I probably should.
So you want to know how to get your site or startup noticed. There are a few things that you should do.
First of all you should find a niche audience. Nothing irritates readers like something that is not relevant to what they need. Then you need to find as many blogs in that niche as possible. Your next step will be to write a proper pitch to all of those blogs. A lot can could be written on writing a proper pitch, but I will leave that up to your discretion. Make sure it is personal, there is nothing worse than a pitch that will annoy someone. Remember not just to pitch big blogs, smaller ones have less people writing to them, and they will want to develop some of their own original content. As well, the smaller ones are more likely to help you out if you are friendly to them. People love to help people who are friendly.
Once you have pitched some blogs, you now have to notify your social network. You have one right? Make sure all of your Facebook friends and twitter followers know what you are up too. Find some areas where users of the other applications like yours join up. These can be locations like Google Groups, IRC, forums, etc. Slowly work you way into their attention. Do not push it, I repeat DO NOT PUSH. People will become hesitant if you force it down their throats. Then you can see if there is a ’sub-Reddit’ that is specific to your niche. You can find more people to charm there, and you can post links regarding your app. Again, this is a place not to over do it.
One thing you can do to get people interested in your site is stumble into interviews, podcast and more things of that ilk. A lot of people who create those are dying for new and interesting people to talk with, to freshen up their content if it is starting to become stale. Who knows, you might make a great person to interview. A great place to interact with people who could put you into an interview or a podcast are events. Events can be as big as conventions or as small as a meetup with a few people from the industry. When you go to these events you need to make sure you have an elevator pitch handy. An short explanation of an elevator pitch is a short pitch that you can give in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Also, when you go brand yourself from head to toe. In other words wear your schwag with you logo plastered on it. Like before, don’t just focus on the big names, go after those who might use your site and find it interesting, they have pull as well. Don’t stress out though, have a good time, get excited about your site, and people will find you.
If you are proud of how your site looks, and you should be otherwise you are doing something wrong, then get out there. Get on sites that show case design. There are countless ones. Something to remember is that you won’t get the greatest exposure from them, but the more places that link back to you is better than nothing. Who knows something who follows a link from one of those sites might become a big asset for you. Something else you should do for your site is to start a company blog. Make it interesting. Also don’t fake it, in other words don’t rehearse what you are going to say, be candid. You can show of new features, your team or technology. Build up a group of followers. Your followers will make or break you when it comes to posting you to sites like DIGG, Reddit, delicious, etc…
Be nice. When answering support emails do not talk down. Also make sure you respond in a timely manner. Potential users might test you with e-mails, responding quickly and as complete as possible can make the difference between a user or no user. It could even affect the life of your company, if it stays afloat or not. Users will post about their experience on your site to places like DIGG, etc. Try to get your site mentioned, in a positive light, as much as possible. Find reasons to get your site mentioned in tutorials and blog posts. An example would be if your site was about a robot that folded your socks , you need to have tutorials out there that recommend your service. Get those tutorials and posts on to DIGG, etc. If people do write about about your site, promote that content, even if it is not yours. People will more likely believe a positive post about your site if it is not from you, this is because they feel you are biased towards your site, which should be the case.
Big site love exclusives, at least if they are applicable to your site. Some examples of these sites are TechCrunch, ReadWriteWed, etc.. Don’t spam all of them, pick and chose one or two of them, whatever one your can get the best mutual trust with, and offer and exclusive. You have to have a great site if you want this to work.
Write a press release and release it. This will not be much help, but your name will end up with a lot of results in Google. This can make you look bigger than you actually are. You may even get some non-internet coverage if the press release is somewhat decent. This also will be cheap to do. Make sure you know as soon as possible when someone writes about your site. To do this you can follow a twitter search of terms related to your service, do not forget to search you name. You can even do a simple Google search. Respond to these posts ASAP. Comment on their blogs, not in a spammy manner but to get your name out there. Respond to their tweets. It is really easy to do. If someone needs to do something your site offers, you need to be there.
If you are a SaaS site, build a free app that ties into your main service. Make it fun and frilly, let your playful side show. Perhaps it can relate to site that people find interesting. For example if your site makes shoes, perhaps you could create an app that lets people submit customs designs that can be voted on. It will be separate but it has to promote your main site.
To get more ideas on what to do you can read material written by the community. There are a lot of great resources out there. If anyone would like for me to develop these ideas in greater detail, just drop me a line.
Filed under: Rant
