Why don't more people leave comments?
I launched No Code List using only Indie Hackers and Twitter, and it's grown to 15K monthly page views, with 325+ tools across 40+ categories.
That part is going great. However... people can sign up for an account and comment or upvote the tools on the list, but no one does. I tried to use good messaging and create incentive, but few people sign up and no one leaves comments. I'm trying to figure out why...
For one thing, I barely market the feature or the site itself anymore... I work full time at Bildr, and that's where most of my focus goes. Still, with 15K views, I feel like more people would organically sign up and comment.
If you know the site, or if you wouldn't mind checking it out, I'd love to know why you wouldn't sign up and upvote or leave a comment. I don't mind directness! One possibility is that no one cares enough to comment, so the idea/feature is a dud... I'm hoping that's not the case, and I just need to create better incentive!
Thank you so much!
I think there's a combination of reasons:
All makes sense, and I totally agree. Thanks so much!
You're welcome.
Hi Drew,
I would repeat some of the points @PaoloAmoroso and @BenjaminPoisson already stated and I would add to further describe/help:
enable SSO to signup with a click. Yep, I am too lazy to signup with another site, go to mail and click again just to leave a comment and I am not alone, I guess. After all, why shall I give you my email just to leave a comment? :) But I am happy to login using LinkedIn for example and provide basic professional identity to verify who am I and why my comment matters (or not).
Give reasoning and guides/helpers on comments. Why shall I comment and what? Help me a bit.
Make the active community members shine - simply show the best-rated comments, enable sorting by comments as well. It will motivate listed SW owners to share the link to their product listing - a nice shield/badge could work as well here.
What sort of comments are you actually looking for? You have a large list of SW, but where are the users of those? Do they actually know about you and the reasons why they might want to leave a comment? Take a look at Capterra, G2 and others - they actually pay with gift cards to get the attention of SW users to provide feedback. You have no incentive for them. You can help the listed SW owners to motivate their users in many ways.
From my perspective, your no code list is now primarily a helpful resource, not a place for interaction. If you want interaction, you will need to align it with your priorities and make it easier+wortwhile to leave comments or any other social signals.
BTW, your sponsored homepage offer would need some traffic & visitor behaviour data, I won't buy in at this moment, but I am willing to. You can then bring some brand affinity relevant traffic in or get gift cards to launch your community buzz (check Tangocards for example, pretty simple and they have zero setup up cost self-service. I am not affiliated with them).
Thanks for sharing and good luck!
SSO is probably one of the most valuable things you can add. People are lazy online. You can reduce friction. Totally agree with your point "5" :)
I also agree with point #5: there's not much community intent in a directory or reference resource.
Thanks so much for the thorough response!
This all makes so much sense... I mean, SSO is easy enough and I'll do that for sure, but I think your later points are spot on... why force community/interaction into a directory site?
I actually have no interest whatsoever in offering gift cards for comments or that sort of thing 😂... I just wanted to find the next level of interaction for the site. (If not, it will lose relevance at some point... maybe soon.) I'd rather get creative and find something else the site can do... I have some options and a good base of useful data.
Or it might just be smarter to capitalize on that sponsored spot, which I barely promote! That slot has really just been a bonus for me... I've run a few but usually it's hidden. The numbers are decent, so I'll put them up publicly. Right now, I share them privately when someone is interested.
Thanks for taking the time on that! I really appreciate the insight!
Hi @truedrew you are completely correct, the sample with the cards is to show you that other SW listing portals do not hesitate to "bribe" users to leave reviews to the state they are giving money away to get the interaction.
And hey, you can still use it - but for example in a more creative way, like giveaway contests etc for most active members, IDK. Options are limitless.
Of course, you can get creative and do it in a different way! :)
Thanks for your service :)
Jakub
Nice tool!
Thank you!
I'm a big fan of your work, Drew! And yours was the first ever no code directory...
The thing is, why would I add comments? What do I get? There's no incentive.
I just added a comment for Glide... it was published as anonymous, even though I wanted it not to be.
Nice and thank you!!
If you update your profile and add your name and photo, that will switch from Anonymous to you!
I need to make that more clear!
Thanks for the support!