketing-mistake-
ignoring-traffic-quality/)

~~~
marcamillion
Thanks for these.

------
tnorthcutt
Borrow other people's traffic. Specifically, guest blog everywhere you can,
and set up an affiliate program. If you don't want a public affiliate program,
that's fine - only open it to certain referrers. For instance, give bloggers
with large audiences who you'd like to target a discount code they can share
with their readers.

Email/tweet at Smashing Magazine - they're nice folks and I bet they'd mention
this, even if just in a tweet.

Edit: I see now that you have been guest blogging. Do it more! It's not just
about the traffic you see in the next day - it's also a long term link-
building strategy.

Also, don't get down about "only" 5.5k uniques. That means FIVE AND A HALF
THOUSAND HUMANS were interested enough to visit your site! Go watch Gary
Vaynerchuk's talk at RailsConf 2010:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWHkcCP3tA>

He talks a lot about caring about your customers/audience/whoever (or, as he
puts it, "giving a fuck"). Maybe you could put in some sort of "Not totally
convinced? Enter your email here to learn more from the founder" mechanism,
and then personally email those people, get to know them, and convince them to
buy (if it's a good fit). Sure, that's not scaleable, but why not do it right
now while your traffic is "low"?

------
aorshan
I know exactly how you feel. I helped start up a political satire website
(<http://thewashingtonfancy.com/>) just over a month ago. I spend hours every
single day trying to plug the website all over the net. I find blogs, other
news sources, anything really, and post a link in the comments with a funny
caption or something interesting to grab attention. I keep an active twitter
and tumblr. Also I make a point to post articles on reddit constantly. In the
beginning we were getting ~500 viewers a day, but one day an article went
viral and all of a sudden we averaged ~50,000 viewers a day for about a week.
Now were down to~3000 a day. The point is that you can do it and it will work
out, but it will require a lot of effort. Also this helped me learn a lot:
[http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-
marketin...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketing-
with-giant-infographic-11928)

~~~
marcamillion
Thanks for the encouragement.

I know in my head that it will work, and I do plan on continuing...I guess I
just thought things would have picked up sooner.

~~~
aorshan
My pleasure. If you ever want to discuss strategies or share victories, my
email is in my profile.

------
MattBearman
Hi, I launched BugMuncher 10 days ago, with a total cost of £55 (plus at least
£5,000 worth of my time...) and I've already racked up 3k uniques. A lot of
that is down to constant plugging on Hacker News and other sites, but also a
very large slice is down to a great article in the next web. I'd definitely
recommend trying to get some tech blogs to feature your app. A lot of my
conversions have been because of that article, I can't thank the next web
enough :)

I've always found getting traffic to any website is a daily battle. If I don't
push BugMuncher EVERY SINGLE DAY my traffic can drop as low as 50 uniques,
where as days I plug it I get around 700.

I hope this post doesn't come across as gloating, I'm shocked and amazed at
how well BugMuncher has been received, I just want to show you what's worked
for me :)

Best of luck with your app, it looks like it could really be useful.

EDIT: Also, is that a typo, or is your homepage meant to be imdex.html? (with
an M)

~~~
marcamillion
Thanks....I got a few of those too...but the daily battle is rough after 100
days.

The homepage is supposed to be imdex with an 'M', because of a Rails issue.

------
jkuria
You need to learn how to use paid traffic. Writing little checks to earn big
ones. Relying on free methods is manual labour! Look up a HN user called ilya
and if he has time he can prolly do some paid consulting to get you started. I
would but I need to focus single mindedly on what I'm doing.

~~~
marcamillion
If I had a budget that allowed me to do this, I definitely would.

It's something I have thought about, and will do in time - for sure.

