3 months of an image-to-Base64 tool site: pure frontend, Worker + D1, and the 33% size overhead tradeoff

I wanted a dead-simple image-to-Base64 converter: no uploads, no signup, no popup ads. Couldn't find one I liked, so I built one.

How it works

• 100% client-side: FileReader -> data URI. The image never leaves the browser.
• Production stack: Cloudflare Worker serving static assets + a D1 database for cookieless anonymous event counts (no image data, no personal info -- only event name, page path, mime type and size bucket).
• The tool shows the exact encoding overhead for each file instead of a flat estimate.

Two tradeoffs I made

1. Base64 inflates payload size by ~33% (3 bytes become 4 chars). The page displays the encoded size up front instead of pretending it's free.
2. No AdSense yet. Traffic is tiny; I'd rather protect the UX while finding the first 100 real users.

The honest numbers (3 months)

• Google Search Console: 224 clicks / 3,249 impressions
• The embarrassing part: every single click comes from branded queries (people searching the domain). Non-branded organic search: 0
• The only external links Google recognizes so far: 4 links from dev.to

Tool-site founders: how do you get organic search from 0 to 1? Backlinks, content pages, directories -- what actually worked for you?

Site, feedback welcome: image2base64.com