I really like that website! I've had two pushed to learn Chinese which both failed. I think I will try Skritter for #3.
I coded in the very early days of my website and moved to the business side as we grew. Other HN users have posted big lists of good stuff. I want to say that you really have two big goals based on those lists:
1. Keep ONLY user feedback flowing to the coders and handle anything else that would otherwise fall to them. They are the engine of your company; respect that by keeping them healthy, focused and productive.
2. Find the next big source of growth for your company. As the business guy, although coders often contribute, this is really on you.
I've played around with the bulk of lists others have written in answer to your post. Here are the time intensive, low cash things that have worked for us:
a. SEO. The cheap place to start is long tail keywords that are highly targeted to your service. Make sure your H tags and falling paragraph content align with the terms you want. After that, you'll need inbound links from non-spammy website. $100 a month can from textlinkads can help. If you are too poor for that, you'll need to convince bloggers to write about you - and to use those long tail keywords. Hard but possible.
b. Newsletters. These are surprisingly effective, but they are also time consuming and require a "I am going to work this hard for 3 months" approach to gauge true results. There are a wide range of email service providers, from ConstantContact on up. Many will let you send a few freebies out, others will let you send always free under a certain limit. This is great if you have a small list. Shop around, call the owner of one, explain your situation and negotiate for a little more head room. Remember, they make money on volume, so if they can show you ROI free early, they'll win too.
My parting advice is, dig in. Give whatever you decide to try your full effort. At the start it will feel frustrating and ineffective. Let it snow ball. Come in with the mindset that "this will work" and "I will not let my company down by failing to make this work". Then it will.
Nicely written. Thanks also for synthesizing the above posts.
In response to 1), that's one of the reasons why we're trying to address this. Even if I'm passive, it bugs Nick and Scott to keep me occupied, and that's not fair to them. As you put it, they are the engines of the company and although I want to remain busy and productive, that goal doesn't preempt respecting them.
Regarding the SEO, I'm working on that. Our login system is currently being redone which is indirectly foiling our attempts to use Google A/B testing, but as soon as we are no longer splitting the site between two domains, that should be resolved and then I can start working the minutia of the site that hasn't had any attention paid to it.
I'm also working on a newsletter, which we had at first discounted, but everyone has told us that they're great for business, but as you said, they take a lot of sweat equity. Hearing it reiterated makes me more prone to dump the time in and actually do it.
Plus, if you take articles from the newsletter and archive them on your site, that becomes a great long-term SEO advantage, giving people even more ways to find your site from search engines.
Comments
I really like that website! I've had two pushed to learn Chinese which both failed. I think I will try Skritter for #3.
I coded in the very early days of my website and moved to the business side as we grew. Other HN users have posted big lists of good stuff. I want to say that you really have two big goals based on those lists:
1. Keep ONLY user feedback flowing to the coders and handle anything else that would otherwise fall to them. They are the engine of your company; respect that by keeping them healthy, focused and productive.
2. Find the next big source of growth for your company. As the business guy, although coders often contribute, this is really on you.
I've played around with the bulk of lists others have written in answer to your post. Here are the time intensive, low cash things that have worked for us:
a. SEO. The cheap place to start is long tail keywords that are highly targeted to your service. Make sure your H tags and falling paragraph content align with the terms you want. After that, you'll need inbound links from non-spammy website. $100 a month can from textlinkads can help. If you are too poor for that, you'll need to convince bloggers to write about you - and to use those long tail keywords. Hard but possible.
b. Newsletters. These are surprisingly effective, but they are also time consuming and require a "I am going to work this hard for 3 months" approach to gauge true results. There are a wide range of email service providers, from ConstantContact on up. Many will let you send a few freebies out, others will let you send always free under a certain limit. This is great if you have a small list. Shop around, call the owner of one, explain your situation and negotiate for a little more head room. Remember, they make money on volume, so if they can show you ROI free early, they'll win too.
My parting advice is, dig in. Give whatever you decide to try your full effort. At the start it will feel frustrating and ineffective. Let it snow ball. Come in with the mindset that "this will work" and "I will not let my company down by failing to make this work". Then it will.
Nicely written. Thanks also for synthesizing the above posts.
In response to 1), that's one of the reasons why we're trying to address this. Even if I'm passive, it bugs Nick and Scott to keep me occupied, and that's not fair to them. As you put it, they are the engines of the company and although I want to remain busy and productive, that goal doesn't preempt respecting them.
Regarding the SEO, I'm working on that. Our login system is currently being redone which is indirectly foiling our attempts to use Google A/B testing, but as soon as we are no longer splitting the site between two domains, that should be resolved and then I can start working the minutia of the site that hasn't had any attention paid to it.
I'm also working on a newsletter, which we had at first discounted, but everyone has told us that they're great for business, but as you said, they take a lot of sweat equity. Hearing it reiterated makes me more prone to dump the time in and actually do it.
Plus, if you take articles from the newsletter and archive them on your site, that becomes a great long-term SEO advantage, giving people even more ways to find your site from search engines.