Startups were the hot topic at the latest meetup of Oahu Online Entrepreneurs. Doing the programming, pushing out to users and adapting to feedback.  Then there’s the all-important question: how do you grow your site?

Growth Hacks: Marketing by Coders

Growth Hacks — This is one of the most-followed boards on Quora, a popular Q&A social network among Silicon Valley techies.  How did Facebook get its first 500 million users?  What did YouTube do to build up a massive audience?  Read case studies of some of the most famous websites on the Internet.

Traction Verticals — Entrepreneur Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo (a search engine that protects user privacy), interviewed other successful founders to answer the question, “How did you gain traction for your website?”  The diverse answers he got showed that there are a million ways to gain a million users.  A TON of material in here.

The Many Pivots of Justin.tv — How a one-man reality show turned into a livestream platform.  Many websites end up very different from their original concept.

For more, see my related article, Psychology of Creating Addictive, Engaging Websites.

Sell Without Shame

No, you can’t pick my brain. It costs too much — Do you agonize over whether to charge people money to help them? Sharing tips with fellow professionals is one thing.  Having clients try to get free consulting from you is another matter.  This Forbes article is the most articulate argument I’ve read for standing your ground saying, “No,” to these leeches.  Can’t call them customers, because customers actually pay you.

Affiliate Marketing The Smart Way — In this episode of the Smart Passive Income podcast, online entrepreneur Pat Flynn talks about The Soft Pitch Pipeline, how he sells to his users in a non-scammy way. Flynn has talked about this stuff before, but this is the first time he’s pulled it together into a framework and given it a name.

5 Steps to making loads of affiliate sales in your blog posts — Corbett Barr of ThinkTraffic.net talks about ethical ways to make affiliate sales.  A good complement to Pat Flynn’s podcast.

Writing: An Underrated Skill

Copy Hackers — This website sells e-books on copywriting for startups and programmers.  A catchy description can get users to click on your app, the search result with your website, and so on.

It’s also worth looking at them as a role model for monetizing your writing skills.  Can you write a copywriting guide for businesses in your niche?

Information Highwayman — This blogger talks about how to apply the principles of direct-response  advertising to writing copy for your website.

Duellist Copywriting: The science of disarming competitors by wielding memorable legal marketing (PDF) — This is a free e-book from the creator of Silvered Copy, a copywriting service for lawyers. Despite the legal emphasis, these ideas could apply to any freelance service business. Heavy on citing proven research in psychology and cognition.   Many of the ideas are lifted straight from the book Made to Stick, but focused on copywriting.

WattPad — A social network for fiction writers. Like a YouTube for writers.  Share your stories, get feedback and build an audience.