🗞 What's New: When should indie hackers begin SEO?

Wait until validation to begin investing in SEO:

• Early on in your SEO journey, the only thing that matters is ranking for your brand keywords. Later, optimize keywords. Down the line, build backlinks.
• Can you slow down and still be able to crush your goals? Try taking a tech timeout, introducing one task at a time, and embracing purposeful pauses.
• Martin Lasek is juggling a full-time job, his own project, and being a husband and dad. He stays up after everyone goes to bed to build WishKit.

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Want to grow your business? Try running a promo in the Indie Hackers newsletter to get in front of nearly 70,000 founders.

by James Fleischmann

We spoke with SEO experts and SEO-savvy founders to get their takes on SEO for indie hackers.

Is SEO actually worthwhile for indie hackers?

Corey Haines:

The short answer? Indie hackers should absolutely invest in SEO. Here's why: Google search traffic is the only source of free, recurring traffic. Make the investment once, reap the benefits forever.

Now, for the long answer. For most indie hackers, the biggest hesitation they have about SEO is the time it takes to start ranking. But most of the time, there are plenty of keywords attracting the right type of visitor, with decent search volume, where the type of content that seems to be rewarded includes a simple landing page, blog post, or free tool. Investing in SEO targeting those keywords can really benefit founders.

Kevin Indig:

SEO is very worthwhile if your business model aggregates products or other entities. Think NomadList, which aggregates locations. Aggregators benefit strongly from SEO because they produce a lot of pages with (hopefully) valuable content.

If, however, you start a SaaS business with a few landing pages, SEO probably shouldn't be high on your priority list.

Glen Allsopp:

It absolutely depends on the niche you're in, the terms you're targeting, and the "authority" of your website, but it is possible for bootstrapped businesses to rank.

We shared the story of Hassan El Mghari, who is averaging 260K pageviews on his small website each month, mostly from Google. It is very much possible.

Ross Simmonds:

Once you have product-market fit, investing in SEO can be a great strategic decision.

Also, if you are early to a market that is going to show a lot of growth in the future, SEO makes sense. This is certainly the reality today with a lot of the indie hacker solutions being created on top of AI.

When should indie hackers begin SEO?

Kevin:

Wait until validation. SEO only works when you have a product people want.

Ross:

Invest in SEO after validating, acquiring your first few customers, and doing a bit of research to understand whether or not there is search demand for the offering that you've created.

Steve Toth:

It’s never too early or too late to lay the groundwork. Pre-launch is a viable option if you have some money in the bank, but make no mistake, it’s a gamble.

Corey:

Start on day zero.

What is worth doing, and when?

Ross:

Early on in an indie hacker's SEO journey, the only thing that matters is ensuring that your website can rank for your brand terms, so if someone is looking for your name, it shows up in Google.

This means not getting too fancy with your website experience, and making it technically incapable of being scraped and indexed by Google.

Once that is complete, and you have demonstrated product-market fit, create specific landing pages that speak about the solution you offer.

The goal here is to optimize for keywords that are likely being searched when your audience is trying to make a buying decision around your product. Then, create landing pages, and write blog posts that link to those landing pages throughout your site to increase your ability to show up in the SERP. Try using AI tools to accelerate your content production workflow.

The next step happens after you hit $25K-$50K MRR. Start building backlinks to these different pages, and invest in a backlinking partner to support that type of growth.

Check out the full article for SEO wins, tools, and best practices!

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🔑 LinkedIn updates a key traffic driver for the platform.

👥 Thena: Manage customers on Slack. Free 14 day trial now! #ad

💻 Must know SaaS marketing trends for 2024.

🗣 Facebook introduces broadcast channels.

📱 You'll soon be able to have multiple accounts on WhatsApp.

🎁 48% of Gen Z will do their holiday shopping on TikTok and Instagram this year.

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

from The Hustle newsletter

"Move fast and break things" was the motto of generation Zuck. The biggest casualty? Ourselves...and our teams.

71% of employees in a 2022 survey reported feeling overwhelmed by the amount of change in their workplace.

