How to make your project trend on GitHub

Though often underutilized, GitHub can be an excellent source of traffic — particularly if your product is designed for developers. Get more eyes on your app by optimizing for GitHub stars.

A few days after launch, Froala Design Blocks was listed on GitHub's list of trending repositories. Within a week, it had over 3,500 GitHub stars.

Why does that matter? Developers tend to trust GitHub stars, probably because people are more discerning with them. And it puts your product in front of more eyes, helping you to build community and get top-quality feedback. In fact, GitHub is Froala Design Blocks' biggest source of traffic.

To get the stars rolling in, @diananeculai recommends making a good first impression with a beautiful and informative README. Make it stand out with images. Include information about the project, what you want from the reader (labels are great for this), and how to use the product. Add topics to your repo to help others discover it. And add a tweet button with predefined text to the README title.

Once you're done with that, add GitHub buttons to your website and spread the word about your GitHub page across your usual channels. It also helps that Froala Design Blocks is an open-source project, as people often like to support them. Case in point, Diana's other successful project, which is paid and closed-source, is less popular on GitHub.