Hi HN,<p>I've launched a web application earlier this week called www.organizemysearch.com<p>The idea is to let users organize things like used car searches, apartment rental searches, or other types of searches they do online.<p>For example, if someone is looking for a used car, they will go to several different sites and look at various car ads. This website allows them to save all the ads found on different websites (automatically loading all the data). This way the user can more easily see all the ads he is considering and have everything in one place to sort and compare all his/her options.<p>The problem is I can't figure out what keywords I should use that would actually represent what the application does accurately, which is "a tool for organizing your online searches" (eg. organize your used car searches, organize your apartment rental searches, organize your search for 'blueberry muffins',etc)<p>I would like to optimize the site so people who are actually looking for such a tool will find it easier in search engines, but I'm not sure what approach I should take. I don't even know what category this web application falls into?<p>Most searches about 'organize' on google are things about physically organizing your garage, home, garden or apartment. And anything with 'search' in it gives very generic or non related results in google searches.<p>Example of some keywords I've tried:<p>organize search [very generic, most google results are articles about seo and search engines]
organize car search [1 hit on google]
organize appartment rental search [no results]
organize shopping items [tons of articles about how to organize your groceries]<p>Any ideas on how I can better market this web application, or optimize SEO for this website so I can attract people who are actually looking for such a tool?
Your problem is that people don't know that they would find your product useful until they have it. Who is actually going to be looking for your tool?<p>Drew Houston has talked about this in respect to Dropbox (<a href="http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/262672510" rel="nofollow">http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/262672510</a>) - who knew they needed Dropbox until they found out about it? USB sticks and email work just fine, right?<p>I have exactly the same issue with Synctus - VPNs and Terminal Services work just fine, right?<p>What you need to do is find a channel. People who are already in the business for whom your product is a value-add.<p>For example: for Synctus, I am reselling through IT professionals - the people who might recommend and install VPNs and Terminal Services for their customers.<p>In your case, you might see if you can approach specialist car search and real estate search sites - if you can work out something that you can give them which will add value to their service too.
Perhaps you could work with some of the classified sites themselves (start with smaller ones) to add an "Organize My Search" widget. Pitch it as a way for them to increase engagement and drive more return visits.<p>Also, many car enthusiast forums have "Cars for Sale" sections, and they're utter disasters. It would be valuable to be able to save those listings easily (bookmarklet?). A little word-of-mouth campaign on a forum can go a long way, and you can kick it off with a forum sponsorship with commercial posting rights.<p>(Side Note: The question in your header is implied -- don't state it, just answer it.)
Excuse my buzz word but I think the only way you can make it spread is to embed a virus.
One of the things you can do is to enable user to share his search with friends/family over facebook, twitter etc. They could help him adding additional elements to the search (i.e. if they find something on the web that user is looking for they can submit a link), or give other advice.<p>SEO will not work - as it didn't work for Dropbox. Nobody is waking up one day and start searching for such a tool that you provide.
By the way, the homepage is bit of a mess on Safari + Mac (I know you're not asking for that kind of feedback but yeh...).<p>Side-scrolling main frame thing is just awkward. Some of the images overlap as well.<p>I don't think this is something that people will know they need, or at least, not know what to call. So approaching potential customers through forums, reviews on relevant blogs, widgets/partnerships sounds like a reasonable route to take.
I'm not sure who your target audience is. I've searched for apartments, a car, and a house. Every time I used a spreadsheet to keep track of those things and it worked great. From my quick look at your site, that's all you really seem to be offering. I'm not sure what extra value you're adding.
I think you're a feature. A perhaps sorely missed feature, but still a feature. I agree trying to drive traffic is hopeless. You need to find partners that want to embed your functionality. You shouldn't be a destination, you should be a service for destinations.
I forgot to add a clickable link <a href="http://www.organizemysearch.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.organizemysearch.com</a><p>feel free to use user/pass:hn/hn to test it out if you want!