They say that during a gold rush, it’s smart to sell shovels.
These days, everyone wants to create a SaaS, but few are willing to learn how to sell it. This makes SEO seem appealing since you can just write content and expect visitors to come.
But wait, now everyone insists you need backlinks to rank. That seems tough.
So, directories and services pop up that offer to list you in many directories for just $100, promising to boost your traffic and backlinks.
You might think this will help you gain traction without ever talking to a user—how convenient!
However, most of these directories get zero traffic and have a domain authority of zero, which means they won’t help you rank.
To clarify, backlinks from sites with zero domain authority won’t benefit you, and a site with no traffic won’t bring you any visitors.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO INSTEAD
Embrace the challenge and hustle to get your first 10 users.
- Post on Reddit
- Share on ShowHN
- Use your social media
- Ask friends for help
- Request referrals from friends
- Encourage friends to share on their socials
- Cold outreach your ideal customer profile (ICP) on LinkedIn
- Cold call your ICP
- Cold email your ICP
- Join Slack/Discord communities and engage there
Through three Reddit posts and word-of-mouth, I’ve grown one of my microSaaS projects to 310 users in just five months.
HOW TO RANK ON GOOGLE: You don’t need backlinks to rank.
- Sign up for Search Console and submit your site for indexing.
- Use an SEO grader to get a checklist of optimizations.
- Research long-tail keywords and write related articles.
You’ll start to see results within a few weeksjust keep creating content.
I’ve ranked on the first page for three long-tail keywords and received 87 clicks in 30 days.
Stop relying on directories and focus on promoting and selling your product.
The new shovels aren’t directories, haha. Since the 1990s, directories have become incredibly popular. In the 1990s, having your website listed in a directory such as MOZ assured you of traffic. Having your listing in several directories helped you build a strong backlink profile back in the 2000s.
Most directories have been a complete waste of time since the early 2000s. However, I completely concur with you that directories aren’t the solution. Directories won’t provide you with a substantial backlink profile. No one is going to say, "Well, I want to pay for a SaaS right now. Let me check out one of those directories I keep hearing about!
Definitely! Actually, I believe the reason directories have gained so much popularity is because, until 2023, they were these underappreciated assets. Then, some microM&A professionals and bootstrappers began to discuss their directories, which were truly successful, and the idea quickly grew into this travestied form of it that adds no value.
Directories aren’t shovels, sorry. Shovels are valuable tools that can be used to construct incredible structures. Tool directories are like cancer; they exist only to proliferate, spread, and enrich their proprietor.
High-quality sources continue to yield more effective backlinks than any other.
Isn’t it just like getting blasted off the end of the internet and then back on some directory that promises results for fifty bucks?
There is some benefit to directories for SEO.
A few websites and directories, such as ProductHunt, Betalist, and others, can help you rank higher in search results and expose you to prospective clients.
Having said that, directories and other similar websites should be a tiny element of your marketing strategy because they won’t help you succeed significantly.
That’s a marketplace, not that. Theresanaiforthat.com is an example of a directory, albeit it’s a rather nice one.
However, a lot of them are junk and are only there to trick founders who are ignorant of the importance of Domain Authority and traffic statistics.
ICP includes online/offline merchants and e-commerce sellers, but I’m a little lost.
However, I’m having trouble locating these folks online. I tried to post on several Reddit channels, but I was banned. Right now, door-to-door sales and cold outreach are my only options. Is there anyone here who works in related industries? How can you locate them?