🗞 What's New: An SEO tactic to boost traffic

SEO is a long-term strategy, but this tactic can help speed it up:

• Listing your product in directories increases your domain authority, and gives you a free traffic boost.
• Tips for new founders: Focus on the right audience, let community drive the product, and believe in yourself!
• $3.5K in revenue from his first sale. Jesús Avila landed his first B2B client with just a mockup, and no product in sight.

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by Russ Halilov

I've read lots of posts on Indie Hackers and in other places that talk about SEO being hard and frustrating. But the truth is that SEO just requires consistency.

The comparison

SEO success doesn't happen overnight. It's like going to a gym or going on a diet: You won't get results immediately, but in six months you will have something to show for it.

We at Bluedot always postponed SEO. We waited for the "right time" to start, or for some magical thing to happen. We said we'd do it when we had increased MRR, when we raised money, etc.

But then, four months ago, we started SEO. It has already started bringing in 30x more traffic.

The strategy

Here's some low-hanging SEO fruit that can give you a free traffic boost: Listing in directories increases your domain authority, boosts traffic, and ranks your website higher on Google.

Don't know where to start? This list of 78 directories and websites shows you where you can publish your product for free. We sourced all of them manually, and I tested each website.

Unfortunately, most of them are nofollow. Focus on the resources that publish dofollow links to start, but all of them can help boost traffic!

Discuss this story.

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from The Hustle newsletter

Raising millions for a startup is no easy feat, but Beatriz Acevedo did it twice, and in wildly different sectors: Digital media and fintech.

She cofounded Mitú and SUMA Wealth, and also won three Emmys.

Here are her tips for new founders!

1. Focus on the right audience

From the get-go, Beatriz wanted to build SUMA for the "200% generation," young US Latinos. They are:

• 100% American: US-born, speak English, college-educated, and deeply ingrained in American culture.
• 100% Latino: Raised by Latino families, which means unique customs, expectations, and relationships with money.
• Underrepresented in media, and underestimated as customers.

*Source: Pew Research Center

Beatriz sensed a big opportunity here. Because of Mitú, she already knew how to reach these Latino youth, and what content resonated with them.

2. Let community drive the product

You might think building a media network and a fintech startup are completely different beasts, but in Beatriz's case, they're actually quite similar.

Her mantra? Community before product.

With Mitú's success, Beatriz realized that Latino youth respond well to pop culture, are active on social media, and need to feel belonged. So her team implemented an edu-tainment strategy to grow the SUMA community:

• Partnering with Arizona State University to establish bootcamps and certificates in financial literacy.
• Creating social content and distributing it through media partnerships.
• Building a newsletter that now has 200K+ highly engaged subscribers.

*Food is a big theme in SUMA's financial education. Source: SUMA Wealth pitch deck

SUMA also helps young Latinos navigate the stressful finances of dating, through a partnership with Latino dating app Chispa.

The community connection led to SUMA's 62% annual user growth, and nearly five time revenue increase.

3. Believing and investing in yourself

Raising millions of capital for your startup is often glorified, but it's a hard road for founders, so you better believe you're the right person for the job.

The first checks that come in are betting on you as a founder, more than on the profits or the growth. Make sure you really love what you're doing, and that it's something personal, bigger than you, and bigger than money.

Finding the investor-founder fit is also key!

Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

📱 Instagram overtakes TikTok as the most downloaded app.

🤖 Four new models that are benchmarking near or above GPT-4.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

🔎 There's no link between social media engagement and content readership, according to a new study.

⚖️ The biggest challenges for PPC marketers in 2024.

💻 How to structure your campaign effectively.

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

by Jesús Avila

I've only worked at startups and large organizations as a CSM or an account manager in the B2B space. My cofounder was in the govtech space doing sales. He came up with a good idea that was challenging for us as first-time founders: Enhancing the mental wellbeing of those in the police force to help combat the alarming suicide rates.

Our initial concept

We envisioned a sophisticated system tracking physical health data, vehicle speeds, and more. We would need lots of data from different systems, which seemed daunting. We agreed to create a mockup crafted in XD. It was a visual promise of what could be, with minimal features. We called it Mindbase.

The pitch and pivot

With mockup in hand, we set our sights on investors, naively optimistic about our prospects. We were met with a series of lukewarm meetings and people telling us we needed more traction.

This was so frustrating, because that's why we wanted money: To get traction! Without a product or funding, we felt adrift.

The cold call crusade

We decided to try something we were familiar with. Transforming our investor pitch into a sales narrative, we started a cold calling odyssey. We were well-armed with a Google Sheet listing sheriff departments crafted by someone on Fiverr, and a list of our own.

The breakthrough came unexpectedly. After countless calls and a series of rejections, a police chief finally asked about the price. Caught off guard, my cofounder quoted $3.5K. He has no idea why he said that, but he just plucked it out of thin air.

To our astonishment, the police chief agreed. Turns out that our competitors would have charged $20K. Joy and excitement were swiftly followed by panic; we had just sold a product that existed only as a mockup.

The Roadmap

This might look different for you, but here are the steps it took for us:

• Craft a compelling mockup.
• Develop a versatile pitch deck for various audiences.
• Compile a targeted list of potential customers.
• Launch a strategic email campaign to see who we should call.
• Embrace the grind of cold calling and scheduling meetings to pitch our vision.
• Iterate relentlessly, refining our pitch and materials based on feedback.
• Willingness to adapt, listen, and persevere.

Remember this: Change is your ally, and persistence your weapon. Your "How do I sign up?" moment is closer than you think!

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 Russ Halilov, Darko, Cyan Zhong, and Jesús Avila for contributing posts. —Channing