🗞 What's New: Improving engagement on your website

Do your website visitors actually stay and engage?

• Improving your load time helps. Also, make your content more scannable and use visuals to help keep people engaged.
• Podcast ads can be super effective. Audiences respond to them better than TV streaming or radio ads. Test a range of podcasts to see what works.
• Freelancing brought in $9K for Abhishek as he balanced fighting depression with building products. Enter psychedelics.

Convex is the backend application platform with everything you need to build your full-stack project. Cloud functions, a database, file storage, scheduling, search, and real-time updates fit together seamlessly, and are accessible from client libraries for your favorite environment. Start building your full-stack app with Convex today! #ad

Want to grow your business? Try running a promo in the Indie Hackers newsletter to get in front of nearly 80,000 founders.

by Thomas Griffin

Engaging your website visitors is essential, but it's easier said than done. These tips can help!

Share relevant content

People visit your site to get answers to their questions. Therefore, the focus of your content strategy should be making their lives easier, and helping them explore solutions to their problems.

Also, avoid generic or bland content. Spice things up a bit!

Improve your load time

Did you know that 47% of visitors expect a page to load within two seconds?

Poor load time has a drastic impact on the user experience, and significantly affects the likelihood of people exploring your site. Improve your website's performance by keeping its load time to a bare minimum.

Improve content readability

Your goal isn't to impress your audience with your vocabulary, but to make things easier for them to understand.

The same goes for the way your content is displayed. The use of small font sizes, inappropriate font styles, not enough line spacing, and cluttered page layouts affects the readability of your content.

Add internal links

Adding internal links to your website's pages not only helps your visitors find relevant information on your site, but also facilitates your content's topical depth and fuels your SEO.

However, it's important to be moderate when adding links to your pages, as going overboard with them does more harm than good.

Use visual content

Our brains are capable of processing images 60K times faster than text-based content.

This makes visual content one of the most effective ways to engage your website's visitors. Whether it's images, videos, or infographics, leveraging visual content helps you get more eyeballs.

Be people-centric

Producing content around keywords that resonate with your niche is an effective strategy, but don't forget to center your user's needs and preferences. Don't be so technical that you forget the human touch aspect.

Being people-centric helps you stand out, build authority, and connect with your users on a more personal level.

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

📮 TikTok content is coming to Redbox kiosks soon. Get in early while ad space is still cheap.

🔎 Create dynamic search ads that actually work.

🧠 Making your users "stand in line" could increase sales. It's psychological.

🙅‍♀️ ~50% of British shoppers unsubscribed from marketing emails.

🎁 Reddit's holiday campaign planning guide is out.

🛠 Convex has everything you need to build your full-stack project. #ad

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

from The Hustle newsletter

Nearly 42% of Americans listen to podcasts, and research suggests that audiences are more attentive and responsive to ads on podcasts than on TV or radio.

*Source: The Guardian

But podcast advertising is still a new frontier. Dave Hanley, cofounder of podcast ad marketplace AdvertiseCast, and Heather Osgood, founder of podcast agency True Native Media, put together five tips for founders looking to run podcast ads!

1. Bigger isn't always better

Hit shows have huge audiences, but they're typically oversaturated with ads, making it difficult to deliver yours authentically.

Smaller shows are more affordable and have dedicated communities, meaning higher conversions. Start small: A minimum of 10K downloads within a 30 day period. Once you know what works, target bigger shows.

2. Beware the obvious niche

If you're selling pet food, it may seem like a no-brainer to advertise on a pet-related podcast. But the pet pod audience is likely full of people who home cook four-course meals for their dogs. They're not your target at all. Find your audience by:

• Surveying your customers.
• Getting advice from an ad agency.
• Using the audience metrics feature on Spotify Advertising.
• Using platforms like Podchaser Pro, Magellan AI, and Veritonic.

Pro tip: If you're buying ads through a podcast network, don't assume they're doing this research for you.

3. Nail your talking points

Don't give the host a script, because your ad will sound unnatural. Instead, give them talking points.

Indicate any phrases they should say verbatim, and keep it brief. You can request this tried-and-tested formula:

• A personal story about when the host experienced the problem your product solves.
• The benefits of the product (not the features, but the value it adds).
• Multiple repeats of your CTA.

4. Go shallow and wide

Start by testing a range of shows with different genres, formats, and audiences so you can figure out what works.

Remember that an audience needs to hear a message 3-10 times before it has impact.

5. Dynamic ad insertion

Dynamic ad insertion is less organic, but it is more targeted. Different listeners can hear different ads on the same episode.

You'll also pay less for dynamic ad insertion. Unlike baked-in ads, they vanish as soon as you hit the promised number of impressions.

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

by Rob Hope

Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips:

Step into your visitor’s shoes:

• Load your landing page on mobile.
• Read the text aloud.
• Use the navigation.
• Check out successfully.

Doing this will expose conversion friction points in your landing page.

Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.

by Abhishek

I'm a physics and computer science undergrad student, freelancer, and developer. Here's my journey!

The products

I created a free no-code tool called Thunkable that ended up being used by many high school and college students. Soon, that led to my biggest client. I would put in a lot of hours every day for this client, and I was extremely happy and secure. I was able to pay my tuition and buy a new laptop!

I built Rocket Networking, a multiplayer game development framework that streamlines the process of building games. This was my first time building a SaaS from scratch, so I made a lot of mistakes. The worst one was launching without building an audience.

One day, I was approached by the guys at Solana Sneks. My experience with them has been extraordinary. We started building a trading card game in Gamemaker, and I used my Firebase skills to build our whole app. We're very close to launching!

The depression

My sophomore year, personal problems led to deep depression. I got on antidepressants, which caused horrible fatigue and demotivation. As a result, I stopped making money for a while. I stopped working out and meditating, and was also periodically addicted to Benadryl.

Back in February, I had a huge episode, followed by months of trauma-related stress. I was in the outpatient department of a psychiatric hospital, and got back on meds.

I was suicidal, and my family was toxic. I was totally emotionless, which was horrible. It was like being a zombie. I decided to try psychedelics. I got some MDMA, and had a really bad trip.

After a scary night, I woke up feeling things again. This is what they call "the afterglow effect." It was comforting, and I was more calm and composed.

The aftermath

I decided to get back to freelancing, and went back on Fiverr to accept new clients. During this whole ordeal, I made $9K through freelancing. Freelancing has been a major opportunity for me, allowing me to connect my love for physics with game development, and create a unique spaces for myself in this vast tech universe.

On the health end, I started experiencing sleepwalking. I still also have episodes of bad moods, and I've talked to my new doctor about that.

I'm also currently working on Helicity.ai, an AI-based JavaScript game engine that you can use right in your browser.

Here's to the winding road ahead!

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Thomas Griffin, Darko, Caitlin Macleod, Rob Hope, and Abhishek for contributing posts. —Channing