HACKER Q&A
📣 kgzuul

How to bring traffic to my product


Two months ago I was laid off, and after losing my job, I started my career as a freelancer. I created a web product, but after it went online for some time, there weren't many users visiting.I have submitted my product to many navigation sites, which initially brought some traffic and also some paid customers, but now the traffic is slowly disappearing. Here I would like to ask everyone how can I bring traffic to my product?


  👤 mariocesar Accepted Answer ✓
Here are some strategies that have worked for me:

Experiment and Focus: Try various channels (blogs, social media, SEO, referrals) and double down on the top 20% that perform best every three months.

Content: Write blog posts and other content to improve search engine visibility. Discuss competitors, alternatives, your customers' challenges, industry advice, collect resource links, etc.

Directories: Most software directories aren't worth it, but some do. For example Zapier (if you have an API), can help. Publish your own integration there, it'll get a dedicated page for your product.

Community: Engage in relevant online communities, answer questions, and participate in discussions. be an expert or be shameless, but you have to exist where your customers are. For example, here in HN, search for relevant posts and reply and add "Shameless plug: I own a Saas Cat Service that sends you meows to your mail..., and this is what I think about AI and Mail" You had the opportunity to share a link here :D

These methods are primarily free but require effort. Be cautious with paid promotions and focus on organic growth. It’s a cycle of trying, waiting, adjusting, and trying again. Start now, be patient, and you’ll see results. Then, when you are sure what works, start exploring paying for traffic.


👤 pedalpete
Why not tell us about the product in the process.

Lots of the advice here is very general, but it's important to know what your product is before being able to supply advice.

Are there natural networks that would spread your product better than others? Tough to know without knowing what the product is.

As far as blogs, etc. That only works if your customers are reading blogs. Need to know what the product is.

Just because it's a "web product" doesn't make it b2b, so we need more info.

But I think the biggest thing I'm seeing from that you didn't write about what you've built is, to always be telling people about your product, always be learning.

I know it can come of as being a shill sometimes, and I've been accused of that, but if you have a mission of the way you want the world to work, so what if some people don't like that you told them about what you do.

Of course, the best way to do that is to make them curious, not just dump on them every chance you get.

You'll see a very common (though also somewhat annoying) process many people here on HN use, which I'm assuming is recommended to YC companies, it's very formulaic.

"Hey HN, I'm X and I have Y credentials. I had this problem, someone I know had this problem, have you ever had this, my co-founder Z , met when we were doing K (maybe not the drug), and we'd love to ..."

you get the point.


👤 noashavit
You said you have a couple paying customers- invest in turning them into raving fans. Step 1 for generating word of mouth demand.

👤 skilled
The same way everyone else does it, through marketing.

Write blogs, make videos, and of course - solve problems for people.

If there was a magic pill to pop that would take care of all this on our behalf, we would all be taking it.


👤 james_chu
Thank you for the topic, I am very interested. "How to bring traffic to my product", I believe many people are interested in this topic. To learn more, can someone introduce all the possible ways?

👤 alexander2002
Hire some freelancer who can do seo/marketing for you.

👤 johnea
Tits and ass have always worked...

👤 re-thc
By posting on HN!

(nicely done)


👤 cranberryturkey
word of mouth is best.