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20 Comments

My website ranks #1 on google what are your recommendations?

Hello everyone 👋

Recently I launched my free side project iconsizer. After a few weeks, it looks like I managed to get to first place if you search "iconsizer" on google or for the title of my page. It is my first side project, so I don't really know how good that is 🤔.

I would be grateful if you can help with what steps do I need to take to rank higher for my keywords and what worked or did not work for you 👍

  1. 5

    For me the first result is this: https://github.com/koher/iconsizer, iconsizer.com is second.

    First thing I notice is that your website is not HTTPS, which makes it surprising that the site is even on the first page. Adding a valid SSL certificate should be the first step to improve your SEO.

    1. 1

      Thanks for the feedback!

      Yeah it looks like for some people my website appears second 🤔

      I agree with you that SSL is very important to have 👍
      I would like to add SSL, but I am using Heroku for hosting and they do not allow SSL on free tier if you have a custom domain and the paid plan is really not worth it for me at the moment 😁

      1. 4

        Use free cloudflare which includes SSL.

        1. 1

          I will check it out.

      2. 1

        Small tip: use 1) incognito and 2) via VPN to check more realistic search results. Google will adapt the search results to be more relevant to you, which in this case is obviously highly relevant since it's your project.

        1. 1

          I did use incognito and VPN 😁

      3. 1

        I use Netlify. Not paying anything monthly as I keep my sites below the free tier and also getting SSL from them.

        1. 1

          I've seen a lot of people using Netlify. I will consider it for my future projects 👍

  2. 3

    Ranking first for your project's name is a good sign! It means at the very least google is successfully crawling and indexing your site.

    As for ranking higher for other keywords, it can be a bit tough for a project like this. My strategy in the past has been content focused: blog posts covering topics relevant to the keyword, interviews with knowledgable people in the niche, etc. You can see one of your competitors attempting to gain an SEO boost with content at https://www.favicon-generator.org/ (check the bottom of the page).

    With something like an icon generator though, results are going to much more user intent focused than content-focused. When someone googles "icon generator" they aren't looking for a 10 page essay on the history of favicons and the svg file type—they want a functional icon generator. Search engines will recognize this and serve up results that match the user's intent as opposed to results which force text-based content where it isn't needed.

    I've rambled a bit, but if I were you here's what I'd do (don't take this as gospel, I wouldn't call myself an expert): keep doing what you're doing in regards to making your website as welcoming and enjoyable to use as possible, and spread the word through social channels. On top of that, consider a blog of some sort targeting keywords that show an intent to learn as opposed to an intent to use: "how to set a favicon", "what makes a good app icon", "when to use an svg in html", etc. If you can rank for keywords similar to these with your blog, you have the start of a funnel. From there you can direct traffic to your site, an icon design focused newsletter, etc. Experiment with other forms of content as well—perhaps a youtube video on how to use your site to easily generate icons?

    1. 1

      Thanks for taking your time with a detailed comment :)

      I was honestly surprised that I even appeared on google (because I also do not have SSL). It took like 2-3 months to appear on the first page but when it did the feeling was something else.

      I thought of doing something like what favicon-generator did but I really wanted my site to be as straight forward and easy to use.

      Actually I really want to start a blog and mailing list (about something specific) and continue my YT channel so your comment is another push for me to start doing that again (which is a lot of fun). So also thanks for that :)

  3. 2

    @bradleys - your comment about intent to use vs intent to learn is great advice from a content development pov, and very insightful. It's the same as intent to buy vs intent to learn. Your recommendations are spot-on too.

    @Bojidarist - While it's good to see that your website shows up at the top of SERPs for your exact site name "iconsizer", it's something you should also expect. Meaning, it shouldn't be very hard to rank for your site name, especially if it's somewhat unique.

    The main thing you should be focused on is whether or not you show up in SERPs for the actual phrases people are using to find a tool like yours, and if not, how to rank for them.

    For example:
    icon resizer
    icon resizer for android
    icon resizer for ios
    make favicon from image
    properly size icon for android

    For the "intent to use" searches, you might be able to rank if you created different pages that targeted a particular use -- like "icon resizer for android". On that page, only show the resizer for android, and put information related to resizing icons for android. But, also make it easy to find the resizing icons for the other purposes.

    Another reason to make different pages is that you can start to get a clearer understanding of what search phrases people are using to get to a particular page. You might find that people are looking for something that your tool doesn't yet do, but maybe should.

    I understand that you want to make it easy for people by using one interface for all the purposes, but it won't help you rank in SERPs unless you get a lot of relevant backlinks from reputable sites.

    As for "intent to learn", you might want to take a day and compile a list all the best tools in your category, and create an epic "50 Best Icon Resizer Tools" resource article about it. List your tool and a link to your homepage as the first one. Repeat this for other relevant tool categories. As for the article titles, you should do some research to figure out what would be most compelling and relevant.

    Make sure you create a sitemap that automatically stays updated as you add pages, have proper menu hierarchy, and have your site setup in Google Search Console and register your sitemap. No harm in making sure Google knows all the pages available on your site, even if there only a few.

    I'd also recommend that you track which buttons are enabled the most for the resizing, as you might learn something from that information.

    Lastly, you should include "Need to convert something else? Maybe I can help." and make a simple form that someone can use to tell you what they're looking for. You might learn something there too.

    1. 1

      Great advice! I can see how this thread will be useful to people in the future.

      You got almost one to one some of the keywords I use :D

      I know that making different pages that have different content on them is useful for SEO. I don't think I will do something like that for this project, but this applies to future ones.

      I already set up a Google Search Console and I can see what queries people used when they click on the site. I use google analytics events to see how much conversions and what platforms people convert to.

      I was thinking about some "feedback" button but decided not to use one :/

      Thanks for taking the time to write that comment, it really helps 👍

  4. 1

    Hi Bojidar,
    You can try backlinko's guide for seo. They've made a list of all seo tactics that you need to incorporate.

    1. 1

      Yo 👋
      This guide looks very detailed. It will definitely get bookmarked. Thanks for telling me about it 👍

  5. 1

    I would attempt to get your site to the top with search terms like "icon resizer" "icon sizer" etc, since for both of those terms your site isn't on the page at all.

    1. 1

      I have those exact keywords in my meta tags :D

      1. 1

        Meta tags are completely ignored by Google

        1. 1

          Really? Did not know that 🤔

  6. 1

    One thing I noticed when trying the app: It says recommended image size is 1024x1024px, but max upload size is 1MB, which might be enough in most cases, but if you have a more complex PNG it won't fit.

    1. 1

      I might make the upload size limit larger in a future update 👍
      If you tested it with 1024x1024 PNG and it did not fit, can you tell me the size of it?

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