Google is not the only search engine
The most effective way to increase your visibility online is to rank high for Google searches, but this is also one of the hardest things to pull off unless you have amazing SEO skills.
You spend all your time and attention to get a better rank there but after 3 months, Google changes their algorithm and suddenly you’re back to square one.
Instead of trying to rely on Google (and by that I mean generic web searches), I suggest you try to get a better rank at niche search engines.
Sites like WordPress plugins directory, Magento plugins, Product Hunt, etc. It’ll be easier to rank high for your search terms there. The traffic and users you’ll get will be of super high quality and the competition will be tiny as compared to Google.
People also look for integrations with their current workflow, so if you could integrate with popular apps (like Basecamp) and get on their integrations page that will again help you find more targeted users. Plus, it’ll help you build those precious links which Google takes into account while ranking your app! One great example for this kind of marketing is that of SupportBee. They have done a lot of integrations with the most popular apps out there, check it out for yourself.
Another growing search engines are the app stores. And I am not talking only about the Play Store and iOS App Store, but also the Mac App Store, Windows App Store, Amazon App Store, Firefox/Chrome plugin directories, you get the hint. The competition here is again lesser than the generic web searches and the searches are dumb enough to game them easily (Evil Laugh). You should probably note that it is getting more difficult to rank in Play Store and iOS App Store because of the onslaught of apps by everyone.
One interesting search engine people tend to miss is YouTube! It is probably the second biggest search engine after Google.com and is still not taken seriously. Most of us create a product video and just leave it at that. What we should be doing is to create tutorials on solving problems which people face, your product helping out in solving that problem is a happy coincidence 😉. Plus, Google has started giving preferences to YouTube videos in their search queries. And you don’t really need to build anything to take advantage of YouTube as a medium for marketing.
Hope these small tips help you gain some new users very soon. If nothing else, I suggest you start creating YouTube videos. I, for once, prefer to watch a tutorial than read it. As an added bonus, if it doesn’t work out, you won’t have wasted precious time in writing code and then fighting against your emotions while throwing it away.
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