You’ve just launched a website (company) and you want people to know about it immediately. Of course, there are many places you can advertise your new website (company) – for free or for money.
One place to advertise for free is Killerstartups (a well-known tech news blog). They have about 10,500 RSS readers and about 513,000 visitors/month (according to Compete.com, which tracks only US-based visitors – if you double that number you have a pretty good idea of the website’s traffic).
Killerstartups is ranked among the top 3,300 USA websites, according to Alexa, so it is a great place to introduce your company to the world. But the problem is how to get your site on there. They have an online form where you can fill in all the required details, but then you can only hope for the best. That’s what I did…but my hopes were in vain. They receive such a high volume of requests, mine was most likely lost among the hundreds of emails they get daily.
What I did next (I didn’t want to spam them with repeat requests) was to look at how they got their listings. What was the source of their information?
If you look at the image below, there’s a note at the bottom called Source.
There are different sources Killerstartups uses. Some are very well-known blogs like Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Techcrunch, Webware, so your chances to get listed there are pretty slim (unless you have a very good and unique service).
Submit your startup
So I found other sources where you can get in pretty easily:
- Launchfeed.com – Go to “Submit,” then fill out the form in order to announce your launch. You need to have an English-language site, otherwise, they won’t approve your submission. I used Launchfeed to announce my site (although my site is older than 1 month) and Killerstartups.com picked it up in the next two days.
- Simplespark – is the place to find and share a new world of web applications. Your website/service/application can be listed here, too. Click on “Add Apps to Spark,” then open an account.
- Listio – is a user-driven directory that allows you to submit any web 2.0 application for others to discover, rank and comment on. When you submit a new application, it will be placed in a “pending” area until an editor reviews and publishes it. Looks like a Digg for web applications. Click on “Submit a web 2.0 app link” to create an account.
- FeedMyApp – This is another web application listing site but without a voting system. Click on the “Suggest a Site” link and fill out the form (no account needs to be created).
- MOMB – “Museum of Modern Betas” is a site dedicated to listing web-based applications on a beta trip. This site is in an alpha version, but you can contact them by email (see About).
- Lo-fi-Librarian – This is a blog created by a Master’s Degree student in Library and Information Studies from the UK. You can contact him/her by email and try to have your website listed on his/her site.
- DemoGirl – Molly McDonald is the editor-in-chief of this blog (which belongs to VPOP Technologies Inc.). If she thinks your service is good enough, she will build a screencast of it and feature it free of charge on her DemoGirl website.
- WebDev 2.0 – They present a variety of sites that they think are useful for their readers. Go to “Submit a site” to submit your site to them for review.
- Dzine Blog – is all about designs. Here you will find inspirational designs and some good tips in logo, graphics, and web designing. Contact the owner (Contact page) and tell him about your website (especially if you have a great-looking website).
- Sociableblog – is a social networking and social media blog that offers the latest news, articles, and video on social networking, social media, social community, and social software worldwide. You can let them know about your service/website by clicking on the “Submit News” link (but you have to register first to use this form).
- eHub – is a personal initiative of Emily Chang (a well know web designer) where she lists web startups. You can submit a site, service, or news on her “Submit a Site” page.
- Rev2 – is a weblog dedicated to profiling new Web 2.0 startups and technologies, as well as providing in-depth analysis of the state of this industry. Send an email with your announcement to one of the editors (see the About page).
- Ziipa.com – is a visual search engine that accepts website submissions. Just go to “Suggest” and fill out the form. They will review your submission and approve/reject it.
- Go2web20 – is a Flash directory of Web 2.0 applications. You can send them an email by clicking on “Suggest.”
Those are a sampling of websites where you can announce your new startup/service/website. I have chosen only those that accept English-language sites, but there are many others (Spanish, German). Also, I have listed only those where you have the best chance of being noticed compared to well-established websites like Techcrunch, Centernetworks, Mashable, Venturebeat, Readwriteweb, Webware.
Good luck with your submission and getting listed on Killerstartups.com! It worked for me.
Mircea Goia blogs on MyTestBox, a technology website focused on web software reviews written by common users and advanced developers.