Own Your Niche

What is your API’s niche? What does your API actually help developers achieve? Are you a sentiment analysis or IP geolocation API? Or is your value proposition broader?

After defining your value proposition, you can start owning your specific niche with these steps:

Research Your Key Words

Say you have a visual recognition API that focuses on reading emotions from facial expressions. What words do developers use to search for that functionality: facial recognition, face recognition, visual recognition, or emotion APIs?

Finding the most popular and specific phrase that matches your functionality will help search engines direct developers to your website. You can use keyword research tools, like Google Keyword Planner, to define the phrase that you would like your API to rank for.

Advertise Your Niche on AdWords

Now that you have chosen the keywords that you want to be associated with your API, you can expand your efforts with paid and organic marketing. Start a Google AdWords campaign to showcase your API in targeted search results. Check out this Kissmetrics guide on how to start an AdWords campaign from scratch.

Answer Quora and StackOverflow Questions

Answer questions relative to your API on Quora and StackOverflow to demonstrate value to people asking for help. Check out how one of our API providers responds to questions:

Focus on being helpful first, promoting your API second. We recommend including the fact that you are associated with the API or company in your answer.

You can track traffic from these answers by using Google tracking links and checking your Google analytics. Check out this tutorial on Google Analytics to learn more.