Eduard Albu

Posted on Dec 11

Building Boring Tools That Rank: 4 Weeks, 11 Tools, and a Plot Twist with ChatGPT

#buildinpublic #seo #indiehackers #webdev

Most indie hackers chase the next "big thing." I spent months doing exactly that, looking for some revolutionary idea that would change everything.

Then I stopped and built something boring instead.

This is the story of my first month building QuickTools.one, a collection of free, privacy-first browser tools. The goal was simple: rank on Google, capture organic traffic, hit $1K MRR.

What actually happened was way more interesting.

The Premise

I'm a system engineer from Romania working a 9-5. My side income comes from client work, not products. I wanted to test if a solo developer could build something that grows while sleeping, powered entirely by SEO.

No cold outreach. No paid ads. No Product Hunt launches. Just ranking pages that solve problems people search for every day.

The tools themselves are nothing revolutionary: merge PDFs, compress images, resize photos, extract colors. The kind of utilities millions of people need daily.

The experiment was whether I could make them rank.

Week 1: Starting the Engine

Shipped the first two tools:

PDF Merge
PDF Compress

Both process files entirely in the browser. No uploads to servers. No tracking. Everything happens locally.

Set up the basics: Next.js, Firebase analytics, proper metadata, JSON-LD schemas.

Submitted to Google Search Console and waited.

Lesson learned: New domains have zero authority. Google doesn't care about you yet.

Week 2: Shipping Fast

Went from 2 tools to 5:

Split PDF
Image Resize
Image to PDF

Fixed a bunch of SEO issues I didn't know I had:

Meta titles over 65 characters (truncated in search results)
Missing canonical URLs
No internal linking between tools

Converted the site to a PWA. Started getting my first installs.

Discovered something important: tool pages without content don't rank. Added guides, FAQs, and keyword-rich paragraphs to every page.

Started backlink outreach. Reached out to tool review sites, PDF comparison blogs, tech writers.

Biggest insight: Free plugins equal free backlinks. WordPress plugins, Chrome extensions, npm packages - all of these directories send links. iLovePDF and SmallPDF have been doing this for years.

Week 3: First Signs of Life

This was the week things started feeling real.

First 100+ visitor day. Brand searches appearing on Bing (people typing "quicktools.one" directly). Multiple tools getting crawled and indexed within 48 hours of launch.

New tools shipped:

Color Picker
Delete PDF Pages
Compress Image

Added a "smart suggestions" feature: after using one tool, the page suggests related tools. Tiny change, huge impact on retention and internal linking.

Traffic milestone: Pacing at 3,000 monthly users (organic + returning).

Submitted to Bing Webmaster Tools and Yandex. Shortly after, crawl frequency improved across all search engines. Multi-search-engine discovery might actually accelerate indexing.

Week 4: The Plot Twist

Here's where it gets weird.

I built this entire project for Google SEO. Optimized titles, wrote blog posts, chased backlinks.

Then I checked my analytics:

Traffic Source	Visitors	Share
ChatGPT	180	71%
Google	56	22%
Direct	15	5%

ChatGPT sent 3x more traffic than Google.

An AI chatbot became my biggest traffic source. I didn't optimize for this. I didn't even know it was possible.

Weekly stats:

675 unique visitors (+51% week over week)
841 visits
3,080 page views
18% bounce rate
3 min 56 sec average session

New tools shipped:

Crop Image
PDF Extract
PDF to Image

That's 11 tools live in 4 weeks.

Why Is ChatGPT Recommending My Site?

I don't know exactly, but here are my theories:

1. The tools actually work

No signups. No email gates. No dark patterns. Just tools that do what they say.

2. Privacy positioning stands out

Most PDF tools upload your files to servers. Processing everything locally in the browser is a real differentiator.

3. Clean UX signals quality

High engagement metrics (82% of visitors interact, nearly 4-minute sessions) probably matter to AI systems crawling user feedback.

4. Presence on developer platforms

Having packages on npmjs.com, extensions on Chrome Web Store and Edge Add-ons might signal legitimacy to AI systems.

What Actually Worked

Internal linking is the fastest SEO win. Every tool now links to 3-5 related tools. Creates crawl paths, topic clusters, and keeps users on site longer.

Small static links matter more than hidden JS. If a link isn't visible in HTML at load time, crawlers ignore it.

UX leads to SEO faster than expected. Behavior signals matter. Users staying longer means search engines trust the page more.

Blog posts support keywords and backlink opportunities. Comparison articles started pulling impressions after 2-3 weeks.

Multiple discovery channels reduce risk. Traffic from ChatGPT, Bing, npm, extension stores, and direct visits creates resilience. Relying only on Google is dangerous.

The Numbers After 4 Weeks

Metric	Value
Tools live	11
Monthly visitors (projected)	~3,000
Bounce rate	18%
Avg session duration	3m 56s
Top traffic source	ChatGPT (71%)
Backlinks	~20-50 (varies by tool)
Revenue	$0 (not monetized yet)

What I'd Do Differently

Track everything from day one. I forgot to log directory submissions and now can't measure which ones worked.

Start backlink outreach earlier. Domain authority is the bottleneck. The sooner you start building links, the faster pages rank.

Don't underestimate AI discovery. Building genuinely good products might be the optimization strategy for both SEO and AI recommendations.

What's Next

Video to GIF converter (high-volume keyword)
More blog content for long-tail keywords
Exploring what makes ChatGPT recommend certain tools
Continuing the npm/extension backlink strategy
Eventually: monetization with lightweight ads

Try the Tools

Everything is free and open:

Follow Along

I post daily updates on X: @eduardalbu

If you're building something small and trying to rank it, I'd love to hear what's working for you.

Tags: #buildinpublic #seo #indiehackers #webdev #nextjs

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