Try these approaches and get free PR that VC-funded startups get!

As a bootstrapped business with a services offering, we have found it very difficult to catch the attention of prominent publications that would help with PR.

All journalists are usually looking for the brand stamp that a fund raise offers and standing out from a crowd of bootstrapped entrepreneurs trying to build something small or big on the side is not as easy as it was in the recent past.

This realization has led us to try multiple ways to get Flexiple relevant traffic over the last year or so. They range from the traditional -

1. Getting initial customers through personal network.
2. The next set through cold outreach and PR on relevant forums.
3. Building content that would help in ranking for relevant keywords on Google.
4. Running Google Ads given we are in a well-established industry.

To the ones that are rather intuitive and form a subset of the above though, are not as popular in use -

Building side-projects useful to your target audience

Building side-projects is not only an immediate traffic generator but also helps with long-term SEO as against writing blogs and waiting for your domain's DA/ DR to increase so they can start ranking organically.

A brilliant example is what Rich did with building "The Ultimate Startup Failure Report" as it became an evergreen content piece and even helped in increasing his domain's DA by being used heavily and getting do-follow backlinks.

Publicizing the projects on platforms which has your audience captive

One good way to get immediate attention to such side-projects is to publicize them by launching them on Product Hunt, sharing it on relevant sub-reddits, and asking for feedback from the HackerNews community.

While these are tough platforms to crack, they do give immense returns in the long-run and your chances of getting traction on them increases with side-projects for obvious reasons.

Building "alternative to" pages for your closest competitors ONLY

If you are working in a mature industry then you would definitely have a market leader who owns a sizeable chunk of your immediately addressable market. In such a scenario, you can build "alternative to" pages highlighting how you are different from the competitor.

To get initial traction on this, running paid ads is a good hack as it can help you get the testimonials you really need as social proof.

The above have helped us immensely to get relevant traffic. Would love to hear any specific hacks you have used as an Indiehacker :)