My Blogging Tips to Attract Users for Your Niche Product
Make People Happy With Your Blog. Here is How I Did.
Hello, it’s Takuya here.
I have a solo dev product called Inkdrop, a Markdown note-taking app for developers. The number of paid users is growing and will reach 1,000 soon. Here is a recent revenue of my app ($1 = ¥111):
The most users found my app from my blog posts. In this article, I would like to talk about my tips on blogging to attract users. It would be helpful if you are about to launch new product, or you already have a product running.
No Blogging, No Users
Since my app doesn’t depend on a particular platform like App Store or Google Play Store for the app discovery, I had to attract users by myself. But I hate ads. That’s why I started writing blog posts. I have two blogs: English blog (you are reading now) and Japanese blog. Also I sometimes write lifelog but it is just for fun and not for marketing.
It seems that my blogging strategy is working very well so far. For example, in October last year, one of my articles has got covered on Hacker News. As a result, it has got over 100K views:
I haven’t ever expect this result before I submit the article. Other posts don’t make such huge traction but absolutely help my app grow. Because I couldn’t have wrote that article without 500 paid users. I would like to show you an overview of the app website acquisition based on Google Analytics:
31% of the traffic is from organic search, but 88% of the search query is “inkdrop”, based on Google Search Console. It means that most people who searched on Google already know it. And 43% of the traffic is referral. Where from?
A half of the referral traffic is from my blogs. As you can see, my app user acquisition mostly depends on my blog traffics, without spending money on ads.
Okay, let’s get right into talking about blogging tips.
Teaching Something is a Good Way to Attract People
So what kind of topics to write? As you can see on my past blog posts, I always try to teach something based on my experience, instead of directly pitching my product, from idea to first sales and growth strategies. It is a good way to attract people because teaching something makes you trustworthy.
For example: You want to sell homemade coffee beans. It’s a niche product for coffee nerds. You write about what you learned while making your coffee beans. It is interesting for not only makers but also customers. There should be troubles you overcame, friendships, and knowledges. People can see how you are deadly serious on it from your articles. Then, some people will be interested in you and your product.
Personal projects are strongly associated with yourself. So as you tell about your experience, your product becomes more interesting. Your story is part of your product.
Make Fans Who Would Keep Reading Your Articles
You have a lot of things to do other than blogging. It’s hard to update blog every day while developing an app. So it’s important to get readers who would also enjoy other and future articles, instead of passing visitors. Because they will spread word-of-mouth for your blog and product. That would make a constant traffic to your website. Actually, I haven’t posted new article on this blog for a month but a number of registered users did not decrease last month.
I focus on making fans on my blog as following:
- Tell people why they should read your article
- Tell conclusion first
- Make reads, not page views
- Write thoroughly like a permanent edition
- Learn how to write well from good codes
- Avoid criticizing others
Let me describe each in detail.
Tell People Why They Should Read Your Article
People don’t want to waste their time. They are busy. So they want to make sure your article is worth reading as soon as possible.
It is important to introduce yourself before starting to write about a main topic. Most people reading your article don’t know about you at all since they happened to visit via social media or web search.
Why you continue reading this article is because you trust my achievements that I told first. If you would like people to read your article, tell them what you have accomplished. That establishes your credibility. Note that it should be related to the topic when you introduce yourself. You can not tell how you are good at cooking before talking about how to swing a bat.
Tell Conclusion First
Again, people are busy. They want to know what they will get from your article ASAP. Don’t put off or hide the conclusion even if you would like them to read until the end. Or they will get boring. They will read whole article if your conclusion sounds interesting. So you don’t need to worry about that.
Each headline should be a conclusion
I don’t recommend you to write section titles like following:
- Background
- Problem
- How to solve it
- Conclusion
That’s boring. Because they do not mean anything themselves. They just only separate sections. This is not a paper. The good headlines would be representing what you would like to say in a nutshell, that is, a conclusion.
You will get it from bestseller books. You can see important points written in books from their table of contents. And that makes you want to buy them. Similarly, good section titles would keep attracting people to read through your article.
Make Reads, Not Page Views
You are not a professional blogger or writer, but a developer. That means you don’t need to pursue page views. Your business is not to let them click ads. You are trying to attract your users. So, focus on making reads.
Don’t use clickbait or listicles like so:
- “You won’t believe this one ridiculously effective headline dark pattern”
- “11 outrageous headlines that will compel people to read your blog story”
Just tell the truth like “Lessons learned while building my React Native mobile app”. Be simple and clean.
Write Thoroughly Like A Permanent Edition
People who just started blogging are often afraid of exhausting their materials for blogposts. Don’t worry. As you write articles, you will get more ideas. Because once it became a routine of your work, you always think about what to write next in your life. When you managed to do something, it would be nice topic for next article.
I don’t like splitting articles like part 1, part 2 so that people come back again. It is not a way to make people happy. It is a way that those who desperately pursue “buzz” like newspapers and web magazines do. People who came because your article is on a hot topic, will leave and forget your blog soon when next topic has arrived. They will never be interested in your product. Focus on sharing your experience solely and thoroughly. That makes you a big credibility from readers.
Learn How to Write Well From Good Codes
I think good writings and good program codes have some common points. As you take care of them while coding, you should be able to do the same thing for writing:
Logical
Obviously, you must express logically to teach something so that people can understand easily.
No Ambiguous Expressions
Too much use of “I think”, “I guess” and “I feel” would make people feel vague. Too many excuses also cause anxiety to them. They will start suspecting you don’t know well on a topic.
Straightforward
People don’t like redundant expressions. You might feel like you are smart when speaking redundant and difficult expressions. But it makes your talk just unclear. Keep your sentences short and clear.
Less repetitions
Sections should not overlap each other as an information.
Consistent
It would be great if you keep a consistent style, theme and quality of writing through your blog. People will read not only a particular article but also other posts.
Avoid Criticizing Others
You don’t need to criticize others to argue something. That would make enemies for your blog who like others. They can break your product in the worst-case scenario. That’s destructive.
Instead, focus on sharing your knowledge. Don’t care others. Attract people who will like you. Then, they will not only read your articles but also help you do more.
Don’t Stop Writing!
The most important tip on blogging is to keep on writing articles. It’s very hard because you won’t get any tractions from beginning. It takes time. Everyone starts from zero. So, don’t stop publishing. Hope it’s helpful for your niche product :)
