Convertino

Hey builders,

I just wrapped up a 3-month traffic experiment with my tool, Convertino, and the results were unexpected.

For the past 90 days, I completely stopped all social sharing. No posts, no launches, no manual distribution. I wanted to see how much traffic the tool could pull entirely on autopilot through traditional SEO and LLM discovery.

Here is what I learned:

1. Google is steady, but ChatGPT is stickier: While organic Google search traffic is growing, a surprising chunk of our user base is coming directly from ChatGPT suggestions.

2. LLM traffic retains better: The crazy part? The visitors coming from ChatGPT aren't just one-and-done clicks. They are turning into recurring users. Once an LLM recommends a tool to solve a specific workflow, users seem to trust it and keep coming back.

3. You don't need llms.txt to start: I didn’t even have an llms.txt file deployed until a few days ago. While it's definitely a great practice to help bots index your product correctly, ChatGPT was already finding and recommending us without it.

If you're building a micro-SaaS right now, optimizing for AI crawlers might be just as important as traditional keywords.

Have any of you noticed recurring traffic from LLMs or Claude/ChatGPT wrappers? How are you optimizing your landing pages for AI discovery?

Hey everyone,

Wanted to share a quick, interesting insight from launching our tool, Convertino.

My friend Billel built the initial version, and I’ve been jumping in to optimize it and push it forward. We’re still in the super early days—just crossed 67 organic search visits since our first release.

But here’s the interesting part: 11 of those visits came straight from India, making it our #1 top-ranking country by traffic.

It’s a small data point, but it's pretty cool validation. India is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to software engineering, yet their builders and users are completely open to using tools made by indie hackers from anywhere in the world (even a tiny team in Algeria! 🇩🇿). They just care if the product works.

For any Indian devs or growth hackers in the community: does this track with how you evaluate new tools? Do you look globally right from the start?

Would love to hear your thoughts on early-stage geographic traffic distribution.

Let’s talk about the reality of our current project, Convertino.

​In my previous posts, I shared the wins—SEO rankings, ChatGPT referrals, and reaching new audiences. It all felt like a huge success considering we only launched a month ago.

​After one month of launching this image converter (built by my friend Billel using Next.js), we’ve reached over 200 visits from social media, startup directories, SEO, and even LLMs...

​BUT, here is the cold, hard truth:

​According to Microsoft Clarity, most of these visitors didn’t actually use the tool. They were just "tourists" checking out the UI. The reality is that less than 10 people have actually performed a conversion.

​Yes, less than 5% of our traffic are real users.

​The Challenge:

If our goal is to maintain the project through a donation-based model, we are facing a massive hurdle. If we assume that (at best) only 0.1% of actual users ever donate, having only 10 users makes the project unsustainable in the long run.

​This isn't me being pessimistic; it’s just the raw reality of building a product. We have "visibility," but we don't have "utility" yet.

​If you’d actually like to be a real user and test Convertino (Use it now 😒), here's the link https://convertino.xyz

​I’d love to hear from fellow hackers: How do you bridge the gap between "curious visitors" and "active users"?

​Regards,

Amine

After sharing Convertino on social media and receiving visits via SEO—as I mentioned in our previous posts—it’s now time to get visitors from LLMs.

​This is great proof that Convertino is doing well and that the SEO was built correctly.

​What makes me optimistic is that users are spending a significant amount of time using the tool and exploring its pages, unlike other sites that are just quickly checked and left. This is another good sign of its real-world utility.

​Regards,

Amine

In a world where everything is made for profit and everything is for sale, we chose to make ConvertIno for free—without limits, without registration, and without asking for anything in return.

When my friend Billel was using the tool only for himself, I told him: "Why don't we share this with the public? We can just add a donation link to maintain the project."

The tool is already built, the hosting is free, and the .xyz domain is cheap. So, why should I let the project "die" on my PC? I felt I should share it with the world to help the community, give a boost to those who can’t afford paid tools, and for many other reasons.

I have a philosophy that I live by: "Provide value to others, and God will give me what I want, Inchallah."

I don’t know why, but helping others is truly one of the keys to my happiness.

Regards,

Amine

Insights don’t lie... It didn’t take much effort to get our first 2 organic visits from Google search results in week one. It wasn’t luck; it was a strategic choice: "The Name."

The Story: Once I decided to update and add SEO to ConvertIno—the image conversion tool that my friend Billel developed from scratch using Next.js—I initially called it "Converted."

But after finishing, I told myself: "It needs a proper, unique name."

I first thought of "ConvertIn" (a nod to LinkedIn), but I quickly dropped it because it felt like a duplicate. Then, I chose ConvertIno.

The SEO "Discovery": By pure chance, I found out it’s the name of an artist, "Michael Convertino," who already has a decent search volume on Google. Because the name wasn't overly competitive for a tool, we appeared in the 1st place in less than one week!

The Result: Now that we have search volume and initial visits, Google’s algorithm will likely rank our tool even higher next month, Inchallah.

It’s a small win, but it shows how a simple name choice can kickstart organic growth.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on naming strategies for side projects!

Regards,

Amine

Built in Algeria, shipped to the world, to compete with the big tools.

We built a small, free, and unlimited tool that converts and compresses images with a focus on privacy.

When I say "shipped to the world," I mean we reached +80 visits in our very first week without spending a single dollar on ads—relying only on two posts and some solid SEO.

The Background: After my friend Billel developed the tool, I stepped in (as I mentioned in my previous post) to update it by adding SEO measures and analytics. We are now moving through the launch phase.

The Strategy:

• Last Friday: I posted right here on IndieHackers to share the story and announce the tool.

• Last Tuesday: We launched on ProductHunt to generate stronger traffic and visibility.

The Results: Between these two platforms, we’ve gained +80 visits and secured some strong backlinks. This has already helped the website become visible in search results within just seven days.

I would be honored to get some "true feedback" from this community of builders.

Regards,

Amine

As developers, we constantly need quick tools for our daily workflows. However, in the image conversion space, we struggled to find a tool that was truly free and unlimited without the friction of "creating an account" or "leaving an email."

My friend Billel originally developed ConvertIno as an open-source tool for his personal use. Built with Next.js, he designed it so the conversion happens entirely in the browser (client-side). When I saw it, my entrepreneurial mindset kicked in. I asked him: "This tool is powerful and private—why don't we open it up to everyone using SEO and organic sharing?"

He loved the idea of giving back to the developer community.

But the big question was: How do we keep a free, no-registration site alive without traditional monetization?

My vision is to rely on affiliates and donations. This gives users the choice to support us or benefit from discounts, without ever forcing them to pay for the core service.

I’ve been working on the SEO foundation—adding pages, optimizing metadata, and refining content using Gemini (Hybrid Vibe Coding). To grow organically, I’m focused on sharing valuable free content on social media rather than running ads.

I truly believe that helping people for free creates a cycle of mutual support. To be fully transparent: I am currently navigating a lot of personal debt, and I believe that by helping others solve their problems, I will eventually find the help I need to solve mine.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this "value-first" approach!

Regards, Amine