Hi,<p>This question is more for solo-founders (i.e. people without funding or big PR teams). Let's say you have a great idea and you managed to create your site but now what happens?<p>There is a huge list on submit.co but most of these sites are too big for small projects (techcrunch, producthunt, etc) or have a waiting list of 2+ months (betalist, etc). The list is still helpful though.<p>So how do you guys get the word out? Do you buy PPC ads? What are you favorite methods?<p>So far, I see the following methods getting some results for me:<p>1. Show HN, Reddit (merit based + no payment)
2. Openhunt (very new site + not much traffic)
3. PPC ads (facebook, adwords works but very costly for good keywords)
4. Contacting bloggers by twitter / email who write about similar products (works sometime but time consuming)
5. Organic traffic (takes time but quality backlinks are hard to get)<p>What else there is? Please share your own personal experiences as to what worked for you and what is a waste of time, so all the startup wannabes (like me) can learn from each other! :)
Honestly you kinda did things backwards from just this little description. Usually you want to gain people's interest and feedback before you build and launch anything. This way you already have cultivated a list of people to help you spread the word. But you can still succeed.<p>You have already mentioned many common ways and there is no magic one. Traffic takes time to build and while there are formulas to developing and retaining traffic it doesn't happen overnight. The crazy stories of a startup getting 10k or 100k visitors in two months from launch are usually skipping a ton of details and somewhat hiding reality.<p>Blogging and guest blogging are two things you didn't mention too. Also my 2 cents Adwords PPC is not a good way to start traffic unless you have a highly targetable audience and you know who needs and wants your product already. Facebook ads are cheaper to experiment but IME do best with consumer type products.<p>Reach out to people that would be clients and offer them a free trial for feedback. Then also incorporate referrals into your solution, they are usually your best source for growth early on.
Would highly recommend you to read `Traction`. Brilliant book covering this exact topic.<p><a href="http://tractionbook.com/" rel="nofollow">http://tractionbook.com/</a><p>`TRACTION: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
Most startups don't fail at building a product. Most startups fail at getting traction. Let us help you get traction using our 3-step framework called Bullseye, guiding you to the right traction channel out of 19.`