6 ms·

Ask HN: How did you get website traffic?

55 points by hpen 6y ago

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?

Minor49er 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Have you ever tried writing blog posts of relevant subjects? How about social media or youtube?
  - Minor49er 6y ago
    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.
jbaudanza 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      This exactly. Mind sharing your product?
      - xenospn 6y ago
        https://ppn.gethuan.com/ https://ppn.gethuan.com/
    - 6y ago
sgt-serverless 6y ago
I have been posting to HN, Reddit, Medium. They all get decent click throughs. We are also a highly technical tool, so we also have done PR's on Github that offer backlinks to our site. That one has actually worked out really well. We are buried at the bottom of the README page for LocalStack, but still get a lot of click through traffic every day from it.
semicolonandson 6y ago
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-web-apps-part-i https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-...
- taphangum 6y ago
  Fantastic answer! Thanks for sharing.
gradientgarden 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Nathan has a lot of good stuff to share and persistence is key. I additionally recommend “Traction” by Weinberg & Mares.
auganov 6y ago
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.
taphangum 6y ago
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-surface-area https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-sur...

55 points by hpen 6y ago

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?

Minor49er 6y ago

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 6y ago
Have you ever tried writing blog posts of relevant subjects? How about social media or youtube?
- Minor49er 6y ago
  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.

jbaudanza 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    This exactly. Mind sharing your product?
    - xenospn 6y ago
      https://ppn.gethuan.com/ https://ppn.gethuan.com/
  - 6y ago

sgt-serverless 6y ago

I have been posting to HN, Reddit, Medium. They all get decent click throughs. We are also a highly technical tool, so we also have done PR's on Github that offer backlinks to our site. That one has actually worked out really well. We are buried at the bottom of the README page for LocalStack, but still get a lot of click through traffic every day from it.

semicolonandson 6y ago

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-web-apps-part-i https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-...

taphangum 6y ago
Fantastic answer! Thanks for sharing.

gradientgarden 6y ago

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 6y ago
Nathan has a lot of good stuff to share and persistence is key. I additionally recommend “Traction” by Weinberg & Mares.

auganov 6y ago

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.

taphangum 6y ago

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-surface-area https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-sur...