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

• jkuria 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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.
• scottshea 15y ago
  I agree with jkuria that paid traffic can help a lot though (and I cannot find the article now) I did read someone who broke down how the various paid traffic items worked for them. I have been using a blog to draw attention to my site and that has worked okay. HN is a good place to use for trying to get word of mouth and Reddit might be something to try as their sub-reddits (e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/photography http://www.reddit.com/r/photography) offer targeted audiences... on the other hand you might be seen as spam.
• MattBearman 15y ago
  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)
  • scottshea 15y ago
    "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 see that too. I stopped pushing my blog while I was doing a series of articles and my unique hits dropped precipitously. I would up pushing specific parts of the series just to bring them back up.
  • marcamillion 15y ago
    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.
• jgmmo 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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.
      • 15y ago
• redxaxder 15y ago
  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-Guide-To-Cheap-Startup-Advertising.aspx http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/43774/The-5-Minute-Guid... 3 part series on startup marketing, although this is more about retention than advertising: http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/15/startup-marketing-mistake-losing-people-through-the-bottom-of-your-funnel/ http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/15/startup-marketing-mi... http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/09/why-focusing-on-traffic-can-kill-your-startup/ http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/12/09/why-focusing-on-traf... http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/01/12/startup-marketing-mistake-ignoring-traffic-quality/ http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/01/12/startup-marketing-mi...
  • marcamillion 15y ago
    Thanks for these.
• tnorthcutt 15y ago
  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 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 15y ago
  I know exactly how you feel. I helped start up a political satire website (http://thewashingtonfancy.com/ 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-marketing-with-giant-infographic-11928 http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketin...
  • marcamillion 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      My pleasure. If you ever want to discuss strategies or share victories, my email is in my profile.