So this week something actually happened.
I've been building Convertify - a free image converter (Rust + libvips backend, Next.js frontend) - for about 2 months now. Writing content, fixing schema, submitting to directories, watching Google mostly ignore me.
This week the numbers moved.
The numbers
Google Search Console, 3-month view:
- Impressions: 271 -> 463 (+71%)
- Indexed pages: 59 -> 72 (+13)
- External links: 40 -> 65 (+25)
- Average position: 40.8 -> 43.8 (worse, but I'll explain)
That impressions jump is the biggest I've ever had.
What I think caused it
I don't think it was one thing.
Week 7 I updated 19 pages - added content sections, cross-links, fixed a schema bug where 189 FAQ entries were missing from JSON-LD.
Week 8 I did Semrush-driven fixes - put target keywords in H1s and titles, simplified sentences for readability, added semantic terms that competitors use but I wasn't. Also brought 16 pages up to 8+ FAQ each.
My theory is Google re-crawled the batch of updated pages and suddenly saw: "oh wait, these pages actually have real content now, not just a converter widget and two paragraphs."
The position thing
Average position went from 40.8 to 43.8 which looks bad. But 13 new pages got indexed this week, and they all start at positions 50-80. That drags the average down even though the older pages are actually climbing.
One page - jpg-to-webp - is at position 5.8 with 39 impressions. Position 5.8! That's basically page one. Zero clicks though. Working on the title/description to fix CTR.
What I built this week
Shipped batch image-to-PDF. You drop up to 10 images, pick page size (A4/Letter) and orientation, get one combined PDF. Built the PDF from raw bytes in Rust — no PDF library, just manually constructing xref tables and DCTDecode streams. Was it overkill? Probably. Was it fun? Absolutely.
Also refactored the entire Rust backend - split a 1200-line main.rs into proper modules (db, errors, image, notification, path, pdf). Should've done this weeks ago.
Backlinks update
Got on StackShare (DR ~89) and submitted to Capterra (DR ~91, pending review). Capterra was interesting - one submission potentially gets you on Capterra + Software Advice + GetApp, all three owned by Gartner.
Tried a few other directories from my backlink plan. Turns out FeedMyApp is dead (domain expired in 2022), Go2Web20 is dead, VentureBeat Profiles doesn't exist as a free thing anymore, and BetaList wants $39 minimum. So that saved me some future time at least.
Organic search is now #1 traffic source
This is the thing I'm most excited about. search.google.com has been the top traffic source for two weeks straight now. It's small numbers but the trend is clear.
The new /images-to-pdf page immediately became the #2 most viewed page on the site. Google picked it up fast.
What's next (week 9)
Biggest gap right now: 24 out of 64 pages have no cross-links in their body text. Plan is to add 2-3 natural cross-links per page across all 24 this week.
Also rewriting titles and meta descriptions for pages that are ranking but not getting clicks.
If you want to try it: convertifyapp.net. 40+ format pairs, batch conversion, image-to-PDF. Free, no signup.