But you don't have to sacrifice progress to slow things down. In fact, a more thoughtful approach can expedite success through vision alignment and enhanced productivity on the tasks that actually propel you forward.

Tackle one task at a time

We suck at multitasking, and lose up to 40% of our productivity when we try to convince ourselves we don't.

Consider rolling out high-level organizational change one initiative at a time. In the meantime, these simple daily tactics can inspire more focused work:

• Calendar blocking: Block off chunks of your calendar for specific tasks, or simply to focus.
• Shared priority lists: Ask team members to share their top three daily priorities and focus on them before tackling anything else.
• Single-task days: Assign different days of the week to focus on different aspects of the business.

Take a tech timeout (or two)

It's time to hit pause on the relentless ding of notifications. Try:

• Digital detox sessions: Schedule regular intervals where team members unplug completely for an hour or two to focus on non-digital tasks.
• Notification management: Set up scheduled focus times.
• Mindful meetings: Conduct meetings where tech is banned, especially if you're meeting IRL.

Embrace purposeful pauses

Rest periods are just as vital as work periods.

Research published by Microsoft shows that even a 10 minute break between meetings can significantly reduce stress.

Stress leads to poor decision making. Rest between meetings!

Other ways you can inject intervals of calm into your workflow include:

• Meditation: It works!
• Mindful eating: Enjoy leisurely meal breaks away from workstations.
• Flexibility: Create a calming routine, like a short afternoon walk or a break when surf's up.

Instead of "move fast and break things," let's go forth to "move purposefully and build things."

Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.

from the Marketing Examples newsletter

“Sometimes, the best copy is no copy.”

— John Hegarty

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

by James Fleischmann

Martin Lasek is working full-time while building WishKit, a product feedback and feature request tool.

Here's how he's making it work!

The numbers

Martin is a full-time iOS software engineer at Alaska Airlines. After work, he spends time with his wife and two-year-old son from 5 PM-11 PM. His son goes to bed at 8 PM, and his wife is in bed by 11 PM or 12 AM. Once the family is asleep, he works on WishKit. That means regularly staying up until 4 AM to grind out features.

His finances:

• Revenue from WishKit: $125 per month.
• Full-time job: Undisclosed.
• Personal account: $10K.
• Business account: $0.

Business expenses:

• Total: $53 per month.

Personal expenses:

• Mortgage: $5K per month.
• Car: $500 per month.
• Travel and entertainment: $500 per month.
• Food: $800 per month.
• Home improvements: $500 per month.
• Son's college fund: $100 per month.
• Au pair: $800 per month.
• Utilities, insurance, gas, etc.: $1.8K per month.
• Total: ~$10K per month.

Investing in VR and utility eating

Martin invests in Unity and Apple because he believes VR is the future.

Beyond financial investments, he also invests in ordering in. Often, his wife cooks. But when it's his turn, he orders food instead of cooking. He sees it as an investment because it gives him an extra 30 minutes to work.

He also likes to save brainpower in his food consumption. He calls himself a "utility eater." As long as it's nutritious and semi-healthy, he'll eat it for lunch and dinner for a week. Then, he'll choose a different meal and eat that for a week. No thinking required.

Strategic debt

According to Martin, there are three ways to pay for something:

1. If a car costs $20K, you can go $20K into debt and pay $500 per month. Now, you have $500 per month less, meaning less flexibility.
2. You could save up $20K and pay it in full. You'll be more flexible month-to-month, but you probably just blew through your savings, so you've got nothing as a backup.
3. Have $20K saved up, but choose to go $20K into debt and pay $500 per month. Then, make the payments with your savings. You'll stay flexible, and you'll still have money for emergencies.

He calls it "strategic debt." According to Martin, if your product isn't making money, it shouldn't cost more than $100 per month, including marketing. He spent $750 on ad placement, and it brought in 2K visitors and zero conversions.

Simply tweeting about his progress has brought in more conversions than ads, and it doesn't cost a dime.

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 James Fleischmann, Darko, Kristin Egan, and Harry Dry for contributing posts. —Channing