This post was published a month after we launched Snipcart, in 2013. I feel compelled to share it again, mostly to illustrate the benefits of amplifying a product launch through promotion, PR, contests, submissions, etc.
I also believe that many developer/designer-facing products on Indie Hackers should seriously consider targeting the Awwwards community, directly or indirectly. Awwwards is a high authority site (SEO++) that can drive qualified traffic to your site project (on-site engagement, early relevant feedback, etc).
To this day, Awwwards generated 60K sessions on our site & 500+ signups.
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A month old and we’ve already been awarded the Site of the Day Awwwards prize for our product website. That’s what we call a warm welcome to the Web!
Our team is mostly developer and code-oriented, but today we’ve been awarded a fundamental design and front-end award. Keep the love coming!
Along with the flattering feeling of winning such a prize came an often underestimated effect: the traffic it brought to our website. One might think it brings unqualified and uninterested visitors, but let’s think about it for a second:
- Who’s browsing and going through the Awwwards websites? Designers and front-end developers looking for inspiration and design trends, right?
- Who’d be interested in Snipcart (a developer-oriented, HTML-based, easy to integrate shopping cart)? Designers and front-end developers that develop and deliver web platforms to their customers, right? Isn’t that some great exposure!
Even though they were unexpected, let us share some numbers about the Awwwards effect:
- During the voting period, traffic was insignificant.
- The day we won the prize, we had 12K unique visitors from the Awwwards website and related blog posts.
- The week after the prize, we’ve had 27K unique visitors from Awwwards.
- To this day, AWWWARDS alone still drives an average of 1K unique visitors to our site every day.
- 22 % of the visitors have spent more than 30 seconds on the website and viewed more than 2 pages.
Conversions and signups you say? We think that the service is too young to really determine and measure the effect, but we can still share the following metrics from the Awwwards visitors. For a startup less than a month old, we believe that it’s serious traffic. We believe that our metrics are above average because our potential customers are Awwwards visitors. Metrics you say?
- 445 signups
- 46 of which entered their credit cards and have setup their payment gateways, within a month
- 22 websites running live and selling online
- We’ve had 200 newsletter signups
- Plus a lot of Twitter mentions, Facebook likes and many email requests for features, information and comments.
Bottom line is, if designers and front-end developers are your targeted customers, get yourself an AWWWARDS prize: it’s a great source of qualified traffic!
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This post originally appeared on Snipcart's blog and newsletter.