Software directories: the low-hanging fruit most founders ignore

I doubled Alphie's inbound organic traffic in 1 week using a low-hanging fruit most founders ignore.

I'm talking about listings.

Why listings work

The logic of Google's algorithm is simple. Actually, it's not simple at all (and they keep changing it every few months), but here is the gist: get links to your website from websites that have high authority. Software directories are the easiest way to get them: you fill in a form, and a site with far more authority than yours links back.

Where Alphie is listed

Everybody knows about Product Hunt and G2. But there are a ton of others. Here are some Alphie is listed on:

• Capterra
• Crunchbase
• Wellfound
• F6S
• BetaList
• Owler
• AlternativeTo
• SaaSHub
• SourceForge
• TrustRadius
• There's An AI For That
• Futurepedia
• Toolify
• SaaSworthy
• Startup Stash
• Tekpon

Most are free; a few charge $30-250 to list.

Result: our Domain Rating went from 19 to 24 in 4 days, and traffic more than doubled.

Two more things worth doing

1. Get your customers to review you on G2. A listing with zero reviews is a dead end. G2 pages rank high for "best X software" searches, and AI assistants quote them when someone asks which tool to buy. Ask right after a win, and send the direct review link.
2. Get a business address. Every listing asks for one, and you don't want your home address on a dozen websites. We use Stable (YC W20).

Best part: Claude can do most of this for you. Email me at yura@meetalphie.com and I'll share our skill file.

One note: avoid the backlink farms. At best you'll waste time, at worst -- Google can blacklist your domain. Rule of thumb: respectable listings usually don't cold-email you 😅

First posted on LinkedIn