What's New: Kickstarting SEO
(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
Launching a new website?
- Get a jump on SEO by integrating keywords naturally into your content. Also, ensure that your URLs are short and descriptive.
- Boost your visibility and sales by posting about your failures and successes, no matter how big or small.
- From zero to MVP in 48 hours. Philip Nguyen used technologies he already knew to build fast, while juggling a full-time job and a baby.
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Kickstarting SEO 💻
by Tuiddy
Here are some essential steps and strategies to get started with SEO for your new website!
1. Keyword research
Keywords are the cornerstone of SEO. By researching and selecting the right keywords for your content, you can attract your target audience more effectively. Here’s how to conduct effective keyword research:
- Tools: Utilize tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Semrush to find high-volume, low-competition keywords related to your industry.
- Analyze competitors: Check out which keywords your competitors are targeting, and analyze which ones are most effective for them.
- Long-tail keywords: These are more specific phrases that have lower search volumes, but higher conversion rates.
2. Content creation
Search engines favor content that provides value and solves user problems. Here are some tips for creating engaging content:
- Be original and useful: Craft original, helpful content that answers user's questions, or meets their needs.
- Keyword optimization: Integrate keywords naturally into your content, but avoid keyword stuffing.
- Regular updates: Keep your content fresh and relevant. Regularly updating or adding new content can improve your website’s ranking.
3. Website structure and technical SEO
The structure and technical aspects of your website are important, as they affect how search engines crawl and index your site. Key points to consider include:
- URL structure: Ensure that your URLs are short, descriptive, and include keywords.
- Responsive design: Your site should perform well across all devices, especially on mobile.
- Load speed: Optimize images, use caching, and employ a content delivery network (CDN) to enhance site speed.
4. On-page SEO
Each page on your site should be carefully optimized to rank higher in search engine results:
- Title tags: Use descriptive title tags that include your main keywords.
- Meta descriptions: Write compelling meta descriptions that appear in search results and attract users.
- Internal linking: Add internal links to help search engines understand your site’s structure, and make navigation easier for users.
- Image optimization: Use ALT tags to describe images, and optimize image file names for better search visibility.
5. Off-page SEO and link building
Off-page SEO involves building backlinks from other websites to yours. These backlinks are crucial for establishing your site’s authority. Here’s how to build high-quality backlinks:
- Content marketing: Create shareable, cite-worthy content, including blog posts, research reports, and infographics.
- Social media promotion: Use social media platforms to promote your content.
- Collaborations and partnerships: Partner with other sites or blogs to exchange links or write guest posts.
6. Monitoring and analytics
SEO is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and adjustment. Use analytics tools to track your website’s performance!
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Boosting Visibility and Sales 💰
In December, we graduated from a startup accelerator with our product, JustBeepIt. We had no marketing budget and no sales.
Below is a list of all the free ways we used to grow our visibility and sales from zero to $35K!
Product Hunt launch
We took this very seriously, and started preparing four weeks in advance. Our strategy was to grow our mailing list to 3K-4K people, who we would then email and DM on launch day.
That strategy was successful, and we hit the number one spot. I wrote more about our strategy on Medium.
Indie Hackers, Reddit, and Medium
I developed a strategy for writing posts called "Infinite Marketing Glitch." The idea is simple: Every time we have a success, regardless of how big or small, I would make a post out of it.
Examples: "Our first 100 users," "Our first sale," "Getting first spot on Product Hunt," etc. Many posts would go viral. I even hit the home page of Indie Hackers!
Actively posting on LinkedIn and X
This is a simple strategy that many founders miss: Just post about your company.
I post about our product at least five times a week, talking about our failures and successes. This currently brings in nearly 40% of our overall traffic.
LinkedIn is especially good if your product is B2B, while X is great for finding first time users. By posting about our company, I brought thousands of people to our landing page, and grew my X account from 100 to 2K+ followers.
AppSumo Select
This was the last step in our strategy. You are probably aware of AppSumo, but do you know about AppSumo Select? If you get into that program, the company pays for your ads. This was good for us, since we had no marketing budget.
To be accepted into the program, there needs to be something unique about your product. We were also most likely accepted because of our Product Hunt results, and tons of good feedback.
With all that said, last month, JustBeepIt brought in $12K (bringing us to $35K in total sales) by doing the things I described here!
Discuss this story.
In the News 📰
from the Growth Trends newsletter
📰 LinkedIn adds new elements to its newsletter creation platform.
📱 Shopping, payments, and customer service on WhatsApp.
💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.
💡 How to make an 8.5 idea a 9.5 idea.
🎯 Three zero-click content tactics.
🎡 Regional theme parks are having a renaissance.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
Building Fast and Enjoying It 🤩
I spent 48 hours coding an MVP for my form builder, Rocket Form. I have a full-time job as a senior software engineer at a fast-paced startup. After putting my baby to sleep each night, I found that I still had two hours of free time.
Given the short amount of time I had each night, I want to share the technologies that allowed me to code less, but do more.
The overview
To be as productive as possible, I used technologies that I was either intimately familiar with, or had some experience with. That helped me dive into them more quickly.
They also had to be technologies that I knew I would enjoy using, to avoid burnout. The stack I ended up utilizing was Ruby on Rails, Hotwire, Stimulus, and plain JS.
The deep dive
The technologies that I chose allowed me to move fast for these reasons:
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Ruby on Rails: It's still one of the best fullstack frameworks for going from idea to MVP in a short amount of time. It comes with the nuts and bolts included, so I was able to write less boilerplate code and focus on the features.
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Proficiency: I'm proficient in Ruby on Rails, making it a no-brainer. Honestly, you'll be more productive with whatever framework you're most proficient in.
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Hotwire: It allowed me to give users a single-page app experience without having to write large amounts of frontend code on top of the backend code. In a traditional SPA, you have a separation of frontend and backend applications, but as a solo developer, I didn't want to deal with two separate applications. Hotwire server-side renders a section of the HTML, and automatically stitches that section into the larger HTML document for me.
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Simplified frontend: With Hotwire handling the SPA work, there was no need to utilize more dedicated frontend frameworks, like AngularJS or React. For occasional HTML manipulation, I reserved plain old JS or Stimulus.
The editor
Since Rocket Form is a form builder, a large part of it is the form editor. I decided to adapt an open source block editor, Editor.js, for that. It's the only open source block editor I found that's built with plain JS.
Adapting it, and creating custom block components, was surprisingly easy! This was largely thanks to the excellent documentation created by the Editor.js team.
I bought a bootstrap template from Creative Tim, taking advantage of their beautiful dashboards. That allowed me to spend less time designing and styling. Then, I had a logo made on Fiverr.
Wrapping up
Currently, I can count the number of users on both hands, but I’m starting to get several new signups per day!
There are a lot of other form builders out there, but honestly, I am just having fun making this! I put a lot of effort into the UI and live rendering preview of the form, and I hope I’ll be able to carve out a small market including the people that enjoy this particular experience.
Discuss this story.
The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Tuiddy, Darko, Farid Shukurov, and Philip Nguyen for contributing posts. —Channing
