Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 81 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#21

Post by markkat »

pitdesi wrote: post #12

What field is it in? For ours ( http://feefighters.com ), which is b2b app, we have a 6 pronged attack which works pretty well: 1) SEO - people find us when they search for credit card processing and lots of long tail keywords. This is a long term thing but completely worth it. Make sure all of your pages are optimized for SEO. 2) SEM - we were buying keywords on google/bing/yahoo. Facebook has been less effective fo…

This is one way. :) And I'm not being cynical. You should take these kinds of opportunities. Of course, you need to strike a balance, but I think pitdesi did that pretty well. You've got to hustle.

Taking my own advice... One of the things that brings people to http://hubski.com (a social aggregation site) is original content. I like to write, and I found that when I wrote on hubski, that content brought quite a bit of traffic. If you are creating in the social space, IMHO you need to think of your site as a restaurant. Above everything else, you need to have quality food. You can get tons of traffic, but if you don't have quality food, people won't come back. It's easier said than done, but I found that contributing my own original content seemed to provide a value that few other things did. I've come to the opinion that quality is everything. The little things count. Be tough with yourself, and listen to criticism.

Ask yourself: "Do I like my app? and What don't I like about my app?" everyday. If you love your app, it will be infinitely easier for you to promote. Make sure you love your app before you start putting serious resources into promoting it. If you love your app, traffic to your site will likely be more effective.

BTW, this post is at #3 samrat. This would be a very good time to tell us what your app is! :)

EDIT: Another thing to try: To get some objective feedback on first impressions, you might want to try stumbleupon. People can vote on your site when they stumble it, and you can look at the average score of your site. IMO I don't think that SU is an effective way to advertise, but that does provide a measure for first impressions. If your score is low, you know you need to work on your landing page.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#22

Post by davidedicillo »

1) Innovate: You need to innovate. I doubt people will be excited to talk about a new social network that is just a Facebook clone.

2) Try to get free press: For SyncPad (not technically a web app) we always tried to do things worth writing like that video with 40 iPads in drawing in sync (http://blog.mysyncpad.com/post/4293113601/syncpad-on-40-ipad...).

3) Care about your customers: You'd be surprise how quickly the word spread about your product if you offer awesome customer support.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#23

Post by redguava »

startupstella wrote: post #18
redguava wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't underestimate facebook for b2b. The users that see the ads still work at businesses. I have had very good success using these for my b2b application.

could you elaborate on this? what is successful and what have you learned about ad content?

My app is http://www.cliniko.com

I used the "likes" targeting in the facebook ads demographics to target occupations that my product is aimed at. I also targeted relevant english speaking countries.

I have tried quite a few different styles of ads, but individual ads for each occupation that were specifically targeted has the best results. I guess I would advise creating many ads, and wording them specifically for each demographic you want to target.

I also tried various pictures, but ultimately a screenshot of my app was the most successful.

The majority of my users so far were acquired via the facebook advertising, it has been my most successful strategy.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#24

Post by swalberg »

http://SmallPayroll.ca was a one-man-in-his-spare-time project until recently. What I did was:

1. SEM - Google AdWords mostly. I spent a fair time on this, partially because my day job at the time was in the SEM field

2. Organic - I got a great domain that contained my primary keywords, got a landing page built, and it ended up driving a lot of organic traffic. I also set up a blog on the main site. The blog was good for traffic, but not that great for conversions.

3. Referrals - my app is mostly used by people that hire domestic help, so I tried talking to the agencies that help people find that help. Hard to measure that one.

4. Provide awesome customer service - I have been told by several of my customers that they have sent their friends.

5. Free trial - The app gives a 30 day free trial. Many customers have thanked me for that.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#25

Post by revorad »

aculver wrote: post #20

Hi. When we first released http://limelightapp.com/ the only thing we did was post it on Hacker News. It made the first page for a few hours. In addition to generating really great feedback from the community, it also generated a decent amount of traffic (about 6000 unique visitors.) Later that day, our app got picked up on http://www.thenextweb.com/ and a few Chinese sites. The article on TNW generated about 200 twe…

Your app looks great. You should have a gallery of some app sites that are built using it. Some testimonials would also be nice.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#27

Post by aculver »

A friend of mine took out an ad on The Deck (http://decknetwork.net/) when he launched his app. It produced quality traffic that converted into active users. It also opened some doors with people who could help him promote the app reaching out to him, including his app in a bundle, etc. I thought the cost was steep (~$8000 or so) but it seemed to pay off.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#28

Post by einaregilsson »

For http://www.hearts-cardgame.com/ I wait until you are into your second game and then I slide down a little, uh, top banner (what are those things called?) which has the text

"Hi there! Looks like you're enjoying the game. That's great! We'd love it if you could help us out by sharing it with your friends:"

And then has the usual facebook/twitter/etc buttons. There is also a discreet "Share with your friends" link that makes the banner pop down, I like that more than having all those ugly buttons visible the whole time. I wait until you're into your second game because I figure by that point you must like the game, otherwise you'd have left, and then it's maybe more likely that you'll help me promote it.

All my online card games (3 of them) also have a "Also try our other games: X and Y" links, which drive a fair bit of traffic between them.

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#29

Post by aniobi »

pitdesi wrote: post #12

What field is it in? For ours ( http://feefighters.com ), which is b2b app, we have a 6 pronged attack which works pretty well: 1) SEO - people find us when they search for credit card processing and lots of long tail keywords. This is a long term thing but completely worth it. Make sure all of your pages are optimized for SEO. 2) SEM - we were buying keywords on google/bing/yahoo. Facebook has been less effective fo…

"We let anyone refer their friends to FeeFighters and get paid $25 for it"

Could you elaborate on this? Is it efficient?

Re: Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

#30

Post by acabal »

Bloggers in your target market are priceless.

When I launched http://www.scribophile.com/, a site for writers, I made a list of 50 writing blogs. They didn't have to be big names; writers love to write so there's lots of writers' blogs out there. I sent them a friendly and business-speak-free invitation to try the site with a free premium upgrade. Not everyone took me up on it, but a subset of those who did ended up participating and blogging about the site. A few years later and I still get traffic from some of those blog posts. I also still continue reaching out to bloggers, but now offering a month's ad slot if they're interested in writing about us. Now that the site has significant traffic, it's a great incentive for them.

Make sure to reach out to people with a carrot of some sort--give them an extra reason to want to write about you. You'll never get a 100% success rate, but even a 10% success rate will be worth it.

Post reply on HN