How I got 7,000+ views in one day for my first blog post
Posted on November 30, 2020 (Last modified on February 27, 2024 )
4 minutes • 830 words
Table of contents
Two weeks ago I created a brand new blog for SpreadTheWorld . I wanted to start some SEO efforts that will generate traffic to my product. I know SEO is a long term game, I thought that maybe I can leverage the content through distribution.
The Content
To kickstart my blog I wanted some good content that provides value to the readers. I don’t bother much about keywords, for now, I just wanted something valuable that will help both SEO & marketing. My first post was about one of my favorite topics: How to use Reddit as an IndieHacker. I wrote a long post (750 words) about my experience and how you should use Reddit at each stage of your start-up. Then I cleaned it up with Grammarly and Hemmingway - to remove mistakes and improve readability.
My goals with that blog post were (in that order):
- Grow my Twitter audience
- Create some traffic to my product
- Grow my audience in different communities.
I created some call to action for this. I added a CTA at the end of the post redirecting to my Twitter: “Do you want to launch on Reddit? DM me on Twitter, I’ll be happy to help → Twitter” The footer of each blog post was designed with a CTA to bring traffic to my product.
Distribution
I posted the article on the blog. It generates no traffic at all, no surprise, it’s the very first post.
Then I posted to IndieHackers, on a Saturday. Not the best day to share content, I got only 12 upvotes and a few comments. I also tried Reddit (on a weekday) and got small traction on /r/Entrepreneur: 56 upvotes and 25 comments. Nothing extraordinary for a community with 900k members…
As I’m trying to start using HackerNews I also posted the link of my post to HN with the title: “How to Use Reddit as an IndieHacker”. It got no upvotes, I just watched the post drawing in the “New” section and disappear :/
I thought: “ok, my post wasn’t that good, I’ll write a new one and try again”.
Retry!
A few days later, I read a tweet from someone explaining that you should re-post your content on HN. That can make some results and the community is ok with that.
So I tried. I just made a small modification in the title: instead of
“How to Use Reddit as an IndieHacker”
I did
“How to use Reddit to get your first users”
I know that getting the first users is a real pain (that’s why I created my Notion template for startups ), so I figured that, maybe, it will catch more attention.
I checked an hour later and the post got a massive spike on my analytics tool!
The post just exploded! At this time I got 36 upvotes and was #5 on the homepage!
Homepage of Hacker News
That day was crazy! My blog post stayed on the homepage for almost 8hrs, brought me, 6000 visitors - sometimes more than 100 concurrent users! I also got 100+ comments on the HN post, I spent the day answering them and trying to keep the momentum going! I also monitored Twitter to thank every shout-out and try to create some momentum there as well. Here is the live Tweet
Final Stats
A week after the post, here are the stats:
- 7.2k visits on my blog
- 25 new followers on Twitter
- 350 visitors on SpreadTheWorld homepage
- A few sales only (during the first 8hrs), a few more afterward
The conversion wasn’t good!
I told you earlier that I had some CTA on the blog + on the bottom of my post to convert the audience. They didn’t work! A very few people clicked on them, the bottom of my post was too muddled and the text was too vague:
I updated it to:
And it worked! The conversion rate jumped from 0,6% to 2,3%: And I also added a CTA in the header (the day after) - a lot of visitors wasn’t going to the end of the post:
The conversion is now way higher, almost 10% of the blog visitors go on the product page!
I did all these experiments during the rush, so I kind of miss this wave of visitors, but I’m ready for the next one!
Takeaways
Distribution is super important, more than anything else. Create a good product/content and post it to every (big) community. You never know if it’s going to work so just share it!
Retry, if it does not work on a platform try to submit it to another one. If it still doesn’t work update the content/title and re-post it!
CTA is crucial. Understand before posting what your goals are and monitor the conversion (I didn’t do it, I regret it…)
You need months to leverage good content!
Do you need help to grow your audience or distribute your content? Contact me on Twitter I’m always happy to help!
